![]() The glossary at the book’s end points out words that had to be invented, interrogated, assaulted, and at times obliterated. This is a monumental task that will take millions of Awakened African Americans to accomplish. While pressing forward it must also avoid forces that dragged Black America down in the first place. It must give voice to the unmentionable, say the unthinkable, be willing to shock sensibilities, and geld conventional wisdom. In order for Buddhism to land squarely in the mind of Black America, it must penetrate every nook and cranny of African American life. The opportunity for African American Buddhist Awakening rests on its wings. Black America’s spiritual destiny is in the wind. Today the enduring legacy of slavery’s vestige, Jim Crow, urban violence, misdeeds in the Black pulpit, and death of aging Civil Rights leaders mark the end of an era. A philosophy that, for the first time in human history, offers Black America an opportunity to divest itself of beliefs used to enslave them. The school’s philosophy is a 21 st century follow-up to his foresight. Nonetheless, according to King’s 1961 statement, today’s African American School of Buddhism stands on his visionary ground. Buddhism and other alternative spiritual paths were suppressed. ![]() Why? Because the politic of America’s Christian Civil Rights Movement was bent on establishing its own legacy. “The destiny of India and the destiny of every other nation is tied up with the destiny of the United States and the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India.ĭespite King’s insight, Buddhism was never used to advance the social or spiritual condition of African America. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged the inevitable intersection of America and India’s oppressed masses during his 1961 speech, The American Dream: Ajanta Caves, India, 6th Century. © LCRĭr. Figure 1: Black Monk (left) with fly-wisp and Yogi (right) wearing white robe. The words contained herein are humbly offered as fulfillment of my promise to both communities. I’d promised to establish a link between their human dignity movement and African America. So here it is.Ī similar promise was made to my Untouchable Buddhist friends in India. I promised this work to my African American friends a decade ago. The discourse lacks obligatory niceties for those whose heritage has never known the butt end of racism, forced global isolation, and servitude under enslaving religions in Africa and America. The non-African American reader is forewarned these pages are written in 21 st Century African American survival language. The goal is to cleanse the Black psyche with the same diligence one washes chitterlings. In fact, the pages ahead offer a Buddhist plan to end the vestige of slavery in African American minds forever. One that banishes beliefs and practices historically used to corral, enslave, and exploit the Black Mind. The approach is based on a new kind of intentional community building plan. This book is for African Americans interested in practicing Buddhist meditation. The following is from a forthcoming book expected out this year, and he will be appearing with Charles Johnson to discuss Buddhist philosophy and practice and its relevance for Black America March 8 in Seattle (see bottom for further details). I recall contacting him in my early blogging days in 2004 or ’05 and receiving a kind response and was delighted to reconnect with him earlier this year. Lama Choyin Rangdrol has been a pioneer in discussions of race in American Buddhism since his 1998 and published Black Buddha: Changing the Face of American Buddhism in 2000. Today’s post is longer than earlier posts but worth every word.
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