Liberation Buddhology for Postracial Worldmaking

CASTING INDRA'S NET: FOSTERING SPIRITUAL KINSHIP AND COMMUNITYBy Ayo Pamela Yetunde. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2023Pp. xx + 219. Paperback, $19.95. LOVE AND RAGE: THE PATH OF LIBERATION THROUGH ANGERBy Lama Rod Owens. New York: North Atlantic Books, 2020Pp. xviii +285. Kindle, $17.95. AMERICA'S RACIAL KARMA: AN INVITATION TO HEALBy Larry Ward. Berkeley: Parallax Press: 2020Pp. x + 132. Kindle, $6.99. How can Buddhist wisdom alleviate the ongoing racial suffering? How can Buddhist spirituality initiate structural change to build a better world that supports all lives? These are the central inquiries of all three monographs under review. All three authors draw from their rich experiences as spiritual leaders and activists while adapting ancient Buddhist practices to do effective antiracist work. Among all possible ways to appreciate their work, here, I chose to highlight not only how all three monographs are actively reshaping philosophy into a “dialogue about important unsolved problems” but also how this new paradigm of philosophizing can push forward conversations about scholarship and social change (van Norden 2017, 142). Because these thinkers seamlessly weaved together spirituality, scholarship, and social change, I term their way of doing philosophy “liberation Buddhology.” Since liberation Buddhology breaks away from the mainstream Western misconception that “Buddhism is apolitical,” I anticipate many discussions about their “authenticity.” To better orient readers unfamiliar with the history of Buddhist traditions and their modern developments, in this review, I first sketch out the rise of this misconception and the current scholarly consensus on Buddhism and politics. Then I zoom in on each monograph, highlighting its intellectual lineages and showcasing how their philosophies weave together spirituality, scholarship, and social change. In the forward-looking conclusion, I discuss how these three scholar-cum-activists challenge academics to reflect upon the task of scholarship and the social responsibility of knowledge production. The popular modern misconception that “Buddhism is apolitical” is one of many spinoffs of past and ongoing Orientalist appropriations of Buddhist traditions. The Orientalist gaze, broadly speaking, is a colonial mentality that conjures up some unchanging Ur-Buddhist teachings that had been corrupted by its Asian practitioners throughout the centuries and that had been rescued by modern Western “enlightened” thinkers.1 To disrupt this Orientalist reproduction, in the last several decades, scholars of Buddhist studies have produced much new knowledge, including essays written for the general public.2 Further, the scholarly consensus is that Buddhism has never been apolitical, and different groups have historically deployed and developed different sets of Buddhist teachings to advance their own sociopolitical agendas. Within this long, entangled history of Buddhism and politics, the monographs under review, penned, respectively, by Yetunde, Lama Rod, and Ward, represent a new form of Buddhist political philosophy, liberation Buddhology. Liberation Buddhology refers to the use of Buddhist knowledge and practice to fight for equality and justice in a nonviolent manner. Liberation Buddhology is new because, in mainstream Buddhist traditions, the message of spiritual equality has historically been employed to justify social hierarchy (e.g., monarchy, patriarchy, racism, neoliberalism) in the sense that women or other marginalized groups could be granted spiritual equality as long as their spirituality does not challenge the status quo.3 The only well-known exception to this long Buddhist history of spiritual equality for social hierarchy is “engaged Buddhism”—a term popularized in the 1960s by the Vietnamese monk-cum-activist Thich Nhat Hanh's peace movement, but with a much deeper pan-Asian root (e.g., Queen, Keown, and Prebish, eds. 2003). I use liberation Buddhology as a broader term to highlight not only the prehistory of engaged Buddhism, that is, the long durée, worldwide Buddhist social justice movements started in the late eighteenth century, but also the new forms of Buddhist sociopolitical philosophy proposed by contemporary liberation Buddhologists.4 One prominent shared feature of liberation Buddhology is that these movements have deployed the Buddhist message of spiritual equality to fight for social equality, in a nonviolent manner and with the power of knowledge. Their unique combination of spirituality, scholarship, and social change not only offers new ways of building a postracial world but also challenges readers to rethink the very meaning of spirituality, scholarship, and social change. To begin, for all three authors, spirituality grows from embodied experiences, rejecting the Cartesian mind–body dualism. Second, scholarship, instead of being measured against the colonial benchmark of “objectivity,” serves the larger purpose of dismantling unjust systems and building a better future for all. Or, to borrow the feminist philosophers' framing, all three authors see their scholarship as part and parcel of an “ameliorative project” of figuring out how to produce knowledge to build a better world.5 Last, social change is not merely about revamping systems and institutions but must start from a revolution of the heart. Or, to borrow the renowned activist and Zen practitioner Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams's words, “Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters” (2020). With this information in mind, let us take a closer look at each monograph. I start with Ayo Pamela Yetunde's Casting the Indra's Net because it integrates spirituality, scholarship, and social change with a special focus on building a beloved community, as suggested by its subtitle, “fostering spiritual kinship and community.” It not only offers a well-thought-out path forward to reclaim the interconnectedness of all humans and all sentient beings but also exemplifies a new form of process social philosophy informed by Buddhist notions of relationality and mutuality. For readers unfamiliar with these philosophical concepts, please allow me to explain. In broad terms, process philosophy is a fundamentally different paradigm of understanding humanity and the world. In contrast to the mainstream substance metaphysics in academia that sees the world as consisting of eternal, unchanging, mutually exclusive substances (be it fixed categories in biology or atoms in physics and chemistry), process philosophy seeks to understand the self and the world in terms of processes, events, or flows and sees stable phenomenon (e.g., a mountain, a river, an institution) as arising from anchoring processes that reproduce the stasis. By and large, the Greco-European philosophical tradition is a vein of substance physics with pockets of process thoughts (Seibt 2023). In contrast, the Buddhist philosophical tradition can be seen as a river of process philosophy occasionally joined by tributaries of substance metaphysics. Like process philosophy, process social philosophy is a new paradigm of understanding sociality: instead of seeing social facts and social kinds as stable, mutually exclusive categories, process social philosophy seeks to understand social phenomenon, social kinds, and social facts as arising from aggregated processes and events. This change of perspective also flips traditional sociological inquires on their heads: instead of asking why institutions fall apart or why social kinds disintegrate, process social philosophy takes change to be the norm and instead asks: what are the anchoring schemas that keep reproducing similar social kinds such as institutions (Josephson-Storm 2021, 47–146). Informed by these philosophical insights, readers can gain a deeper appreciation of Buddhist philosophy and the innovations of these three scholar-cum-activists. To begin, traditional Buddhist soteriology can be understood as a process philosophy that posits the seemingly stable sense of personhood as arising from the aggregated karmic processes anchored by ignorance, hatred, and greed. The liberative practices are, unsurprisingly, cleansing the negative emotions of ignorance, hatred, and greed. The most striking innovation of these contemporary thinkers is this: they all have extended the ancient soteriological focus from the psychological to the social realm and argue that societal-wide sufferings are likewise aggregated collective karma/action anchored by intersubjective affirmations of epistemological ignorance, mutual repulsion between in-group and out-group, and moral egoism. Let us examine the social philosophy that underpins Yetunde's proposal for building a postracial world. First, she argues that not all interconnectedness can lead to liberation. Therefore, in the first chapter of Casting Indra's Net, Yetunde clarifies for the reader that interconnectedness grounded in “anger, energy, and power,” which she terms “mobbery,” is nothing more than “personal anger” aggregated into “collective anger” that often adopts its own dynamics and sweeps individuals along (26). This line of argument extends the Buddhist diagnosis of personal suffering into social suffering. Social suffering, as seen in mobbery, is reproduced by mutual repulsion of “us” against “them” and its fundamental premise is moral egoism, that is, it is justifiable to protect oneself or one's own group by eliminating others. Mobbery is also abetted by epistemological ignorance because most people see themselves as immune from such mobbery behavior. But Yetunde is clear on this: No country, no institution, no one is immune from mobbery, the sort of collective suffering caused by aggregated anger that often lies at the heart of large-scale human rights violations (29). The reason that no one is immune from mobbery is simple. In the Buddhist processual worldview, all individuals and groups are mere aggregated karmic processes: as long as the anchoring schemas, that is, cycles of actions fueled by ignorance, anger, and greed, continue to turn, these chains of deluded actions will continue to reproduce and amplify suffering, at both the individual and societal levels. Of course, Yetunde's goal is pragmatic: after identifying the anchoring schemas of mobbery, she offers powerful contemplation exercises to cleanse these emotional bondages at both the individual and collective levels (38–43). In the rest of her monograph, in each chapter, she offers a new perspective for understanding mobbery and a new set of contemplative tools to ameliorate the suffering of mobbery. These new perspectives are necessary because Yetunde is attentive to readers with diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. She repackages her new social philosophy in the respective terminologies of different traditions. But the philosophical thrust remains the same: she invites each reader to see process thought in their own cultural inheritance and guides them away from the mentality of mobbery and toward spiritual kinship grounded in interconnection and compassion. Again, this passage is a process philosophical upcycle of the traditional path of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The philosophical underpinning is again relationality and mutuality that attends to both psychological and interpersonal processes. There may be many more philosophical innovations in her monograph, for example, her rereading of The Book of Job in Chapter Five and her letter to Dr. King in Chapter Eight. These are innovations that should be analyzed by more qualified scholars with proper training. That said, I hope my analysis of her philosophical innovation with regard to Buddhism is enough to invite other scholars to apprise similar new pragmatic projects of philosophizing for a postracial world that is flourishing outside the Eurocentric academic discipline of philosophy. Sometimes being a good person or my attachment to being a good person actually gets in the way of me looking at all the rough spots, at all the shadows that I'm working with. I don't even go there anymore. I don't care about being good. I care about actually being in relationship to the shadow, to the hurt, to the woundedness, to the rage, and to the ways in which I'm really addicted and attached to power. (18) There's no liberation without actually leaning forward and looking at the things that we habitually run away from, in order to see things as they really are, not as we have imagined them. This is the path of liberation through anger. (18) This path of liberation through anger is timely because we live in a deeply racialized world. Many scholars have pointed out how and why colorblindness only reifies the current racist systems: “It tries to overcome racial differences by assuming them away and by imposing its colorblind presumption of sameness” (Goldberg 1993, 6–7, emphasis in original). In contrast with scholars who have repeatedly pointed out the problems of colorblindness at the intellectual level, in Lama Rod's monograph, you find concrete how to guides to fight racism without pretending to be free of racism. Recall that, in the Buddhist processual worldview, personhood arises from aggregated karmic processes. In a racialized world, no person can be entirely free from the racialized thinking, speech, and action that permeates everyday life. Rather than divvying up the world into another binary of racists and antiracists, Lama Rod shows readers how to do the antiracist work with the commitment to fight racist thought, speech, or action wherever it manifests, including in ourselves. I conclude this review with Ward's America's Racial Karma because it combines meditative instruction with a self-conscious philosophizing project that throws into relief the implicit social theory of many similar Buddhist social justice movements, including Yetunde's and Lama Rod's. Like Yetunde, Ward is deeply influenced by the renowned engaged Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, who was, in turn, partially inspired by the Chinese activist monk Taixu (DeVido 2015). Yet unlike Yetunde, who picked up Thich Nhat Hanh's retheorization of Theravāda traditions, Ward accentuated Thich Nhat Hanh's retheorization of Mahāyāna Buddhism, especially Yogācāra (the school of consciousness only). Within us are infinite variety of seeds: seeds of suffering, happiness, hatred, delusion, jealousy, joy, kindness, justice, greed, forgetfulness, and enlightenment. The seeds of racialized consciousness are also present in our internalized trauma, racial perceptions and names, and our social habits. The seeds of racialized consciousness and its karmic effects are part of the very fabric of American life, so much so that many don't know how to breathe outside the climate of white supremacy. How sad a retribution that is. These seeds or potentials manifest themselves as a living presence in the individual and collective thinking, speech, and behaviors fueling the turning of America's karmic wheel. These seeds are all stored in our deepest consciousness. Some seeds are innate; others are handed down by our evolutionary and immediate biological ancestors. Some were sown while we were still in the womb, others were sown when we were children. Very importantly, whether transmitted by family, friends, society, or education, all our seeds are, by nature, both individual and collective. These seeds or possibilities are in what is called “store consciousness,” the reservoir, the warehouse, or museum of our individual and collective consciousness. The quality of our lives individually and collectively depends on the quality of the seeds that lie deep in our consciousness (88) [my emphasis]. All the bold-faced texts show the Yogācāra roots of Ward's sociopolitical philosophy. But it is in the un-bold-faced parts where readers can find his innovation: he deployed Yogācāra to decode the anchoring schemas that continue to reproduce America's racial karma: “the turning of America's karmic wheel” is fueled by the seeds of racialized consciousness, internalized trauma, social habits, in the individual and collective thinking, speech, and behaviors. Individual and collective karmic seeds are ancient notions, but Ward is the first to employ this ancient philosophical toolbox to bring into focus a new paradigm to understand how racial karma works and how to disrupt its anchoring schemas. In this review, I can only briefly treat their rich philosophies. A comprehensive philosophical analysis of their thought must wait for another occasion. But I hope that what I have presented has compelled some scholars to ask: What is the task of academic knowledge production? All three authors have advanced degrees; some have a PhD or a PhD equivalent, and some have multiple advanced degrees. Yet, none of them chose the academic path. Instead, they decided to use their academic knowledge to build a postracial world from the ground up. The most meaningful question is not whether scholars themselves made culpable mistakes while developing their Orientalist readings. I am not suggesting that it is entirely pointless to question scholars in those terms. It is just that this kind of questioning can distract us from confronting the far-reaching legacies of Orientalist scholarship in academia.7 (Lu-Adler 2023, 334-335, paraphrased) Such a position [referring to the continuing use of “objectivity” as the only benchmark of scholarship], we believe, is both naive and irresponsible, ignoring the fact that Buddhist studies as a field has always been involved in the construction of its object of study. Our choice is not to have impact or not, but rather what impact we will have. Will our scholarship merely reproduce and re-center preexisting social and religious power dynamics and demographics or will it give voice to those at the margins? (Brennan and Gleig 2023, 52-53, my emphasis) The notion of an essential Buddhism (and in all its variations, e.g., apolitical Buddhism, secular Buddhism, McMindfulness), once invented and taken up by socially situated meaning makers, can profoundly and how people and one another of as those into tools for anchoring social and social with power are on that better to such and their of Buddhism in the past and at present this kind of position because we are the who have the to and tools the as academic of some (Lu-Adler 2023, paraphrased) What Gleig and to when they choice is not to have impact or not, but rather what impact we will is the fact that many of the apolitical or secular their to on past Orientalist scholarship, some of which are by more scholarship but continue to because the political of these of knowledge. scholars of Buddhism do not actively Orientalist past or scholars of Buddhism continue to reproduce the or social dynamics that had the of past Buddhist traditions, scholars of Buddhism continue to amplify preexisting tools for and Buddhist practices or and Buddhist teachings scholars of Buddhism continue to marginalized past and what these kinds of academic practices what we In this review, I invite all scholars to with Yetunde, Lama Rod, and the fact that knowledge is how can academics the use of knowledge to ameliorate collective suffering and to bring a more just The for is to these kinds of in the I have all three and all three to with my to very good The I is that these show us how to so as to social suffering. them has into the and about such problems and them to about the that them (Lu-Adler 2023, my there has to be more we can do to disrupt the continuing of America's racial I will this review can more and deeper conversations on scholarship and social change

Liberation · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Chemistry · Japanese History and Culture · Philosophy

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