Are We Too Comfortable in Our Buddhism?

By Rev. Tadao Koyama, Bay Area, California

On May 24th, 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered. He was murdered by the police, an entity of the city government that was designed to protect us. He was mercilessly killed by what we now know to be multiple police officers. One officer in particular was kneeling down on his neck for almost nine minutes, while another officer stood and made sure that no one interfered. During that time, George Floyd pleaded with the officers to show some type of mercy. To allow him to even breathe! All of the officers just ignored him and continued to press down against his neck and back until he died. Let me be clear, this was murder.

George Floyd’s story is not one that is new to this country. It is true to say that even in the year 2020, yes, 2020, systemic racism is still a problem in our society. Black people in our country are still targets of racism, brutality, and murder. We can almost count on what is going to happen after an incident like this occurs. Protests. And protests must happen.

It is largely thanks to social media that the brutal killing of George Floyd was aired around the country. The same can be said about Ahmaud Arbery when he was gunned down by two racist men while he was just minding his own business jogging in his own neighborhood. It is largely thanks to social media that we can be made aware of these incidents and witness them firsthand.

During these trying times of racism and virus, we often look to social media for guidance or because we have an interest in how our friends are going to react to the current situation. We of course have certain friends who we know will speak up about the incident and we usually know how they will respond to this situation. Then occasionally we will have certain Facebook or other social media friends who will say something that will send us reeling because we had no idea that they would respond that way. As I was scrolling through some of the responses, I came by the profile of a Buddhist temple member. This person stated on their profile that “All Lives Matter” and that looting and rioting is bad. I checked this person’s profile and as far as I could tell, that was the only thing that the person wrote about in regards to the current events that have occurred. Nowhere on their profile did I see anything about any outrage of the brutal killing of a Black man at the hands of four policemen.

I have kept names and exact statements somewhat obscure to protect identities. I am merely citing their examples to ask a question to all of my fellow Buddhists:

Have we become too comfortable in our Buddhism?

Speaking in very general terms for Jodo Shinshu Buddhists in the United States of America, our usual services consist only of Sunday family services where we all gather and have a service. Chanting is done, and then a Dharma talk is given by the minister. After the service is concluded, congregants usually move to the social hall or courtyard for social hours, Dharma school classes and meetings of administrative nature. Seems pretty tame, right? The messages are usually topics regarding impermanence, interdependence, oneness, mindfulness, etc. I do not mean to downplay these terms as they have deep and important meaning to our teachings and the state of our existence. However, have we, as Jodo Shinshu Buddhists, become too comfortable in having this as the extent of Buddhism in our lives? The Sunday service, the Dharma talk? Is this all it means to be a Buddhist in this world?

While I am not one to judge or to classify who a true Buddhist is or not, I was quite saddened by seeing a sizable amount of members flaunt the phrase, “All Lives Matter” “And peaceful protest only!” “Peace is the only way!” Also videos of “villainous” vandals looting stores like Target. I even remember one person commenting, “Once you do this, it is no longer about George Floyd! It is an insult to his memory!” Yet on many of these members’ walls and social media accounts, I noticed that there was not any call for police accountability or yells of outrage against police brutality. I do not claim that a person’s social media account fully defines a person’s person or that what they post makes them “bad” people. However, I question why they felt the need to defend a large store like Target’s physical things more than they felt the need to call for police accountability.

Before I continue I should state for the record that I do not condone violence or revenge. I do feel genuine sympathy for innocent bystanders’ property and minority-owned businesses that were destroyed amidst this chaos. I certainly hope that they are able to rebuild or that they are given some type of restitution. It is a travesty that they suffered as well.

All that being said, I am calling upon my fellow Buddhists to deeply examine their motives in posting about “peaceful protest” and when we seem to quote the Buddha and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to try and “calm people down” or when advocating for “peace”.

However, Martin Luther King Jr. said many quotes in regards to understanding the plight of the protestors. To quote a person out of context to try and pacify a situation does not address the problems with a whole picture. Yes, I am for peace too. I do not advocate for war, or think that violence is the only way. I think violence is bad. However, there is a problem with a lot of our narrative when it comes to calling for “peaceful” protests.

There is first the issue of separating the “good” protestors from the “bad” looters and rioters. Yes, I have seen within the news articles that there are many chaos bringers and white nationalists who insert themselves into protests undercover to incite violence and undermine the cause. However, within the protesters, there is also a rightful sense of rage and anger. Yes, anger and rage are poisons within Buddhism, but they are also human emotions, and especially in terms of the Black population within the United States, they have every right to be angered and enraged. Again, I do not think that violence or destruction of property is something that should necessarily be condoned, but at the same time I challenge my fellow Buddhists to examine this from this point of view:

Your brother, or any relative for that matter is brutally murdered by a police officer. This officer is not immediately arrested and eventually gets off with just administrative leave and paid too. All of your life you have been harassed by police and not just police but people of all other ethnic backgrounds. When you go to a store, the cashier keeps an eagle eye on you because you look a certain way and because you look that way they figure you are more likely to steal than that other person in the store. All your life you are made out to be lazy, uneducated and criminal. All of these assumptions are made about you because of the way you look, without any prior meeting. And on top of that, the very entity of the government that is supposed to protect you and defend your civil liberties are the ones who harass you the most because they have the power and the weapons to do so, how would you feel? What is your limit? How much can you take before all you feel you have left is anger and rage?

To classify protestors as “good” protestors, and “bad” protestors waters down the real issue of the rightful anger and rage that is definitely being felt by the Black population in this country. While I am for peaceful protest and not for violence, let us ask ourselves this honest question: has peaceful protest really worked in terms of trampling out the racist system within this nation? Let me once again clarify that I am not advocating for people to go out and “loot” or riot. But if peaceful protesting was as effective as everyone says it is, how come in the year 2020, Black people are still mercilessly killed by police with very little repercussions or accountability? When Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to try and bring awareness to this problem, he was met with disdain and was even called a traitor by some. This was a form of peaceful protest. If this was not the right way to protest, what is? I unfortunately do not yet hold the answer to this problem. However, it is a question that needs to honestly be asked.

This may be uncomfortable for some people within the Buddhist community. I am not trying to make any of us feel terrible about ourselves but I am asking us all to check ourselves and to check ourselves thoroughly. Many members in our community are also marginalized people. Whether we be Japanese American, who have our share of being oppressed against in history and today as well with the anti-Asian feelings of COVID-19, or LGBTQ who are still oppressed today, or many others who are part of a marginalized community. I will even go as far as to say that Buddhism is too.

However, let us be honest here, Buddhism in the 1960s and recently has enjoyed a recent upgrade in our status as being a “cool religion.” Especially for Zen Buddhism in America, we have seen a spike in non-Japanese people’s interest. We have even enjoyed some celebrity status in terms of famous people like Richard Gere and Jet Li advocating the benefits of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama (himself being from an oppressed region of the world) has also risen to great prominence in the world. Movies have been made about the Buddha, starring Keanu Reeves, and now we have cool Shaolin Warriors associated with the pop- culture image of Buddhism as well. Even Avatar the Last Airbender’s model is based off of Shaolin Monks.

Yes, when the first Jodo Shinshu priests came over to San Francisco in 1893, they were met with suspicion and mistrust.

Just read the San Francisco Chronicle at the time and check the tone. It was genuinely feared by the public that we would try and steal and convert good Christians to this heathen religion. Now we enjoy a somewhat comfortable place in the religious sphere within the United States. I of course do not negate that there are still attacks against Buddhists within the country and that our religious background does not bring on prejudiced behavior. However, generally speaking, we are not seen as a terrorist group who love performing suicide bombings, hate America, etc.

If anything, I suspect that in some ways, Buddhism shares a similar placement amongst AAPI’s model minority myth that we are these peace-loving pacifists who are more known for our food bazaars here in the US than anything else for that matter. Maybe that is going too far. Our first greatest challenge to ourselves is to accept that through various causes and conditions (I was able to insert some Buddhism in this paper), we have come to enjoy a sense of privilege. We have nice sturdy buildings (some old of course), and established communities that date back to when Japanese immigrants started coming over to this country. Again, that is not to say that we have not and still do not have our own set of racial stereotypes and challenges we must face, but we must also admit the privileged place we stand in the society of the United States of America.

Growing up within the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA), two of the concepts that were drummed into my ear the most were impermanence and interdependence. It was not until later in life that I was taught the deeper terms of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism like shinjin, nishujinshin, tariki, etc. However, I would like to discuss the term “interdependence” that is used a lot at various temples of the BCA. The way interdependence was explained to me was that we are all connected in some way or another. That my actions, whatever they may be, do not affect me and me alone. These are good messages to give to Dharma school students and are good foundation blocks to build upon our sense of how our actions and our decision-making can affect the world around us. However, I am a bit worried that this concept of “we are all one” and to put it bluntly “All Lives Matter”, are being used too lazily as a solution to address the inherent racist system that works in this country to keep Black people at the bottom of the social and economic specter.

Many of us are not in Dharma school anymore, and it is time for us to start having more adult conversations about this problem that has been ingrained in this nation since before its founding. We are all, including myself, guilty of enjoying the comforts of the Buddhist teachings a little too much, especially from my standpoint in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Where tariki (other power) reigns supreme, and all of the wisdom and compassion are directed to us from Amida Buddha. That is doctrine and that for me will not change. I alone cannot hope to achieve the state of enlightenment without the assistance and the mercy of Amida Buddha’s wisdom and compassion.

If I want to address the problems right in front of me, using happy-sounding Buddhist platitudes will only go so far. If I see an injustice happening right in front of me in the moment, I must do all in my power to stop it. I do not think that writing this essay, or raising my voice against police brutality and racial profiling against Black people is going to get me any closer to the pure land. No. My birth, according to Shinran’s teaching, is assured.

I choose to speak up against racist oppression and injustice because I must also do my utmost to live the doctrine that I preach.

Once again there is no greater force for me than the working of Amida Buddha’s light.

However, I cannot look at this light as an excuse to be lazy and self-indulgent. Even more dangerous, I must not use the teachings of interdependence, and oneness in apathetic manners that diminish the real problem of racism against Black people in this country. I have seen too many posts and calls from people who are part of the temples in favor of “All Lives Matter” and utilizing the Buddha’s name to dismiss or diminish the real problem of racism of specific marginalized people within this country. It is very easy for us as Buddhists to state obvious teachings like “there is no real race” or “the only race is the human race.” If this were really true, and if we really really believed in these platitudes we have spouted before, would racism exist in this country?

I ask again that my fellow Buddhists check ourselves. I must check myself every day, and I am ashamed to say that it took the viral video of a Black man being murdered mercilessly by four police officers to remind me of my privilege in this country. I first ask all of us to reflect on the “Buddhist” sayings we say in response to these times. Do you really believe that “ALL” lives matter right now?

I ask my fellow Buddhists to stand up and shout against the oppressive nature of the police against Black people in this country. I ask us to use the privilege we have now to aid our fellow Black countrymen in their fight against racism. I say while we ourselves as Buddhists or as some other part of a marginalized people, do not bring the focus to MY injustices, but with the knowledge and context of our own past, to simply go forward and join the fight in this country against racism without always having to have our own hardships and challenges mentioned.

Shinran states time and time again within the chapter on Shinjin in the Kyogyoshinsho how Amida Buddha does not judge, based on peasant, royalty, or good and evil. In Amida’s eyes we are all beings who deserve to be saved and to be brought to the realm of bliss. In this chapter we can clearly see how much knowledge Shinran possesses of the sutras and really shows his skills in forming his argument in favor of the idea that Amida embraces all. Suddenly, he changes his tone of the warm nature of his rhetoric and switches to a more somber even loathing tone when he describes himself.

“I know truly how grievous it is that I, Gutoku Shinran, am sinking in an immense ocean of desires and attachments and am lost in the vast mountains of fame and advantage, so that I rejoice not at all at entering the stage of the truly settled, and feel no happiness at coming nearer the realization of true enlightenment. How ugly it is. How wretched.“ (Collected Works of Shinran 125).

To my understanding, Shinran put this quote here and added that he himself is no different than the average person. His knowledge and prowess concerning Buddhist teachings and the sutras are completely minimal compared to the wisdom and compassion of Amida Buddha. Yes, he may intellectually know the truth of other powers and the non-duality teachings of Buddhism. Yet he admits that despite his talent, he is still an ignorant being drowned in a sea of desires and selfishness.

While I am not putting this quote here to advocate that we all become these self- loathing beings where all we do is think about how wretched we are, I am asking ourselves to take a step back and first truly examine our own bias and blind spots when we hear the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”

And while many members can pull quotes of the Buddha to try and counter this statement, we must not pull his quotes as if we were speaking as the Buddha because then we become very dangerously close to being swallowed up by our own ego and thinking that we are on the same level as the Buddha in terms of seeing the world as it really is.

Author’s note: I would like to thank Akiko Rogers, CJ Dunford, Cynthia Yasaki, and Chenxing Han for taking the time to read and critique my essay. I am grateful to you all for your input and have done the best I can in fixing many aspects and wording things differently. Thank you.