Buddhism Beyond the Cushion
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[00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever in the world you are. Welcome, joy to see you. Welcome.
Zaya Benazzo: Welcome everyone.
Maurizio Benazzo: My name is Maurizio Benazzo.
Zaya Benazzo: My name is Zaya Benazzo.
Maurizio Benazzo: And we are speaking to you from the unceded territory of South Pomo and Coast Miwok now called Sebastopol, California.
Zaya Benazzo: Indigenous Lands.
Yeah, we are very excited for today's conversation. It will be a very rich conversation with new teachers, guests that are new to our SAND community. So very excited to be sitting in conversation with them. The title for our [00:01:00] conversation is , beyond the Cushion Practice and Paths to Collective Healing.
We'll be exploring how Buddhist principle can inspire social transformation and communal wellbeing, and what are the larger cultural, social, historical context within which the teachings have been created and shared, and how they have arrived here in the new lens and within which context they have been received and how they're transmitted.
So very rich conversation and we are delighted to have our dear friend Jungwon Kim, who will be facilitating, this inquiry
Maurizio Benazzo: today. Let me read a brief bio.
Welcome. Jungwon Kim is an award-winning writer and cultural worker who has dedicated her professional life to human rights and environmental [00:02:00] advocacy.
She began a storyteller career as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and OnAir correspondent for nationally syndicated public radio programs. She served as the editor of Amnesty International, USA Human right quarterly, and has been head of creative and editorial at the Rainforest Alliance. It's a joy to have you with us Again, we know you in person, which in these days is a rare thing, and so it, it is a joy to finally see you again, even though in too deep.
Thank you for being here.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you for being
Zaya Benazzo: here.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you for inviting me to to moderate this really exciting conversation with two incredible guests. And I just wanna say before introducing each of them that we are about to touch down on a really vibrant, ongoing [00:03:00] conversation that has been unfolding within Asian diaspora, Buddhist practice communities for decades.
And we have as our guests to leading thinkers on this really rich area of conversation and philosophy. So first I want to introduce Funie Chi. Funie is an associate professor of American Studies at San Jose State University and a transdisciplinary scholar from a working class Taiwanese American family.
And she was raised in a Taiwanese humanistic Buddhist tradition. She received a PhD in education with an emphasis in women gender and sexuality from the University of California Berkeley, my alma mater . And her work explores issues of language education culture and colonialism Funie, along with our [00:04:00] other guest who I will introduce very shortly is co-organizer of the beautiful May We gather convenings, which are National Buddhist memorial ceremonies for Asian American ancestors.
She's also a former board member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Where she has advocated for the recognition of Asian American heritage Buddhist communities in that organization and in Buddhist practice communities at large. Welcome Funie and thank you so much for having me. Our other guest is the Reverend Duncan Ryuken Williams, who's a professor of religion and the director of the hin, so Ethos Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at the University of Southern California.
Duncan is a former chair of Japanese Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley, director of Berkeley Center for Japanese Studies [00:05:00] and the Buddhist chaplain at Harvard University where he received a PhD. Duncan is an ordained priest ordained in 1993 in the Soto Zen tradition, and he received dharma transmission in 2024.
Duncan is also the author of American Sutra, A Story of Faith and Freedom in The Second World War, which is an LA Times bestseller that we will discuss later on in our program. And also winner of the 2022 Grl Meyer Religion Award. So those are just, just touching on some of the accomplishments of our illustrious guests.
And Hello Duncan.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: Happy to join you.
Jungwon Kim: I have so many questions for both of you having been an admirer of your work from afar for a while. And I thought maybe we could start with the question I would probably ask you if we were sitting down for [00:06:00] tea in person which is for people in the Asian diaspora, the path to the cushion may look a bit different for, from western mainstream convert Buddhists in the United States context.
So I would love to hear from each of you what led you to Buddhist practice initially and how your own cultural heritage has informed your approach to Buddhist practice. So maybe we could start with Funie.
Funie Hsu/Chhî: Okay, great. Thank you for this question and thank you for introducing some of the work of me we gather to the SAND community Jungwon. It's it's such an honor to know that our work has been meaningful to people and that it's being shared, so I really appreciate that. In terms of my introduction to Buddhist practice, as you mentioned, I was raised Buddhist in a Taiwanese American [00:07:00] family, and initially it was what people have described as what a year, twice a year, Buddhist, where you go to the temple for a lunar new year or whatever event has happened in your home life and your parents feel like you need to go to the temple.
So that was a part of my upbringing. And then over the years, like many experiences of that but then also being shaped by Buddhist. Practice and Buddhist wisdom that was emulated through my family especially my mom. So I think for a lot of Asian American Buddhists a lot of what we pick up about Buddhism isn't necessarily through sutras or through what people commonly understand Buddhism as, which is like seated meditation, but it's actually through the small little things that happen in our families like practices of compassion offering of Dana that we might not even understand as offerings of Dana in that kind of Buddhist language.
So [00:08:00] a lot of my upbringing was observing that kind of behavior. And then like later on as I was older in life, realizing what it actually represented. And one of the examples of like when I say later on in my life, when my mother died suddenly, or I would say like quite rapidly going through the funeral process for her death and memorializing her like that really threw me into a different kind of Buddhist practice where it was more of a relationship with the temple and the monastic sangha, like a closer as association with them.
And that's where I started to understand where some of my family practices that I observed as a kid, like really connected with some of the specific Buddhist teachings in the Buddha Dharma. And I would say too, if I could go back a little bit more some of my earliest Buddhist practices were like when I did go to the temple, and we participated in some of the services there. And afterwards there [00:09:00] would always be a lunch and it was a vegetarian lunch. And so a lot of my practice was around this idea of non-violence and not taking life that was related to notions of like food practices. And so early on, even though I might not have understood some of the Budha dharma language and vocabulary, I understood this idea in the first precept of not taking a life through these like food practices that became very meaningful to me that I then decided to take on as my own practices when I was quite young.
So those were some of the ways that I was raised Buddhist in ways that were like not directly, often seen by people as like real Buddhist practice.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you so much for visualizing what I think is often invisibilized within a kind of mainstream Buddhist context. And I would like to just call attention to [00:10:00] this idea of dharma rain, which is, it sounds like what you received as a child growing up was just this beautiful sprinkling of dharma rain.
And you may not necessarily have known exactly what it was, but it was, showering and watering you. So thank you for sharing those beautiful reflections. I would love to hear about your path to the cushion Duncan.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: Sure. Joan I grew up in Japan. That's where I was born. And my mom is Japanese and my dad is British.
And so growing up on my. Japanese side of the family, my grandfather's donka soto, the kind of head lay practitioner or supporter of the temple. And so I got exposed through my family to Buddhism that way. But my dad being British we also went to St. Alban's Church in Tokyo, which is a Anglican, church 'cause he's British.
So it was very cultural to be connected more to my British side, meant going to St. [00:11:00] Alban's. Going to temple was just a part of being part of my, family. Very devout Buddhist family. Growing up, I think where I made that conscious decision to become more closely identified as a Buddhist.
And certainly by my late teenage years, I was also interested in becoming ordained as a priest in the Buddhist tradition in Japan. I think it had to do a little bit with that question of identity or who am I? It's a, I think a very fundamental Buddhist question in my lineage of Buddhism called Sotos and Buddhism are 13th centuries and Master Dogan.
He actually writes to study the Buddha Way is to study the self. And he goes on to explain further what that means, but to really investigate who am I? Am I Japanese, am I British? Am I Christian? Am I Budd? That's actually a very important gateway, I think to, for me to, to for trying to [00:12:00] explore the Buddhist path.
And my teacher when I was, became finally ordained when I was 21 or I guess 22 years old. So about 30 some years ago I became ordained and my teacher said, buddhism is sometimes called the middle way, the the middle path. So it's trying to find liberation, freedom somewhere in between, not at one extreme or another.
And so he's don't attach to being British. Don't attach to being Japanese. Don't attach to being Buddhist. Don't attach to be being Christian. Find that middle spot where you will find some avenue to find yourself and to become free. And so I was, I think 21 when I became ordained as a monk and so forth in Japan, in a kind of rural Japanese temple monastery.
And that's yeah the how I began to be [00:13:00] involved.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you, Duncan. I love hearing from both of you how much your practice was embedded in your cultural upbringing. And I think that raises such interesting questions that I would love to mainstream in the wider conversation around Buddhism as practiced in the United States.
And as I think many of us have been talking about lately, the Western convert tradition as practiced in Europe and North America, for example, tends to emphasize the comp contemplative aspects of the tradition, mindfulness sitting meditation and so forth. The way that both of you have described your own path to Buddhism is much more about an ecosystem of Asian culture of Buddhism [00:14:00] being its own ecosystem within Asian culture.
And then I think what I really admire about both of you in your work is how you have embodied another aspect of Buddhism, which is as a commitment, a lived commitment to social change. And so we have, even within this three aspects of Buddhism as a contemplative tradition, as an ecosystem of culture and as a lived commitment to social change.
And I would love to hear from you both about whether there is a kind of. Tension between those three elements or how you see those three elements dancing with each other and how they may actually compliment rather than be in tension with one another.
Funie Hsu/Chhî: On the idea of Buddhism as a sort of ecosystem for a lot of Asian American Buddhists, and I'm talking [00:15:00] specifically here about heritage Buddhists. So people who grew up with Buddhism as part of their their home life and their religious practice.
I just wanted to add to that 'cause I think that what is so great about that kind of a. Concept of Buddhism as an ecosystem in that kind of life is that it speaks to the ways that Buddhism is not just an individual practice, but it's really shaped like the things that are around you, including the people that are around you.
And I think for a lot of Asian American heritage Buddhists, like I was saying in my own experience, it's, it was observing my mom. It was observing the monastics at the temple and what they did, their interactions with each other, how they carried the Buddha dharma through that kind of engagement with the world around them.
And for example, with my mom a lot of what I learned about compassion I've written about this recently for an upcoming book on Asian American Buddhist feminism called Emergent Dharma, is the way that she interacted [00:16:00] with beings of other species and learning to think about how our world is not just about human.
And how we engage with other humans and how we can not just go beyond thinking about individual practices of Buddhism, but how we can also go beyond thinking about human practices of Buddhism to think more about our impact on the world around us, including the more than human and the natural world around us.
So that notion of an ecosystem I think is really quite wonderful because it's more expansive in capturing some of the ways that Asian American heritage, Buddhists have experienced Buddhism as being part of something, being part of a community, being part of a sangha, being part of this interspecies reality that we live in.
And I think going to the point about Buddhism as a contemplative practice and like sometimes how there can be tensions about that and Buddhism as a practice that can really motivate a commitment for social change and social [00:17:00] justice. Definitely there. There is that tension that I've observed, but for me that tension has never really made sense.
Like I've always seen those two as working hand in hand and I think to. Teachings, like Thich Nhat Hanh talks about when you do mindfulness meditation, you can do that with anything in any aspect of your life. And he talks about washing dishes, can be a practice of meditation and other teachers have talked about that's actually where you want to take your meditation so that it's not just confined to moments of sitting meditation that your life is about maintaining that awareness of meditation, that mindfulness of the way that you are engaging the mindfulness of the wisdom of the Budha dharma with everything that you do.
And I think the more my personal opinion is that the more we are aware of the Budha Dharma and the calls to alleviate suffering for, especially in the Mahayana tradition for all beings, the more we have [00:18:00] to take that into everything that we do. And we have to take that with how we engage with. The world and the reality of us existing in this ecosystem, which like I said, for many Asian American heritage, Buddhist that's how we were introduced to Buddhism within this ecosystem.
So then for me it becomes realizing that both at like family practice and the Budha Dharma within this acknowledgement that I don't exist as just myself. I exist in this larger world. And I have to be responsible to that and I have to show my care for that.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: Maybe I could follow up on that last point about the sense of community or that you're practicing together with other people. This is very important part of, I think, very basic Buddhism, that we have three treasures, not two. Not just the Buddha and the Dharma, but we have Sangha, and in my lineage we have this some people like to say what is Sangha?
It's like [00:19:00] putting some potatoes in a bucket of water. And when you're trying to clean potatoes, instead of just doing one by one, you just mix the potatoes rubbing up against each other, and that gets the dirt and the little bits off, so that's sga. When we're interacting with each other, we act as a little bit of a, we rub up against each other mirror, help each other to become free.
And that's a really basic, I think, the idea of the fullness of the Buddhist tradition is that we have doctrine, we have ritual, and we have community. Those three things in that kind of triad or triangle, we're trying to keep in some kind of balance that we have some doctrine or ideas about, this is the teachings, these are the principles that are gonna guide us.
But we also have many things, not just we think about it, but we do something that's our ritual practice. Even meditation is a kind of ritual you're following. There's a repetitive aspect of following the breath or trying to do [00:20:00] something in a careful and routinized way, whether it's big ceremonies or following your breath.
It's a type of action or something we do that's not just about philosophy and thinking. So we always Buddhist try to do something and then we do it. In community, I mentioned sga, but we think in a very broad sense. Going to Funie point, it includes all sentient beings, including non-human beings.
That's part of our large, sangha. So everyone is both teacher and student at the same time. And there's no barrier about self and other, and about how we try to walk this path. And so in that sense, to your question wan I don't think there's any inherent tension between contemplative practice and social engagement.
In a way there's no, there's nothing we can do because we're already interlinked with each other. That's one of the doctrines of Budd, insights of Buddhism, is that we live in a inter [00:21:00] infinite, interconnected web of life. And so even if we wanted to, we couldn't really actually be disengaged from social.
Community based interaction. And it's just whether or not we have some awareness about it and whether we put any particular emphasis on it. And for example, if your sangha actually doesn't have that much sangha feeling, community feeling and you too much doctrine or too much, ritual practice, we want to have a kind of balanced Buddhist life where those things are all talking to each other.
And that would be my kind of perspective on, on what the way to, to frame this is.
Jungwon Kim: [00:22:00] Thank you. I feel like that is a really wonderful bridge to talk about a an action that both of you co-created that I. In my view really marries these three different aspects of Buddhist practice so beautifully, the contemplative the cultural context and the ritual, and also the commitment to social action.
And that is the may we gather convenings. And for folks who may not be familiar the first convening was the first ceremony I should say, was in 2021 49 days after the Atlanta massacre, in which a mass [00:23:00] shooter killed eight Asian Americans, mostly women. And, it was a just a huge devastating heartbreak for, for Asian Americans in particular. And I think a reminder of how hyper visible and invisible we are. And with that, all of the vulnerability that comes along with that. And so may we gather which you can find on YouTube. There are recordings of these two ceremonies. One in 2021 and then one three years later you both brought together Buddhists from I think over a dozen different traditions to grieve and to mourn and to hold in ceremony the larger Asian American community after they experienced this kind of mass collective trauma.
I would love to hear from you [00:24:00] what. You planted many seeds with those ceremonies, and I'd love to hear from you how those seeds have grown and what you've seen coming out of those convenings.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: Maybe I could address the first one and Funie just because the second one where we, you know held the ceremony in Antioch, California was Funie idea.
Maybe she could speak to that and fill in some gaps of what I'm about to say. But it was myself and Funie and one more person, Han we had been in the midst of the covid uptick in anti-Asian animus and violence and where I live in Los Angeles, we had a in, I serve a small soto Buddhist temple in little Tokyo, Los Angeles. I say small. We are not a big temple, but we've been around for a long time. We celebrate our centennial a few years ago, and among [00:25:00] the other temples in Little Tokyo, we are all historic Japanese American temples five of them who have been around for at least a hundred years.
So we've been around for a long time. And down south of us in Orange County, there had been a series of vandalism incidents at, in the little Saigon area of Orange County, large Vietnamese American community, Buddhist temples being desecrated and so forth. And so in that context of this rise in animus and violence and temple vandalism and so forth, I think Funie and I were, there's this kind of like way of, I.
Responding, which is like putting statements out and making pronouncements. And so we thought, but that's just doesn't do anything, and so we were trying to think of what would be a little bit more creative way, so we talk about skillful means in Japanese bin up some way to skillfully [00:26:00] deploy our Buddhist everything we have in our, I mentioned Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, all of that.
How do we deploy that when we're trying to alleviate suffering and deal with things like hatred or things like violence and so forth. And our answer. Was, we need to do something that is both, I think, enduring and timely. We, there are different teachings and that's very enduring things, but also our skillful means we want to match the moment, do something suitable for that time and place.
And so the time and place we chose to do our first gathering, maybe we gather it was, it's just a idea of creating a sangha to do something. And we chose the temple in my community, little Tokyo, in Los Angeles that had been subjected to vandalism and arson. And we went to that temple and worked with the Abbott there to hold a ceremony [00:27:00] where we brought 49 just to be symbolic.
Both of, again, in terms of time, 49 days after. The Atlanta shooting after death is when in many Buddhist traditions, we believe that the spirit of the disease moves to a different realm. And so we have a memorial service dedicated on that day. And so we just symbolically try to gather it.
49 Buddhist leaders in the LA area from many different diverse Buddhist traditions and lineages and to hold ceremony and to have teaching. So the ceremony part, we had many different styles of ceremony, chanting from different lineages and different things to try to connect ourselves and each other to try to become strong as a community.
And we had six different Buddhist teachers kind of one per six parameters, six virtues that we hold important in Buddhism. Things like [00:28:00] patience and insight. And try to give some kind of Buddhist response. What not just a, what's the everyday, what's the Buddhist way to approach what can we draw from our teachings that would help us to both frame and respond compassionately to this situation?
And so that was our first gathering. And on the third year anniversary, 'cause that's another in the timeline of things for ceremonies, we do 49th day, one year, three years, things like that. We have a way to both do memory, remember, and also a way to try to come together, gathering to help enrich each other, to bring our Buddhist teachings to bear on something.
And maybe Funie you could say something about why we held our third year anniversary in the, in a place called Antioch California. And what that was meant to do.
Funie Hsu/Chhî: Yeah. Thank you Duncan. So the third year anniversary [00:29:00] we held at Antioch for several different reasons. One of the reasons was that in the 19th century Antioch had a Chinatown, and that Chinatown was burned down because the result of anti-Asian mob violence.
And we found residences historically with what happened then to the murder of the six women of Asian descent in the Atlanta area spa shootings. Because what precipitated the burning down of the Chinatown and Antioch were six Chinese women who were accused of being prostitutes and. And spreading disease.
And there were just very clear residences between the historical incident in Antioch and the six women of Asian descent in Atlanta, who were perceived by the shooter to be spreading like the sinful vice. And there are ways that race and like gender and notions of like purity around sexuality were invoked in both of them.
But then there's [00:30:00] this all the other like broader context that doesn't get discussed as much in the mainstream conversations about like how religion is intertwined with all of that. And we talk about how in our understandings of this anti-Asian violence it's also like this anti-Asian religious violence.
Like things that are just seen as Asian, including religion, including Buddhism, are seen as like a threat to the American national wellbeing historically. And Duncan has written about this in American Sutra. So there were those kinds of parallels. And Antioch also was the first city in the United States to issue an official apology for its treatment of the early Chinese which then led to other cities around the nation issuing similar apologies.
And going back to your question about some of the seeds that were planted in May, we gather and what's happened because of that, in the first May we gather that Duncan was talking about one of our Paramita speakers, Reverend Christina Moon from Hawaii. She gave a talk and somebody out at that time that I didn't know at least [00:31:00] was listening to this and felt called to then ordain as a reverend, someone who is of mixed Asian American heritage.
And she talks about how seeing Christina Moon this female Asian American reverend, like really inspired her and felt like made her feel like she too could step into that place with her Buddhist practice. And that person is Reverend Kaishin Victory Matsui. And so for the 2024, may we gather Christina and Victory met.
I think for the first time in person though they had been in communication and also that group grew to include Reverend Grace song and Bishop Myokei Barrett. So there was just a way that the 2021. Gathering inspired connections that were then carried on to 2024. And I think that they still maintain a connection, the four of them.
Like these women, Asian American women, Buddhist practitioners, Buddhist leaders and I'm just so moved [00:32:00] by the way that they've been able to inspire each other and I'm curious about all the other people that they have then gone on to inspire as well and build community with.
Jungwon Kim: That's beautiful.
Just hearing about, I think the web, the web of Sangha and how people have inspired each other. And I feel that the way both of you have described may we gather also brings up something that I think is a part of our active conversation around re. Introducing or uplifting the Asian cultural roots of Buddhism.
And and I think that is for many Asian Americans or people in Asian diaspora who live in a western context, this idea of practicing a more culturally infused version of Buddhism [00:33:00] as a kind of decolonial commitment. And Funie, I know a lot of your work kind of touches on this and I'd love to hear from you a little bit more about yeah, this kind interplay between a, a more cultural culturally infused approach to Buddhist practice and Asian American or Asian diasporic, the colonial practice.
Funie Hsu/Chhî: Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. I think the conversation around decolonial practice in Buddhism in regards to Asian Americans is really complex. On the one hand, because Asian Americans are part of the settler occupation in the United States to talk about decolonial it's it requires like a lot of insight into our.
Our own positioning as settler occupants that haven't been the direct recipients of colonial occupation in the United States. And in relation to that for example, like I talk about [00:34:00] how I come from Taiwan and Buddhism in Taiwan is part of a settler occupation as well of people that are not indigenous to Taiwan.
So there's a lot of complexity around ideas of colonialism in regards to like Asian diaspora communities and Buddhism. But it's also true that the ways that Buddhism has been talked about in the United States has been through this exclusionary Asian framework that's part of what I think about as this white Christian settler nationalism and settler colonialism.
So though Asian Americans weren't occupied as part of an American settler occupation, we've been pushed into that framework in certain, certain ways. And part of that waste is through exclusion and through ideas of Asia, whether it's like the people or the religions being seen as not just different and other, but as Duncan's work has pointed out, seen as dangerous and as a threat to the nation.
And so there are these historical reasons if we look back [00:35:00] of why conversations around Buddhism in the United States have been expressed through this narrative that real Buddhism is seated meditation. And that real Buddhism is devoid of what's been labeled as like the cultural baggage from Asia, like the ceremony, the ritual, the chanting, the reciting.
And having a look at that I think is really critical for thinking about, I. Buddhism and how it's evolved in the United States if we want to have an accurate historical understanding of that evolution. If it's not, even if we want to talk about creating more of a sense of justice and social justice within American Buddhist movements.
But if we just want to be historically accurate, these are the ways that Buddhism has been developed in the United, these are the roots of American Buddhism. And we should acknowledge those roots on the historical element alone. But also then if we do take into the fact the ongoing [00:36:00] racial karma in May we gather in through Duncan's work and the work of Dr.
Larry Ward, we talk about this idea of a racial karma. And Buddhism in the United States is part of that racial karma. What's happened to Asian Americans of Buddhist backgrounds? As part of that larger racial karma. So if we want to address that collectively, we should take stock of what has been deemed quote unquote non-essential, non-essential Buddhism.
And those things I argue have been seen as non-essential because they've been part of this larger history, ongoing history of viewing Asians as a threat as this peril.
Jungwon Kim: [00:37:00] Thank you so much, Funie. I think this leads us really nicely into Duncan's work and especially his book American Sutra, which explores the role of Japanese American Buddhists in defending not only their religious freedom, but also their identity as Americans.
Because Funie as you so rightfully point out, I think one of the I. Very dynamic aspects of being Asian American is this sense of being American but not quite American or always being othered. And also the reality that for many Asian groups in America, they are here as part of the wave of cellular colonialism.
Yes. And also as a result of US wars in their home [00:38:00] countries. Duncan, I would really like to hear from you about what lessons we might apply from those Japanese American Buddhists who really did so much to uplift their own spiritual practice and their right to that spiritual practice.
To think about what lessons we can draw from that work and also to think about it in the context of, I think what we're all seeing as a renewed effort to really demonize and other, and, orient, analyze Muslim Americans, in this very moment, in a, in quite a dangerous way.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: Sure.
There's a lot of questions there and I'm gonna try to keep it short. And, but first just to touch on something Funie mentioned about, de colonizing or it's a, that's a big word that I don't I don't, sometimes I don't normally use but I think what it's means is that it's [00:39:00] also about how we might not use.
How should you say or ha have to be careful about how to use Western frameworks as the baseline to interpret Buddhism? For example, if in most of, let's say American life, let's say Protestantism is the main driving religious force, it's not surprising that American Buddhism will encounter and touch and be influenced by that.
But I think where we have to be careful. Is what Funie was alluding to. This idea that if that touching of kind of Protestant frameworks means that Buddhism becomes too privatized and individualized and interiorized as like that personal relationship with God kind of religion, it really does create a problem [00:40:00] for the fullness of the, of Buddhist expression.
If we only focus on the privatized interior journey. 'cause that's not what the Buddha taught, right? That's not the point of Buddhism. And and, but and same goes for inter social engagement. And maybe we can touch on more on this later, but I feel like there's a Buddhist approach that we were trying to explain it for, maybe gather, but there's a Buddhist approach to social engagement that's not the same as.
Western driven social justice movements and socialism and communism and capitalism and progressive movements. And these are all Western movements. It's not that they're intrinsically a problem or whatever, but we shouldn't necessarily use them as our base frame to understand what is the Buddhist approach to these type of issues and so forth.
And I mentioned that as the prelude to what happened during World War ii, which were that people were struggling because they've been told [00:41:00] you being Buddhist and you being Asian means you are not only un-American, but maybe even anti-American. And there's a longer history of Chinese exclusion, not, lots of enslavement and genocide of native peoples.
That suggests that one vision of America is a singular one, which has, and a sup supremacist one where that says. This is essentially a white and Christian nation, right? And then there's a different vision of America that people during World War ii, Japanese Americans in these camps, were trying to, I think, make a claim about, which is that America is in fact a nation made of many different peoples and is a land of religious freedom, which implicitly means a land of religious pluralism.
So that kind of plural vision of many people's, many religions is [00:42:00] something that often is intention with the idea of a singular religion that's supreme and exclusionary towards other religions and peoples. And that was the. Context that they were dealing with. And I think the lessons to your question, the lessons that we can learn is if you just, even if your government tells you don't belong, but you make a claim of belonging and you find a way to say, I can be both Buddhist and American at the same time.
And in fact, the values of religious freedom in the Constitution, and in fact the idea of a nation that is composed of multiplicity is in fact at the very heartbeat of what makes America, America is a different kind of claim, but it's one that you know. I think counters where we think, and so I'm gonna just end with this idea of [00:43:00] there's a poem that a Buddhist priest in my lineage and Buddhism wrote in one of these camps in Wyoming.
And he writes about how he ended up in this camp and how he moved, forcibly by the government, moved from LA where he was, he had his sangha to this camp in Wyoming. And he talks about the Dharma being transmitted eastward. And it's a, he talks about it as being the fulfillment of a prophecy of the Buddha because there's a, classic text that talks about the dharma, starting in India and then moving eastward.
And he talks about, oh, almost as a joke, like I'm here in Wyoming. I must be fulfilling the prophecy of the Buddha that I've gone from LA to Wyoming and carrying the Dharma eastward and that kind of humor in the midst of difficulty is also something is very important.
We have to have imagination. We have to have curiosity. We have to have humor to deal with these very difficult problems of our lives and times. And we [00:44:00] tend to think about, okay, we have these big issues today around environmental problems and wars and racial ju lots of different problems, but people back then also were dealing with even more problems.
And they helped dealt with it in a very lighthearted, and sometimes it's about changing your mind and shifting perspective, and sometimes it's about being able to imagine futures that are different. And I think that's what. I would say is the lesson from people back then. Our ancestors, our Bud Buddhist ancestors in America have had to go through many different challenges, and they give us some hints as to how, just to even start to address them.
Jungwon Kim: I love your emphasis on imagination and creativity as, as well as skillful means. And I'd love to turn to the question that I think many western convert Buddhist institutions are beginning to [00:45:00] consider finally, which is how they might improve in the practice of honoring the Asian roots of Buddhism.
And of really I think, integrating more this sort of Asian cultural ecosystem that Buddhism represents to non-Asian practitioners. And I think it, it will come as no surprise to many of our audience today that there is still some degree of separation in the North American Buddhist context and even in the European Buddhist context between a sort of Asian cultural, often in a different language centers of practice and more western convert Buddhist institutions that primarily conduct their meetings and Sangha practice in English and do tend to emphasize more the [00:46:00] contemplative.
Aspect of Buddhism. So yeah, I would really love to ask both of you how bigger mainstream convert Buddhist institutions might creatively and skillfully bridge that gap. I know Funie, for example, you've done a lot of work at, with Buddhist Peace Fellowship in really driving that idea forward.
Maybe we can start with you.
Funie Hsu/Chhî: Yeah. Thank you for this question. I think a very simple way to start, and I say that because it sounds simple, but I know that it takes a lot of ideological and organizational shift and change and understanding for this to happen is to acknowledge. The foundations of American Buddhism and that foundation is an Asian American foundation or an Asian immigrant foundation of American Buddhism.
Going back to this idea that this is simply historical fact and to [00:47:00] then be, go beyond the recognition of his historical fact to acknowledge the communities that struggled to maintain Buddhism in the face of white Christian nationalism. It's interesting like even 10 years ago talking about this phrasing of like white supremacy or white Christian nationalism, I think people.
Would feel like that's a hypo hyperbole. That it's an exaggeration. But I think starting to really more people are starting to really see no, this has been something ongoing. And it's also not something that's just happening now, but it's been ongoing. And that ongoingness was something that was very much part of the time when the first Asian immigrants who came to the United States brought Buddhism with them.
That then to have Buddhism was a struggle. And that was part of, when we talk about engaged Buddhism, oftentimes it does not acknowledge at all that for these early Asian immigrants like to be Buddhists. They were forced to have to engage in certain ways with the general public. And even though they might not have seen that as a political engagement, like that was a, an [00:48:00] engagement with society that whether or not they wanted to participate that, to be Buddhist, to have that practice in the United States was this kind of, struggle that they had to maintain. So to acknowledge that American Buddhism is here because of that struggle from these Asian immigrants, that's a really important thing to do and a really important first step, I think. And that also means to shift the narrative and make it more expansive so that we don't keep telling these stories that like, oh, the beat poets brought Buddhism to the United States, or American soldiers brought Buddhism to the United States in the postwar period, or something like that.
And also I think that goes to the fact of what you are talking about that I don't think it's mentioned enough which is that Asian American communities and Buddhism. In Asian American communities is often tied to US military intervention in Asia. And so acknowledging the roots of Buddhism in America and looking at Asian American communities is also to look at that and to think about what is that engagement?
And [00:49:00] even with engaged Buddhist communities in the United States, like I mentioned, I worked with Buddhist Peace Fellowship communities that are trying to think about social justice. Having those conversations about we need to acknowledge the Asian American Buddhist history, that was a struggle that was difficult for for the leadership to hear.
But when we think about, for example, Thich Nhat Hanh who's often seen as like the father of engaged Buddhism and coining that term. His work was directly tied to the result of US military intervention in Asia. And so for me, I'm fascinated by the fact that we then don't talk about that aspect.
Like what about the Asian American, the Vietnamese American communities that then came to the United States? What about their Buddhist practice? Why don't we talk about that? Why is that seen as not that interesting or important? I think that's an area that we really need to look at. And so just acknowledging and then shifting the narrative so that it's more expansive and that it's more broad and captures those aspects of the reality of Buddhist practice in America and Asian [00:50:00] American existence and positioning in America is really important.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you Funie.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: Yes, of course. I don't really have too much to add to what Funie just said, except that I think we have a great, opportunity in North America in many ways. If I think about where I grew up in Japan, yes, we have,
Like about a dozen major lineages of Buddhism in the Mahayana tradition represented. If you think about Tibet four main lineages, or Sri Lanka, mainly Theravada, like it's actually here in places like Los Angeles and many other places in the United States where you have so many different.
Lineages bumping up against each other. And this is a great opportunity to, learn from each other. It's maybe the first time in 2,500 years of Buddhist history LA is a more diverse Buddhist city than [00:51:00] Kyoto or Bangkok or, so this is a great time to try to learn from each other.
And I would also say to Funie's point, ancestors are important. This is how we learn about Buddhism, is we look at the teachers from the past, and teachers can be not just the Buddha or say Master Dogen from the 13th century or Nagar or whatever. Like we have many teachers and ancestors who are teaching us.
So many things. And for building American Buddhism we have to look at the people who came before us. And as Julio is noting that history goes back more than a hundred of year, a hundred years, almost 150 years. And so when we take that front timeframe into our awareness, and we try to learn and honor all of our ancestors, I think that's the main way we can start to [00:52:00] see how do we learn from each other to build something very amazing called American Buddhism that for the first time has so many lineages bumping up against each other.
That's the potatoes. We are we're trying to learn from each other and we have a long, longer history than we think with each other.
Jungwon Kim: Thinking about those potatoes, which I just am never gonna forget this metaphor of the potatoes rubbing up against each other because, first of all, the potato is just such a lovable and humble vegetable.
And this idea that we make ourselves clean through friction is so beautiful. So thank you so much for that beautiful gem that I'll carry with me after today. I do just wanna ask you you mentioned something Duncan about just how special it is to be able to practice Buddhism in an American context because we're bringing together so many traditions and I think, connecting to what Funie has talked about this is all unfolding in a [00:53:00] context of a country that.
Has a lot of violence embedded in our DNA, right? What is American history, if not one of violence and genocide and enslavement, and a lot of really painful things, that have defined and shaped our experience and, led to some very important and beautiful outcomes, but also just created a lot of ongoing and generational suffering.
I guess I, my question to you is, you know how you might respond to people who would say when you make Buddhism too much about social justice, or you talk about engaged Buddhism and you emphasize that more, it's politicizing. Buddhist practice and yeah.
I'm curious about what you might say to that kind of attitude, which I have definitely heard in Buddhist practice spaces, in convert Buddhist practice [00:54:00] spaces.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: I would say that's also a sentiment you can find in non-con spaces too, right? And the, I would say probably for just my community as well as let's say Asian American Buddhist community writ large, we have a huge diversity of opinion about lots of different topics.
And so you can go to a temple in Orange County in Vietnamese American temple, and it's a very, you 90% of. The membership and what is Poly Republican and voted for Trump. We Buddhists have lots of diversity for politics and this issue of Buddhist engagement in societal issues and the politics of the day and so forth.
So that's what I think one, one point we should make, that there's no one Buddhist approach to how to handle these things. And there are legitimate two or three or four scripturally based, teaching based positions you could [00:55:00] take around these type of topics. And we see all of it all, all throughout the Buddhist community in America.
I would say though that there is a way in which we are, whether we like it or not, in. Inextricably interlinked with each other. That's just a fundamental Buddhist teaching. We interlink with each other as people, as communities, as a nation, as a global nation, with other non sentient beings.
We're interlinked whether we like it or not in the moment, as well as through time. So do you wanna mention this idea of even like intergenerational or things that have happened in America's past that, or even the world's past that kind of gets passed down over generations even, and when we don't resolve it in one generation, it gets transmitted, morphed different things.
And so my point is [00:56:00] more like we always have a chance. To alleviate suffering. That's the only thing that ties us together. We have a lot of diversity and in our traditions, but no one in the Buddhist world is gonna say, my form of Buddhism, my lineage teaches that we have to increase suffering. No our religion is, we are trying to reduce and alleviate suffering.
Our tactics may differ, but which we're all focused on that North star. And I think in that conversation with each other, even people we disagree with on this issue or that issue or whatever, we have to just be in good dialogue with each other and share with each other. How do we move towards alleviation of suffering And and they have, personal manifestations, but also social ones.
And so in a way we just so interlinked with each other. You can't but say. We are enmeshed in our world and politics and so forth, and that we [00:57:00] have to have thoughtful, kind, wise, compassionate, ways to engage that with each other even if we disagree on this topic or that topic.
So that's what I'm really hopeful, like there are things that are common values that we Buddhists have that I think we can come around and try to engage some of our big troubling issues of our times. With. Some people taking one part of the web, other people taking other parts of the web, there's no reason why we have to all agree or all do the same thing or all do it all at once.
We, all we need to do is take the bit of the web that we're, or this interlinked world we live in, and the part that we have a common connection to, to try to alleviate that bit. And actually it ends up having reverberations throughout our entire web of life. And I feel like there's a way to work with each other even if we aren't all, of the same exact [00:58:00] mind.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you so much for that . I, if you feel like we could just keep chatting for another hour and a half, but our time together is coming to a close. I do just want to emphasize and uplift what you said about nourishing that spiritual friendship and spiritual ecosystem. And I think what you just mentioned is a really important key to that the nourishing of spiritual friendship and the nourishing of the full.
Ecosystem, which includes Asian and Asian diaspora practitioners. So that is an open invitation to anyone who is part of any institution that is thinking about this question right now. And I wanted to just say thank you to both of you for sharing, sharing so many Dharma gems.
So thank you for that. And with that I think we will we will hand it back to Zaya and Maurizio [00:59:00] for any final remarks.
Zaya Benazzo: Thank you so much. Thank you, Jungwon, for this beautiful conversation that you led and for all the illuminating pointers, I think there's so much we can take in. Reflect and move with in our day and practice and our sangas and yeah, definitely the muddy rubbing potatoes. Yeah. Realizing together yeah, our true nature is yeah.
Maurizio Benazzo: Foolish potato rubbing to each other that has to become, yeah.
Zaya Benazzo: Beautiful.
Maurizio Benazzo: The solution.
Zaya Benazzo: Thank you to Carrie. So thank you so much. Deep gratitude and we hope to continue this conversation in time
Maurizio Benazzo: and in person maybe. And
Zaya Benazzo: in person, hopefully. Yes. And may we continue on this journey of asking and expanding the ways in which we see [01:00:00] our spiritual practice and paths
Maurizio Benazzo: and cultivate our foolishness.
Zaya Benazzo: Cultivate foolishness.
Maurizio Benazzo: That's a key to a revolution in my opinion. We have to be foolish and against
Zaya Benazzo: and remember the ancestral ways that brought us here.
Yeah. And that carry us forward. We are just a small piece in the chain of, in the web of life. Yeah.
Maurizio Benazzo: Which will continue after us.
Zaya Benazzo: Hasn't started with us and would not with us. So thank you.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Thank you Zaya. Maurizio for, building and cultivating this incredible community and this beautiful platform.
And for curating and programming conversations on a lot of topics that are still underrepresented, marginalized conversations and bringing those. Conversations from the margins to the center. I really appreciate that. Yeah,
Zaya Benazzo: [01:01:00] thank you. And to the land of Japan that connected us, we met Yes.
On a pilgrimage in Japan. So that is feels like a Yeah. A complete full
Jungwon Kim: yes. And it was later than the time when Tigers smoked. More recent than that.
Maurizio Benazzo: Thank you.
Jungwon Kim: Thank you. Be well. Thank you. Take care everybody. [01:02:00]
