Privilege

Some meditators believe that spiritual teachings exist on a plane above the worldly, transcending the unfairness, bias, and prejudice that are endemic to human life in samsara. In many ways this echoes the modern Protestant Buddhist message promoted in the 20th century, picked up by figures like S.N. Goenka and other Western meditation teachers, that the liberation promised through meditation is equally accessible to everyone, beyond any category definition of race, religion, ethnicity, or gender. These teachings explicitly reference the universal human condition, and are often explained in rational, scientific terms. 

Of course, in some fundamental ways, this description of the practice is very true: observing the mind-body connection leads practitioners away from identification and labels, and most meditation traditions have no barriers for entry based on background. But these basic truths of practice, especially in the context of that rather self-serving, somewhat promotional messaging, have helped hide in plain sight the cold truth that in the real world of America, anyway, some marginalized communities have not had the same access to the teachings of liberation as White practitioners. And even when gaining access, they do they always find the institutions, teachings and teachers responsive to their life experiences.

Although the spate of police killings and reminders of systemic racism that re-energized the Black Lives Matter movement last summer seemed fully embedded in the unwholesomeness of samsaric life—and on the surface, appearing unrelated to communities of spiritual practice—we learned that was not actually the case.  Some meditation organizations and Buddhist communities proactively responded to that moment by uncovering and responding to bias within their own traditions. The Insight Myanmar podcast team similarly explored this topic, starting an ongoing series called “The Intersections of Dhamma and Race.”

On a personal note, as a White meditator, I learned a lot! I was horrified to hear about the discomfort and trauma that many Black yogis have faced on this path, wrought from unexamined biases and an insensitivity and resistance on the part of many White teachers and administrators to face these blind spots. It also hit in personal ways, requiring me to explore my own implicit biases and unexamined assumptions that might well be unintentionally causing harm. It was painful to admit where more growth was needed, and to see how much I could still learn about my own privileged status both in society at large and even within the practitioner community, that meditators-of-color did not enjoy.

This has been a long preamble to my main goal in writing this piece. So let me switch gears, but please keep all this in mind as you read further, as I’ll be circling back to it.

When I first heard news of the coup in Myanmar on February 1st, I broke down in tears.  Now, I don’t cry easily. I’d gone years, perhaps decades without doing so, until I encountered something of an “intervention” several years ago on a mettā retreat at Chan Myay Myaing Monastery in Pyin Oo Lwin. Through that practice, I touched a part of myself that I hadn’t really been aware of, even after all my years of vipassana. Solid emotions of fear, anger, and resentment coalesced into the deeper hurt and pain I realized I'd been hiding from all my life.

So when I first heard the news at the beginning of this month, the connection to that same place of sorrow and loss that I explored at Chan Myay Myaing Monastery was reopened. I didn’t have a choice in how I was feeling, the extent to which I cared about the situation, the trauma I was experiencing with intimate friends now in danger, or the fear in the harm this would cause to the propagation of the Buddha’s teachings in the Golden Land. Every day, I shuddered when picking up my phone, anticipating what triggers might be waiting. What intimate friends or family had been arrested, harmed…or worse? Which inspiring monks had been harassed or detained? What neighborhoods that I knew well were now on fire or had their water supply poisoned, or were military tanks rolling past? While I usually practice phone discipline during sleeping hours, some nights I was flicking it on every hour just to make sure those I cared for were still safe. And when the military cut internet access in and out of the country, we were plunged into a news blackout that I didn't know when or even if it would ever lift, and what nightmares would be revealed once communication was returned.

This affected my daily life profoundly, as you might imagine. Some days I spontaneously broke into tears a dozen different times, a few occasions in public; once I suddenly screamed as loud as I could in my kitchen. I love to cook, and two rituals I especially enjoy are bread baking and making kombucha. These passions, along with the rest of my cooking, and sometimes even eating and sleeping, went out the window as well.

I felt myself gravitating towards friends who felt the same way, while maintaining a distance from those who did not. I described it at the time as wanting to connect with people living in the same emotional reality I was in, and feeling uncomfortable engaging with those who weren’t. But it was more than that, as I would soon learn…

Small hints were pointing in my direction at an underlying meaning, but I couldn't quite put it together yet. Here are two examples.

One such hint was when Winnie Thaw tweeted: 

I’m anti-eurocentrism. But last night I had a dream I was back in London and felt the relief of having freedom and human rights again (bc we legally and officially don’t have human rights anymore). It made me sad bc I knew it was just a dream but I let myself enjoy those rights. I’ve been privileged my whole life to not experience what it’s like to not have rights. Even under SLORC/SPDC I never felt this kind of fear but maybe because I was a child and was born into it so was normalised. But living in this coup showed me fears I never thought existed. When I look back at things before Feb 1st like photos and messages or whatever esp on Jan 31st, I shake a lot because I think to myself, what a privilege it was to be able to breath in relief, without these fears. Buddhists believe in karma but we definitely do not deserve this. That week, we were laughing at “threats” of a coup not knowing what was coming but were also wondering if it was possible. But all the “hot takes” and “analyses” said no it wouldn’t happen. But it came and it is here.

Another was Mi Mi Aye, who tweeted:

Something I don’t really talk about is to be Burmese, especially if you’re of a certain age, is to be afraid, from bitter experience. It’s a low-level, visceral feeling most of the time, but sometimes, like now, it can be overwhelming. Because all the worst things you can imagine that could happen to you or your loved ones can happen and has happened, to you or to people you know, because of the Burmese military. Right now, I don’t even want to eat, let alone cook anything. There’s a reason Aung San Suu Kyi’s most famous book is called Freedom From Fear.

These two powerful, yet very vulnerable passages reminded me of how desperately this lived reality is trying to be expressed to a greater population that can’t quite understand the real-time horror show— and that has the luxury of tuning in or out according the ebb and flow of their own interests.  

While I was grappling with the awful situation unfolding in the Golden Land, I happened to touch base with a foreign monk who was currently outside of Myanmar, but had spent several decades practicing there, and so had deep connections with the country and culture. The monk had not been following the news, and so an awkward conversation ensued in which his Dhamma reflections, while scripturally accurate, were not really relevant to my and others’ current lived reality. I found myself having to make the argument for why the loss of personal freedoms and the plunge into a terror state in Myanmar was, in fact, a legitimate practitioner concern, and that for these times, spiritual guidance needed to reflect this ground reality.

So there was this palpable sense of disconnect building, yet I still didn’t really understand exactly how to characterize it. At times, seeing such different and disengaged reactions from others began to lead me down the road of self-doubt, while at other times, it led to a sense of disappointment or even judgment that others had the apparent freedom to be so distanced, or so disinterested that they didn’t care. Then suddenly, late last night, an insight came that connected all this together for me, revolving around the words “empathy,” and “privilege” in its various connotations, and relative to two different groups of people. Here is how it all became tied together for me:

·      I was having a difficult time connecting with people who were “privileged,” in the sense of having the ability to tune out the horrors unfolding in Burma— a country thousands of miles across the ocean that most have never even visited— if they chose to at the same time try to give me advice. With no direct stake in the outcome or personal relationships to be fearful of, they could not understand what I was feeling or why; they could not talk me out of my state of mind. They apparently did not recognize that giving me advice, or offering analysis from their perch of privilege, was not at all empathetic, and so was merely frustrating.

·      But I was having an even more difficult time connecting with people who, in my opinion, should “know better.” They have had a more direct connection to the Golden Land, been the recipient of enormous support from the people, they more deeply realize the connection of the country to the meditation practice that they’ve benefitted so much from… and yet, they still have allowed their “privilege” to tune out the reality and avoid engagement in any form.  Frankly, any “advice” from this group has just seemed to me like empty platitudes.

·      The foreign monk I was speaking to is in this group as well, but is a particularly acute example. He is of course free to accept how affected (and even informed) he wishes to be about the current crisis, but as a result, his Dhamma guidance couldn’t be empathetic; it is not relevant to my lived reality, nor would it likely be to the lived reality of pretty much anyone experiencing that trauma. Interestingly, this is similar to what we’ve heard about White Dhamma teachers attempting to guide Black yogis without ever trying to understand their own bias first, or the reality of their students’ lives.

Winnie Thaw and Mi Mi Aye both describe the trauma that has swept over their lives as a result of their loss of the basic “human privilege” of freedom. They are trying to communicate this to an audience (whether in the first or second group) that takes for granted the “obvious” nature of their own “privilege” of freedom, and so is unable to really hear them, and thus lacks an empathetic perspective on their suffering.

Now, it’s not that people have no right to say anything if they don’t share the experience of the afflicted. And I’m not equating the lack of concern or interest in events taking place thousands of miles away in Myanmar with “White privilege” in this society.  However, both situations underscore the importance of cultivating empathy, and recognizing and affirming the fact that others face a very different reality. Only after recognizing this truth can someone really become an ally, as their words and actions will no longer be framed around the assumption and luxury of having choices that “the other” doesn’t have. 

I also want to be clear that just because someone is being victimized, it doesn’t mean that anything they say or do is automatically validated. Nor does it mean that spiritual advice or Dhamma reminders are not relevant— they very much are, especially in times like these! This is why it is so essential to listen to those conversations with Daw Viranani and Sayalay Chandadhika. While neither commented directly on current events, their informed knowledge of what was happening, and their intimate connection with how people were actually affected by these events, allowed them to shape their Dhamma words into empathetic, highly relevant and applicable spiritual guidance, in ways that the foreign monk I mentioned earlier could not— not just because he was privileged, but also that he was oblivious of his privilege, and how his advice was coming across. So while some might look at a spiritual life as one which does not need to concern itself with the dirty problems and ugly reality of the real world of samsara, this is really not so. True spiritual wisdom only takes shape around a person’s lived experience, however painful or discomfiting it may be. Otherwise it simply becomes a nice thought, mere platitudes or even spiritual bypass— that is, using one’s spiritual practice as a means of avoiding the world and its challenging feelings, thoughts, situations, etc. As Sayalay Chandadhika commented in her interview, “This is the time, this situation challenges what you really have inside of you.” It is at these points of tension where we finally get to see what we’re made of, and how that spiritual practice has transformed and strengthened us.

Last year, I explored the concept of privilege in spiritual communities while being on the side of the haves. This year, I’m getting to see what it feels like on the receiving end.  Not that I’m equating my experience with that of a lifetime of bumping up against implicit and explicit racism, far from it!  But these recent experiences have certainly helped me understand better what not being heard actually feels like. Last year, I got how this topic of privilege is really uncomfortable for those being confronted with it, because it brings up guilt and discomfort; now I also better get how privilege actually feels when it is directed at you, at least to some degree. I don’t want to be “fixed,” or told how I can or should feel or what I can or should do, but I also don’t want to be left alone to suffer in silence. I guess what I want is empathetic understanding from others and their willingness to act on it as needed.  I want it to be ok for me to feel what I feel, and I want to be accepted when I’m imperfect with an understanding that I simply don’t have the luxury of options that others do. I want good advice, especially spiritual guidance, but I want it to be empathetic, with an understanding of my lived reality, and remembering that check-ins are welcome. I do want to be held accountable, but not accountable to others’ rules and realities, because I’m now facing something very different.

And I get that this is a recipe for messiness and even discomfort as there are no clear lines to draw around the right and wrong of it. But at least I now understand better that to really be an ally, you need to be empathetic, available to embrace that messiness and discomfort, and willing to act on it.