Blind Spots and Spiritual Bypassing
I am so grateful that Bhante Sumano was able to make time to join a talk for our ongoing “Intersections of Dhamma and Race” podcast series. Being a Black Buddhist monk living in the US during 2020, he was literally caught in this very intersection, and he had some very wise words to share. Below is an excerpt from our talk, in which he expresses his disappointment that Buddhist communities did not speak up more actively on the social justice movement that arose in response to police killings.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the response that came from Buddhist communities was silence or delusion. ”
“It was apparent that a lot of Buddhist practitioners, even ones who had been practicing for quite some time, who had an understanding of the Dharma, who we could say are pretty well developed or pretty experienced… they didn't know how to react to what was going on.
And I think part of that came from the fact that this was a blind spot that a lot of people had. And I liked this concept of blind spots that I'd actually heard a bhikkhuni, from Blue Cliff Monastery. Even if we're pretty realized practitioners, when we encounter [the blind spots], the most important thing is to see our response to them.
And unfortunately, I have to say a lot of the response that came from Buddhist communities, to people realizing they had these blind spots, was silence, unfortunately, or delusion. So sort of not recognizing that this was a blind spot that they had, and also a lot of suppression and spiritual bypassing.
These killings were traumatic for a huge chunk of the population, and especially for practicing Buddhists who were people of color. There were people searching for support and understanding. And in a lot of the communities that even I am a part of, or have been a part of, the response of support, listening, understanding, and compassion just wasn't there.
In some ways, I don't blame anyone for that response, because systemic racism, by its nature, is sort of this insidious thing that creeps beneath the surface in a lot of ways. But on the other hand, it was a letdown that Dharma practitioners who speak very eloquently about compassion and right view and emptiness, couldn't find the words to really address the situation.
And there was a lot of talk about, ‘well, it's politics or it's all fabrication and Sankara, that it's not something to be ruffled by.’ But that to me was just a complete misunderstanding of the Buddha's teachings. When it didn't have anything to do with politics actually, at all. It simply had to do with how people were being treated in their regular daily lives, and Buddhist practice is about changing our daily lives.
So to me, it seemed natural that Buddhists and Buddhist monks in particular have something to say about what's going on.”