Social Justice and Vipassana meditation
It’s rare that simply by having a conversation, one can see small strands of change begin to appear in the world. And yet that’s exactly what happened when we began running our “Dhamma & Race” podcast series exploring prejudice, discrimination, and racial bias within meditation organizations and monasteries. As a result of these episodes, diversity committees within at least one meditation organization, the vipassana tradition of S.N. Goenka, began to look at their institutional history and begin to examine honestly where changes were needed. In my talk with Clyde Ford, an anti-racism trainer who is also a vipassana student of Goenka, he describes the impact of one workshop at Dhamma Kunja in Washington state.
“[They] recognized the truth of what some of their centers are like for folks of color, and what it’s been like for people of color to try to make changes within the vipassana organization.”
Host: I appreciate being able to speak with you trainer to trainer, as I also have a background in this profession. One of the things I love to do in my workshops is start with an opening question, and reflect back on it at the end, to see if the participants may have shifted their thinking on some key points through their experience in the session. I see you also did something similar here, as towards the end of the training, you then ask: ‘As a Vipassana student, how do I wish to respond to this call for racial justice and equity now taking place across the country, and around the world?’ So, I can see that you’re moving from asking if one should be involved as a vipassana meditator in issues of racial equity, and then asking how one can be involved. What response did you get here? Was it different from the initial question, and if so, how?
Clyde Ford: From the people involved in the inclusivity group, the response was really beyond their expectations in terms of people recognizing the tools they were using. It gave them a basis for how to make the tent larger. I think that was really important.
The other thing I heard is that many people really latched on to, was the idea that vipassana had been used as a basis for social justice movements. Hearing the story, particularly about Martin Luther King's speech writer, my dear friend, Vincent, and him having been of a vipassana practitioner, and using that as the basis of writing some of the words that King spoke, I think that really touched people and let them realize, ‘Oh, my god, there's a way to be firmly rooted in this tradition, and still be deeply engaged in the practice of social justice.’
I also heard that some of the folks who had attempted to pursue these ideas of inclusivity within Vipassana beforehand had met a lot of resistance. And some of the people in the workshop reached out to them and said, ‘Look, we may not have been right 10 years ago, when we didn't allow you to do this, that, and the other. And we want to express our apologies and our gratitude for the worldly work that you did.’
These are some of the folks within the community who attempted to expand vipassana, early on, who were met with a lot of resistance. So people recognized some of the history that needs to be overcome, and some of the ways to overcome that history. And you know, I always go back to something I say just about every training I do that I really believe: that what we need is truth and reconciliation.
The first part is truth. You start with saying, ‘What is it like now? What's going on now? What has happened in the past?’
And once that is said, then you can move into what do we need to do to change, and we can move into the reconciliation part. So I was pleased to hear that folks who had done the workshop recognize the truth of what some of their centers are like for folks of color, what it's been like for people of color to try to make changes within the vipassana organization. That recognition of the truth is a great place to start change.”