Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition by Rima Vesely-Flad

Author:Rima Vesely-Flad [Vesely-Flad, Vesely-Flad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL007020 Religion / Buddhism / Rituals & Practice
Publisher: NYU Press

5

Turning toward Internal Suffering

Dharma for the Practice of Psychological and Spiritual Liberation

Everything is practice, a very sacred and personal experience. There is freedom in the silence of practice, in the stillness as well as in the movement of the practice of life. The greatest teaching for me has been practicing compassion, first for myself, then for other individuals, and for all beings in all directions. It is here that I have found true freedom. Ache.

—Marlene Jones1

Black Radical thinkers, as ancestors and elders who promoted psychological freedom for people of African descent, embodied a practice of turning toward the causes of externally wrought suffering and addressing harmful conditions. They illuminated the Three Defilements undergirding European colonialism: greed undergirding exploitation of land and enslavement of peoples, hatred of Black bodies, and delusions of white supremacy. Several Black Radical thinkers, in addition to critique and activism, also embraced—and continue to embrace—spiritual practices as a path toward psychological liberation.

This chapter argues that the practice of dharma teachings is a means to cultivate psychological and spiritual liberation from white supremacy and patriarchy. Particular teachings have been especially effective for the liberatory practice of Black Buddhists: the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the Three Marks of Existence, Relative and Ultimate Reality, the Brahmaviharas, and the Satipatthana Sutta. This chapter outlines the interpretations of Black Buddhist teachers and their experience of dharma practice as a path to psychological and spiritual liberation in the broader Black Radical Tradition.

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