Buddhist Studies Footnotes27 Joulu 2021

Creating Safe(r) Spaces for Mindfulness of Breath: Non-White Western Practitioners’ Experiences of Race, Racism and Whiteness in American Mindfulness

In Vipassana meditation practice, the first common object is the breath. By allowing the breath to be the focus of your awareness, one lets the social world full of discursive thought, self-reflexivity and judgement move into the background. Yet, we know that as intimate and solitary as this breath practice is, many individuals turn to communities of solitary practice such as sitting groups and retreat spaces, as safe grounds or anchors to turn their gaze inward and attend to the tacit, embodied dimension of their being. This presentation critically evaluates how for non-white people of color in North America who practice in institutional spaces that are predominantly white, such silence and safety is interrupted by race. By drawing on fieldwork conducted in California among mindfulness communities, I explore key assumptions about mindfulness that North American black and non-black people of color expose and problematize through their engagement with mindfulness. The presentation asks, how in the context of racialized history of the United States and institutional whiteness, how we might more fully appreciate the “noble” breath of meditation, not as simply empty and neutral, but rather as supersaturated with history and power.

This presentation is part of the Buddhism and Breath Summit, which took place online in 2021, with a group of researchers exploring Buddhist practices of working with the breath or the “winds” of the body. The event was co-hosted by Frances Garrett and Pierce Salguero, and co-sponsored by the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto and Jivaka.net. You can watch the video of this talk and find other resources from the Buddhism and Breath Summit at Jivaka.net

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(50)

LGBTQ+ affirmation in the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist tradition

A conversation between Kody Muncaster and Jeff Wilson, professor of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies. They discuss Dr. Wilson's journey into Buddhism and Buddhist Studies and his work as an or...

23 Huhti 49min

Creating safer spaces for queer and trans Buddhists

A conversation between Kody Muncaster and two representatives from the international Rainbodhi LGBTQIA+ Buddhist Community: Tenzin Tseme from Rainbodhi USA and Myra Blankenship from Rainbodhi Melbourn...

7 Tammi 1h 19min

Living a queer Buddhist life, with Jampa Wurst

A conversation between Kody Muncaster and Jampa Wurst, as part of a series of interviews with queer folks in Buddhism and Buddhist Studies. Dr. Jampa Wurst is a queer, non-binary Buddhist and founder ...

14 Marras 20251h 16min

Buddhist environmental ethics for a more-than-human world

A conversation with Colin Simonds, Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on how Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice are relevant to contem...

13 Elo 202448min

Buddhist environmentalism through philosophy of language

A conversation with Nan Kathy Lin, visiting assistant professor at Oberlin College in religious ethics and critical thought. Her work focuses on East Asian Buddhism, environmentalism, and moral philos...

29 Huhti 202427min

Rescaling the human: Nature, culture, and science in the Gobi Desert

A conversation with Matt King, professor of Buddhist studies at the University of California, Riverside. King is also the director of Asian studies and co-director of the medical humanities program at...

24 Huhti 202449min

Earth, water, fire, wind, space: Contemplative ecology in Buddhism

A conversation with Devin Zuckerman, a Buddhist studies scholar from the University of Virginia whose research looks at Buddhist theories and practices involving the elements of earth, water, fire, wi...

22 Huhti 202431min

Living mountains and mineral intimacies in Mongolia

A conversation with Jessica Madison Pískatá, a cultural anthropologist who studies relationships between humans and geological landscapes on the peripheries of Cold War empires. Pískatá is now Visitin...

17 Huhti 202437min