The Unbearable Whiteness of Western Buddhism:
How WASPy antics gets rebranded as “mindfulness” in the newage movement.
As a Buddhist, I thought I should address this uncomfortable phenomenon.
Here are the caveats before we start. Ignore them on your own peril:
- This is not a formal study. Take a look at the tags, this article is an opinion piece. Don’t be expecting anything other than my opinion. If it inspires research, great.
- Please make sure you read and understand the title. Did you? Do you remember what it says? What about the subtitle? Could you sketch a picture or explain in your own words the basic meanings in it if I asked? No, I’m not joking. Judging by past interactions, some of my readers show a pattern of making assumptions too fast or reading too quick and forgetting to notice an adjective or a qualifier or some other kind of word that narrows down the focus of what I’m talking about. So, let’s make sure all is clear: where is the Buddhism? (a) the East, or (b) the West? If you answered The West, yay, well done! Next one: what kind of Buddhism am I talking about? (a) Tibetan, or (b) Zen, or (c) modern variants that are in the newage movement? If you answered “modern varants that are in the newage movement”, congratulations! You get a star. ⭐️
- Reading comprehension level 2: when you read the title and subtitle, what did you infer in between the lines? a) I am upset with white people, (b) I am upset with a specific kind of white people (the western, anglo-saxon protestants — WASP), or (c ) I am upset with a specific kind of white people (the western, anglo-saxon protestants — WASP) in the context of newage spirituality? If you chose the 3rd and last option, great job! When reading between the lines, we should always take into account all pieces of information in the text. We shouldn’t cherrypick. Well done, you. I’m proud of you guys! You are now fully able to graduate 6th grade!
The above is, of course, aimed at a specific group. If you’re not in it, you’re probably more intelligent and already realised the sarcasm. But you see, sarcasm is quite advanced. We’d need many more classes and quizes for that, wouldn’t we?
This is no elitism. I’m speaking of discernment, not “formal intelligence”. Even an illiterate would know, for example, that we can’t take conclusions from a cherrypicked bit of information. You need the full phrase, from start to finish until the period. This is not something you learn at school, it’s something you learn in life — spoken language also demands a certain level of completeness. Would you respond to something like, “where is the?” No you wouldn’t. It makes no sense. It’s lacking completeness, it’s lacking useful context. So, you know what I’m talking about, regardless of level of instruction. Some people just pretend not to know because they have a petty, vindictive, teenage-grade agenda against me as a person. They’re called haters. Their problem is emotional immaturity and oversensitivity to criticism. It’s not really “intelligence”. Hence my sarcasm. But I won’t be giving you this explanation in every article. It’s here only. If you missed it, too bad.
In case you’re new, know that I don’t hesitate in talking about uncomfortable topics. I’m not here to protect egos. Instead, I expose them. Don’t like it? Understandable. Go read some more “blue pill”, so to speak, and leave my blog for those who like it.
Also worth mentioning, modern racism creates double standards. The overwhelming majority of people still privileged today (aka, white and WASPy) will discriminate against those who don’t have as much socio-economic power in the world (aka, black, brown, Latino, native-American, and Asian) whilst at the same time pretending to be all in favour of cultural/racial equality. That’s because modern white people are no longer enslaving fellow human beings or making offensive cartoons of them. So, they think, “oh, racism is over, it’s a thing of the past now”. Uhhhhhh… No. No, it isn’t. The problem is still rampant, but covert. Instead of targeting physical looks, now they target culturally diverse communication; mannerisms; antics. They say things like, “oh, how angry”, “oh, how reactive”, “oh, how loud” with the same pearl-clutching attitude their ancestors of old would look at “the uncivilised” and call them savages or say the spices in their food stink. (Any resemblance to insults against the Asian and Afro diaspora because “they speak funny” is NOT a coincidence. One thing directly evolved from the other, like a direct offspring in a family tree).
So, in short, today’s racism makes room for people of all colours to coexist in harmony everywhere… AS LONG AS they abandon everything that makes them unique and instead adopt the fashion, music taste, food, speech patterns and mannerisms of “the prim and proper white ladies and gentlemen”. (Any resemblance to boarding schools aka whitewashing schools for Native Americans is NOT a coincidence. One thing directly evolved from the other, like a direct offspring in a family tree).
Modern racism is covert and is definitely behind why certain people have a personal vendetta against me, but won’t admit it — and instead conceal it under a façade of “I just don’t understand what you say, Lucy. So puzzling, so hard to understand”.
Uh-huh. I mean… If pretending not to understand me is fair game, then so is pretending to be a primary teacher talking to mentally challenged adults who repeated school year too many times.
Cheers to the class of 2004!
Without further ado:
This is not about genetics. It’s about an ACTIVE CHOICE to enable or not to enable systemic oppression.
When we say “race”, sometimes the privileged think it’s a tangible, materialistic thing that science explains. But no, I’m not a scientist (repeating it for the zillionth time…). I’m talking about a cultural and social problem that started with Colonialism and is still going strong to this day. It’s a superficial label based on nothing, which for some reason we still need to talk about, because this problem refuses to die out like it should. And a big contributing factor for WHY it’s not a thing of the past is that white privileged people from this Protestant Anglo-Saxon family background refuse to let it die. They think the problem will go away if they don’t look at it. But that’s not how solving problems works.
So, just to be clear, I’m not saying that if you’re from this background, you necessarily are “doomed to be or stay” racist. I’m painting with broad strokes here. Are you an exception? Great! Let’s work together to keep tackling this problem. I’m an exception to the problem of Latin-American flex culture, for example. But will I deny the existence of that collective problem? No. It’s rampant. It’s a thing in my own background culture. It needs tackling.
What’s more: there are people of various kinds of heritage who turn their back on their own communities in order to embrace WASPy racism. Just this year, I can recall at least two examples who somehow made their way into my social circles and I had to manually kick out: one woman of Chinese background who reportedly hates her looks and wishes she was whiter, and seems to always choose “making others comfortable” over celebrating her own culture; And a Greek-American who disrespects his own heritage by renaming a primordial goddess because… I guess he feels entitled. Both consistently tried to groom me into whitewashing my communication style because they’re “sensitive”.
FUNNY how these people are always too sensitive to engage with diversity, but simultaneously thick-skinned enough to function in society and even travel the world when it serves their own agendas.
Moving on…
Appropriation…
Yes, this newage crowd (I spell newage similar to sewage on purpose) often lumps it all together: Zen, Dzogchen, Theravada and so on all become one thing to be picked from and mixed at will when convenient. We have a bit of an “Africa problem” here — similar to how some people will refer to Africa as if it was one cohesive country with one only culture when in fact it’s a continent with many countries — with Buddhism becoming this artificial monolith that only exists in the West.
The problem above is very nuanced and hard to detect (even I have difficulties, at times!) because addressing it can make you fall on a slippery slope that leads straight to partisan and divisive discourse. This is especially dangerous here in the West, where people are notorious for embracing all-or-nothing dichotomies. (We’re very dualistic, like we say in pretty much every school of Buddhism. But in the East, this is taken seriously; in the West, it’s just parroted “as if” we had actually become aware of it). My own intention here isn’t to be divisive; I’m simply pointing out that different schools of Buddhism sometimes contradict each other. This is very normal in Religion, since we’re dealing with subjectivity, not objectivity. I’m sure people in Asia are confused at us the same way we would be confused at them if they started saying they’re “Christian, like, both in a Roman Catholic and Baptist way, with a sprinkle of Orthodox”. You see… it’s not like these religions fight each other (or not today, anyhow…), but they’re different. They’re separate. We understand that pretty clearly. But somehow, with Buddhism, we’re happy to take a bit from each and call it a day.
It’s called covert white supremacism, Anastasia. It’s systemic. It’s at the very foundations of modern society, both Capitalist and Socialist — because of Colonialism. So, no, I’m not insulting anyone individually. I’m saying you’re an accomplice automatically… Until you choose to go against the crowd. No, I’m sorry, modern life as we know it does not allow for neutrality. Either you’re with the oppressors, or against them. A lot of people are blindly “with” them.
I used not to challenge the Westerners who mention different schools of Buddhism seemingly at random, because I thought, “well, [authentic] Buddhism is new here in the West. Maybe this person who claims to practise Dzogchen is mentioning Zen every now and then because they tried out different Buddhist schools before finding the one that was right for them?”
I am facepalming here. I give people too much grace. I should be more judgemental. As it always turns out in these cases, the person is actually just straight-up cherrypicking. In a very appropriative, newage way. Blatant disrespect.
You see, THIS IS WHY we can’t have nice things. This is why some non-white cultures choose to gatekeep their traditions with basis on bloodline. It’s not that they’re “racist” against the white outsiders. They’re simply tired of seeing outsiders appropriating and watering down sacred teachings elsewhere, and want people to at least commit to move into the community and raise a family with them before having access to their precious traditions. I can’t blame them. This hasn’t happened to Buddhist cultures in Asia YET, but who knows what the future holds.
It’s because of self-centered, “nice-guy-racist” newage scammers in the West — who are sometimes really good at pretending to be legit — that everyone else here in the West, even innocent people, end up getting the short end of the stick.
Is it mindfulness or tone-policing? Is it minimalism or gentrification? And perhaps more importantly: is it Zen or turning a blind eye to injustice?
All these values that are in vogue now — mindfulness and minimalism, for example — I don’t know if you’ve noticed, come from Buddhism. Zen, more specifically. If you Google “Tibetan altar”, for example, you’ll be amused at how busy they look. Now contrast that to Zen.
It’s not that the quality of focusing on the present or the value of simplicity don’t exist in other Buddhist schools — of course they do! But again, there’s nuance. It’s not black-and-white, much to the dismay of dualistic Western thought — but Zen is a fundamentally agnostic philosophy within the larger sphere of Buddhism (and this is a detail, as I’ve come to realise, a lot of westerners overlook). Zen scholars don’t prohibit, but definitely discourage, the cultus of deities (be they local to the area or personal to the individual practitioner). Another quality that stands out in Zen, specifically, is the absence of belief in reincarnation. Again, they’re not dogmatic about it — so they won’t punish anyone who DOES believe in it — but they discourage the focus on reincarnation, preferring to spend more time and energy on the pursuit of Buddhist virtues for this current life.
Why do I know the above, being myself a practitioner of Nyingma Buddhism? Well, let’s just say I have learned from Shaolin warriors (who happen to be Zen), and know a famous Zen monk in my home country. You see, I’ve been through this “exploration and finding my specific Buddhist path” period in life, which is why I give disingenuous people too much grace. But I digress.
Mindfulness, when viewed through a lens of Zen, becomes weirdly attractive to these sheltered, casually racist, pro-gentrification Westerners because of a misunderstanding: they look at this profound teaching which is “very unreligious” and “very deprived of dogma”, and think, “oh, sweet! This looks like Psychology with a hint of ethnic mysticism. There are no culturally sensitive idols to be careful about; No exotic rituals or traditions to learn. I can just take it and won’t even need to repackage it to my white audience”.
So, they appropriate mindfulness. And in doing so, they weaponise it against the people who have very valid, very legit concerns about social justice. Mindfulness, which should be about living in the present to the best of our ability (if you CARE to learn with actual Zen masters and not newage gurus self-proclaimed experts in Buddhism without the experience to back that up)… Becomes “tone-policing”. Not speaking up because “it’s not skillful to speak with anger” — to which I respond, oh, of course, Your Majesty! It must be nice to look down on people’s rightful anger from the height of your privilege. Of course it must make sense to dismiss the objections of a wide majority of the population to a system which was designed to keep them in the bottom… And oversimplify it as “just a bunch of agitated, anxious people”, AS IF they were simply in need of slowing down and taking a few deep breaths.
Oh, sure. Why didn’t I think of it before? Gee, let’s all just calm down, the answer to systemic injustice was in good old politeness all along.
Let’s invert the roles then: I challenge you, white person with privilege, to switch lives with a random Afghan refugee who is looking for a 9-to-5 in your neighbourhood. Easy peasy, I reckon? Surely all you gotta do is be calm and collected because everything will fall into place. (Not to say refugees can’t be calm and collected. In fact, I’ve known a few. I don’t know how they do it! Especially faced with this new far-right wave of blind hatred against them on the streets. But the point is… This is just their basic decency. No, it’s not taking these people to a joyful and blissful life away from the troubles that “the angy” and “the frustrated” supposedly should be attracting for themselves). Oh god. Don’t get me started on the law of attraction bullshit.
A similar phenomenon surrounds the whole idea of minimalism — a value which, coincidentally, can be found both in Zen Buddhism and Western Stoicism. Originally, minimalism SHOULD be about deriving the greatest amount of satisfaction possible from the simplest achievable lifestyle. The underlying wisdom is that greed comes from a delusion — we actually don’t need much to be happy. Well… In “casually racist” white people’s hands, this becomes a different thing altogether: flexing simplicity. It translates into sleek architecture, clothing, and self-sufficient lifestyles which only the wealthy can actually afford. Why? Simple: because when you live paycheck to paycheck, you can’t actually “break free” from your community in order to live off-grid or even lead a nomadic life in a van or something like that. On top of that problem, you probably can’t afford fewer and higher quality, “ethical” (aka, spoiler alert, usually greenwashed) tools / clothing / etc, and instead you’re forced to consume the same items that people deemed “backwards” (translating: unprivileged) apparently buy without remorse.
And don’t get me started on the “sad beige mom” phenomenon. Ugh.
None of the problems above is Buddhism’s fault. This umbrella of Eastern religions is, if anything, a victim of the covert white supremacism still in full force here in the West — just like the “too loud”, “too colorful”, “too spicy”, “too much” people it undermines.
The same heirs of Colonialism (be they wealthy or poor — they all benefit from the lack of racial and ethnic profiling in society) who were using Buddhist statues as “exotic home decor” 3 decades ago are now pretending to be into the actual religion… But only insofar as it makes them feel comfortable and far away from any semblance of Historical accountability. Pair that with greenwashing because “the climate emergency is so much more important” than giving fellow human beings a little bit of a welcome regardless of how they talk or manifest themselves culturally. Oh, of course, there is always some bigger problem to tackle, to which intersectionality pales in comparison. It’s almost as if anything at all is an excuse to avoid “loving thy neighbour”.
As if that wasn’t enough, they feel entitled to cherrypick, mix and match, and take out of context to their hearts’ content Buddhist passages from many different schools of this religion whenever they serve as a cover-up for silencing and one-upmanship against the socially unprivileged. I’m sure Buddha would be proud. #not
The biggest takeaway from this whole ordeal is that toxicity often disguises itself as a virtue.
Jesus warns his followers of false prophets: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.
(Matthew 7:15–20)
Who would have guessed… These people have been trying to explore something new and exotic to them, but perhaps there was no need for getting tired of the Bible so soon.
