The things I didn’t expect to learn from my brief enrolment in a dharma leadership program.
A year ago, I was quite excited to have been nominated and accepted into Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader (CDL) program. In October I travelled to California for my first week of training, which was a real eye opener. Over the winter I continued with online instruction and engagement with some of my cohorts. In spring, Covid-19 hit, and the scheduled one-week April training in New York State was cancelled. By early summer the economic fallout of the pandemic had forced Spirit Rock to lay off half of its administrative staff. As a consequence, the CDL program — which had barely gotten off the ground — was officially cancelled.
For me it means that my goal of receiving leadership training and accreditation from an established dharma institution was done for.
I’m still recovering from the gut punch. What was all that about? And did I learn anything from this experience? It’s too early to answer these questions in full, but the dramatic and sometimes violent events south of the border in recent days have made it clear to me that I’m not quite the same person I was before I entered the program. As a white cisgender postmenopausal woman, I have gained a new perspective.
The intent of the CDL program was to train leaders who represent diverse communities. In the early years, most North American dharma communities were led by white middle class men. The gender balance has improved but marginalized communities remain under-represented.
To address this, Spirit Rock ensured that at least forty per cent of the 100 or so of participants identified as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour). Another 60 per cent identified as LGTBQIA2S+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/ or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, and more).
For the first time, deaf people were included in the CDL program — necessitating the hiring of two sign language interpreters. Two other participants required emotional support animals. The age range was 29 to 70. Eight of us were Canadian, one was British, one was Uruguayan, the rest were American.
The teaching team was equally diverse, with three African-Americans and four Caucasians.
We all pitched headlong into this cauldron of diversity with mixed results. For instance, I found it hard to adjust to the expectation of always introducing myself with my preferred pronouns of she/her. And I didn’t always understand or appreciate the sensitivities expressed by people who were different from me. On the flip side, I was at times deeply moved by others’ commitment to dharma in the face of struggle related to race and other identities.
What ended up being of immeasurable help to me was an online course called “Roots Deeper Than Whiteness”. Offered by the American online platform White Awake, it was a prerequisite for those of us who identified as white. It was less about white people trying to understand the oppression of non-white people — the usual approach, which often prompts us to try to “help” in unhelpful ways — as it was about understanding our own origins and how our own intergenerational trauma has led to the systemic racism of today.
Here are some misconceptions I previously held:
Racism is mostly about the individual actions of a few “bad apples.” No. Racism is systemic.
White supremacy is angry white men marching with tiki torches. No. White supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetrated system designed to maintain wealth, power, and privilege.
Race has a biological basis. No. There is one human race. All other distinctions are social constructs.
Of particular interest to me was the idea that most white people in North American generally carry unhealed, unseen intergenerational trauma as a consequence of their ancestors being forced out of Europe due to powerful economic forces. What was once land held in common became privately-owned by a few wealthy elites. Over time, tenant farmers were forced off the land, leading millions of impoverished Europeans to migrate overseas (see Selkirk Settlers and Highland Clearances).
While many of these brutalized, traumatized newcomers were well-meaning and kind, as a group they effectively brutalized and traumatized the Indigenous peoples and devastated their lands, a terrible legacy that continues to this day (see Reconciliation ).
There is a way out of this ongoing mess. The Buddha set the example 2,500 years ago. He challenged a system that was deeply divided along caste lines, a system in which women had virtually no freedom. When men and women entered his sangha, they not only shaved their heads and entered a life of extreme dependence, they also left behind their status. Former Brahmins and former servants ate, worked, and practised together. This was surely revolutionary for its time.
Even more revolutionary is the Buddha’s teaching on uprooting the three unwholesome roots of greed, aversion, and delusion/ignorance. These unwholesome impulses are present individually and collectively; they result in destructive systems such as white supremacy.
Who knew that enroling in CDL would call on me, as a white person, to call for a new revolution and stand up to the system of white supremacy?
Read more about White Awake here. Also, check out the Engaged Practice page on this website.
—Nelle Oosterom