I recently received an enquiry from a person who was disturbed to have received a letter from a correspondent in another country that was overtly racist. The letter was not unfriendly. It was urbane even. Racist people are not necessarily "nasty" people - often they are respectable citizens. That is part of the problem - racism is often "respectable". The writer simply was of the opinion that black people were descended from a different, inferior species. I am sure we have all encountered such attitudes. I was sitting on a ferry not so long ago and got talking with my fellow passengers. They became quite animated about the fact that the date happened to be a public holiday back in their own home country and this public holiday was named in honour of a black man. They said that this was a disgrace and they were campaigning to get this changed.

In India, in the time of the Buddha, the caste system was just taking shape. Caste depended upon racial origin. Western people tend to see the caste system of India as a kind of aberration. What they tend not to see is the caste system that operates in what we think of as our own countries. For "caste", read "race". How many white people would be willing to swap their conditions of life for those of an average black person, either in the world at large, or even within one's own country? There are very few places in the world where genuine social equality has been achieved. Despite much legislation and some campaigns for civil rights, the delusion of race remains one of the most potent causes of affliction and oppression in the contemporary world and we over-look it at our peril.

There is a story of a group of four noblemen who decided to go and join the sangha of the Buddha. They set out to travel to where the Buddha was staying. They took along their barber so that, when they got close, he could shave off their long hair and beards. So when they were about to cross the river to enter the area where the Buddha was, they had the barber shave them. They then gave the barber their fine clothes saying, "You can go and sell these and thus you will have enough money to live a better life in future." I think we can see here that these noblemen were nice people, weren't they? They were kind to the barber. At the same time we can see how their whole attitude toward him was shot through with condescension.

The young nobles went on their way and the barber looked at the fine clothes. He thought, "If I go to the market with these clothes, people will assume I am a robber and I will probably get myself executed." In other words, in that society everybody knew he was inferior just by looking at him and as a member of an inferior group he could not do the things that his "superiors" took for granted. So he hung the clothes on a tree by the road so that anybody who wanted them could help themselves. He then thought, "I now have no role in life. I was barber to these people, but now they have gone. Perhaps I could go and join the Buddha too." So he did. From which we can glean that it was general knowledge that the Buddha was open to all social groups in a way that nobody else in this society was.

The barber and the four nobles all arrived at the Buddha's resting place at about the same time. The Buddha listened to their stories. The Buddha then said that he was willing to accept all five of them into the sangha. The ordination ceremony was carried out. The young noblemen were rather shocked, however, when the Buddha ordained the barber first. In the Buddha's sangha, seniority went with order of ordination, so this made the barber the senior member of this group and meant that from now on the former nobles would have to pay homage to him. In order to understand this story fully, we have to appreciate that the barber would have been from a lower caste, i.e. a race regarded as inferior.

The Buddha frequently performed acts like this that turned the social order on its head. He favoured the poor and the oppressed. There is another occasion when a rich and powerful family has invited him to lunch and he refuses saying that he already has an invitation. "Who could have made an invitation that could possibly have taken precedence over ours?" the people from the rich family asked themselves. They were surprised to find it was a prostitute - a low caste, female, "sinner".

It is one of the most basic facts about Buddhism that it rejects caste and race. Buddhism is about enlightenment. Racism is delusion. Buddha, like Jesus, identified his movement with the poor and oppressed. The Buddha's disciples owned almost nothing and dressed in rags. To become a member of this fraternity and sisterhood was to leave behind all the ideas one had about oneself as a member of this or that social class or racial group. When one received one's Dharma name one was reborn into a new society. This sangha republic or pure land was completely without distinctions based on race or birth.

There are a great many discourses in which the Buddha is asked about status based on birth, and he always rejects the idea. Status should rest on virtue, not birth, is his message. There is a strong tendency nowadays to see religion as a matter of private salvation-seeking, and to see Buddhism as such a religion. This is a mistake. When half a million untouchables converted to Buddhism in 1948, it was because Buddhism rejects caste and racism. The primary objective of Buddhism is not, in my view, the salvation of individuals. It is the emancipation of the whole human world from the major delusions that contaminate it. The most dangerous pollution is the pollution of the mind. Prejudice is such a pollution. Buddhism exists to oppose and eliminate it.

I have also recently received, from another friend, some materials about racism in Western Buddhist sanghas. One reason that it is important for us to wake up to this issue is that we are part of it. Buddhism has, for the most part, spread in the West among the affluent, White population. There is a lot of talk of the emergence of a Western Buddhism - by which is mostly meant a White Buddhism. In truth, there is no White Buddhism or Black Buddhism, there is only the path of enlightenment. It is enlightened to work for the abolition of racism in all its forms. Most of these forms are more subtle than those expressed by the person who wrote to my friend. Subtle or overt the effects are pernicious. Often enough, for instance, the cost of admission to the dominant society for a black person is the adoption of values that favour whites. Of course, currently, we see many Buddhist schools seeking admission to that same dominant society. Are they going to pay the entrance fee? Buddhism, therefore, has got to be willing, sometimes, not to be so nice.

Buddhism has become acceptable to many as a result of its non-contentious image. Buddhists do not make a fuss. To criticise is to break the precepts, apparently - though on this basis the Buddha broke them all the time. Nice Buddhists just get on with the business of seeking their own private enlightenment. When they enter nirvana it will not matter to them whether a fifth of the world is starving or not, or whether torture and war still prevail. They will have entered eternal bliss. This kind of idea of Buddhism, which is not uncommon, is obscene, and a million miles removed from what I understand the Buddha to have been trying to do.

There are two kinds of Buddhism. There is the Buddhism that seeks to extinguish this world of sorrows from personal consciousness and there is the Buddhism that seeks to perfect the world by liberating it from greed, hate and delusion. Extinction Buddhism and Liberation Buddhism are not the property of particular schools. In every school of Buddhism you will find people of the extinctionist and of the liberationist tendency. As I see it, Buddha was a Liberationist. Liberation Buddhism is precisely the gift that the world now needs. Amida Trust does not have a party line, but as long as I have any influence over it, I will work to ensure that in this Buddhist association it is the Liberationist tendency in Buddhism that remains in the ascendancy.

Nowadays many people do not like the word "religion". Primarily this is because it has become associated with large oppressive organisations. I personally think it would be better to reclaim the word, however, rather than side-step the problem. Religion is one of the very few forces in this world that has the power to cut across and neutralise the forces of insularity and racial hatred. To be a Christian or a Buddhist or a Moslem should mean to stop being British, French, Egyptian, Russian, etc as first priority. How many people actually give their faith a higher priority than their nationality? If they do not do so then they really cannot be said to have a real faith. When a Buddhist takes refuge, this should mean precisely that. It was Chogyam Trungpa who pointed out that Buddhists are "refugees" - as he himself was a refugee from Chinese occupied Tibet. A religion that is worth something has a vision that is at least global.

I also believe that it is important that we keep this issue on the agenda. It is important for Dharma groups to discuss social issues. This may mean breaking through the niceness barrier. There is a middle way to be found. At one extreme, debate is conducted in a contemptuous way. At the other extreme, debate is avoided on the grounds that it cannot be conducted without criticising something, so, least said the better. Maybe here is a topic for discussion in Dharma groups: How should my Buddhist friend most compassionately reply to her racist correspondent?

Thank you

Dh.D.J. Brazier
August 2000