Colors of Compassion: Healing Our Families, Building True Community

A People of Color retreat at Deer Park Monastery
Sept 14th -- 18th, 2005

Nearly two-hundred people attended this second retreat offered for people of color. Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and a small number of European American family members of people of color all came together to be peace, to practice resting and calming, and to look deeply to transform their suffering.

Many people expressed how happy they were to have a retreat specifically for people of color. In their every day life, they interact with family members, friends, and co-workers who are people of color, but often in Buddhist sanghas or other communities of practice that they frequent, they are the lone person of color. It was very important and very healing for them to be around other people of color who also practice mindfulness.

I personally benefitted from simply being together with all the different practitioners who attended the retreat. Most of our large retreats are very predominantly European American—it seems less than five percent are people of color. While the retreats are very powerful and transformative for many people, I always feel something is missing because a whole segment of the population is invisible. Offering a retreat for people of color acknowledges the reality of suffering and discrimination that these underrepresented groups face and gives them a safe place to open up and heal.

I also see it as an important step in helping our general retreats become more inclusive. As more people of color come to the practice, they will feel more comfortable coming to the general retreats. When more people of color are present, new people of color will feel more comfortable attending.

For Buddhism to really make a difference in our society, we cannot afford to be blind to the suffering of racism and discrimination. This is as important an issue for people of color as it is for European Americans. Applying the Dharma to untie the knots of prejudice and racial ignorance is a crucial practice for people of all races. And though the Colors of Compassion retreat focuses on the experience of people of color, I see it as a critical step in healing racism in our society as a whole.

Registration began Wednesday afternoon. Norman, our administrative assistant, very thoughtfully bought several gospel music CD’s (Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland) to play softly in the registration office, to help people feel at home as soon as they arrived. A couple people turned their heads as they were filling out their registration forms, "Is that Mahalia Jackson?…Wow! Nice surprise!" After orientation Wednesday night, we separated into families—the smaller groups we would gather in for Dharma Discussion as well as working meditation. There were family names like Meditative Mole, Serene Succotash, Gumbo Goodness and Suds of Soul in honor of the cultural diversity at the retreat.

Thursday we began the day with sitting meditation and walking in silence outdoors with Thay. After breakfast, Thay gave a dharma talk about the importance of letting go, especially not being attached to our suffering. On Friday, we hiked up the mountain in the early morning, to enjoy sitting and breakfast with the sky. During the dharma talk, Thay went on to share about collective karma and the importance of the environment that we live in. He spoke of the need to transform the violence in our communities. He stressed the importance of mindful consumption, and coming together with others in our communities to protect ourselves through right consumption of cultural items like movies, music, magazines, etc. He said we must work together to do this. Although anger is a powerful source of energy, he said that brotherhood and sisterhood are an even stronger kind of energy that can continually refresh us and prevent us from burnout. In fact, he emphasized that brotherhood and sisterhood are enlightenment. That enlightenment, Buddhahood, cannot be found outside of this profound commitment to each other, to waking up together.

On Saturday, in the question and answer session, someone asked about how to honor our particular ethnic identity but not become overly attached to it. Thay shared we have to love ourselves and learn to find the beauties in our own heritage and still remain open to the many gems in other traditions and cultures. He expressed that it is more accurate to speak in terms of culture rather than race, because of the many ways this concept has been misunderstood and misused.

That same afternoon, we enjoyed a multi-media arts extravaganza, which included coloring in a mural together on the side of two dorm buildings. Beforehand we asked everyone to write on colored cards what true community meant to them. These were fixed to the surface of the mural before we began coloring. Some of the images in the mural were taken from the retreat itself—retreatants doing walking meditation the previous morning, a monk and a young child playing, etc. A staff member played the guitar and sang as retreatants colored the images with pastels, wrote and drew in sketch books on the topic of true community and created shapes out of modelling clay. It was so much fun! Many retreatants reflected on how this collective event was refreshing and surprising—it brought more joy and lightness to the retreat.

We continued the celebration that evening with a Be-in: a chance for individuals and family groups to share a song, poem, or dance with the whole Sangha. What a delight! We had the great fortune to be offered a traditional Korean harvest song, a moving gospel song, Native American chants, an improvised reggae prayer for unity, and so much more! The children did a very funny and meaningful play based on a Jataka tale of the Buddha and his friends in his previous life as a deer. Everyone was so filled with joy and contentment, the evening could have gone on and on…but we had to wake up early the next morning for the Five Mindfulness Trainings Transmission. That next morning, it seemed as if at least half of the retreatants received the Trainings. It was a very beautiful sight.

At the end of Thay’s final Dharma talk on Sunday, several retreatants came up to express their gratitude to Thay and share what they had learned during the retreat. A Japanese-Korean American woman told us that the retreat helped her let go of the suffering of alienation-- her personal suffering and that of her ancestors. A young African American man spoke of learning to accept the gift of sangha and move beyond the fear of opening up to others. He also shared the retreat was a healing and safe environment to recover from a painful breakup. A Latino man shared his joy of being able to attend the retreat with his teenage son and how everyone at the retreat was helping him to be a better father. Lastly, an African American lay Dharma teacher confided that the retreat put him in touch with how much hope he had lost and enabled him to regain this hope in our society and our future.

The retreat was a beautiful experience of brotherhood and sisterhood and we all learned a great deal from it. It is my hope that we will be able to offer a retreat for people of color every year because the need is so great. I am so grateful to Thay and the Sangha for offering such retreats for the benefit of all beings.

Sister Jewel (Chau Nghiem)