Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘One major category of anti-social justice Buddhists are those who claim to be apolitical while attacking left-wing positions often from a right-wing political perspective. We find Aaron Huertas’ s category of “reactionary centrism” useful here. Huertas defines a reactionary centrist as “someone who says they’re politically neutral, but who usually punches left while sympathizing with the right.” He describes reactionary centrism as an ideology that draws false equivalences between right- and left-wing positions in order to situate itself as the reasonable, balanced, and neutral center view. We align reactionary centrism with what we call “performative transcendence,” in which Buddhist practitioners denounce social justice initiatives while denying the social power imbalances such initiatives aim to address under the guise of a non-dual “no preferences” perspective. Performative transcendence functions, therefore, to simultaneously naturalize dominant social power hierarchies while marking challenges to such hierarchies political. Practitioners who engage in reactionary centrism or performative transcendence de-legitimate DEI Buddhist expressions as political rather than Buddhist and naturalize their own religio-political positions as Buddhist rather than political.

In the American context, the modern concept of the Buddha as an Aryan linked him racially and linguistically to Euro-Americans and helped fashion Buddhism as a scientific religion suitable for white converts. Joseph Cheah traces white supremacy in American convert Buddhism to this modernist racial articulation of Buddhism, which also rests on a distinction between an original “pure” canonical Buddhism and the latter cultural accretions of “superstitious” merit-making and ritual practices. Cheah traces how in the American context this resulted in the “two Buddhisms” typology, which positions white American convert Buddhists as practicing “real” Buddhism and Asian American heritage communities as practicing “cultural baggage” Buddhism.’ (from The Journal of Global Buddhism – I have taken out the reference notes from the original)

Obviously I am rather late to the game on this, but while I have been under the weather the past few days, I followed up on some threads, and was reading around this subject. I feel that it would be helpful that I restate my agreement with this expression and understanding, rather than taking my sympathy as understood. The next few Saturdays will also feature posts in this realm, intended to help other white folks investigate how these issues impact our life and our practice.