Dharma, Color, and Culture:
New Voices in Western Buddhism

Edited by Hilda Gutiérrez Baldoquin

Parallax Press, 2004

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In this book Reverend Hilda Gutiérrez Baldoquin, a Cuban-born Soto Zen priest, offers us a rare anthology of shared insights into the Four Noble Truths written by “a community of Native American, African, African American, Asian, and Latina/o heritage teachers, practitioners, and lovers of the dharma.”

In the foreword, Kamala Masters writes, “Siddharta Gautama, who became Shakyamuni Buddha, was a person of color living in the north of India. In the centuries after his death, the seeds of the Buddhadharma took root in the hearts of many people of color as it migrated to Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and Vietnam. The dharma is coming full circle. It is coming back to the ears, hearts, and hands of people of color, where it began many centuries and generations ago…” Thus the stage is set for the many unfoldings of this exquisite and longawaited volume.

The twenty five essays gathered here are divided into five sections – the teachings of the Four Noble Truths and what Reverend Baldoquin calls “the fifth truth, the truth of Bringing the Teachings Home.” Each essay offers a glimpse into the experiences of people of color from various Buddhist traditions as they walk, and at times struggle, on the path to realize the freedom from suffering the Buddha said was possible in this very life. Those experiences are at times ones of great joy and awakening, and also ones that often bring one face to face with the “pain of invisibility and exclusion.” And face to face with the years of deep conditioning we carry with us, whether in the classroom, the market or the meditation hall.

When Sala Steinbach writes in her brief and moving essay The Stories I Live With, “When I came to Green Gulch Farm Zen Center on Sundays for a year and no one spoke to me, I wondered if maybe I wasn’t wanted,” I can’t help but recall my own initial meditation retreat experiences in California in the late 80s and early 90s – being the only brother in the room. She continues, “Sitting in meditation helped me acknowledge that painful thought. It also helped me see that that wasn’t all I was. I didn’t have to hold on so tightly to the feeling of being unwanted. If that was all I was, and I knew it wasn’t, then maybe that wasn’t all there was to the people around me either. In sitting, I can bow to the whole human being in myself and in all of us.”

Dharma, Color, and Culture is like a large box that has many smaller boxes hidden inside. When you open one, you are presented with yet another. With each succeeding essay, we are offered yet another inspiring gift, another bright and shining light that illuminates the path to peace and an end to suffering.

As Rosa Zubizarreta writes in her essay How Can I Be A Buddhist If I Don’t Like To Sit?, “I hope you will discover your own forms of practice, in whatever way helps you connect with the Buddha nature in all beings, in whatever way helps you understand the dharma inherent in all living beings, and in whatever way helps us all to realize our profound interconnectedness. Our lives depend on it.”

Whether or not you consider yourself a person of color, you should read this book.

 -- Reviewed by Rodney Johnson