Also American Buddhist
By Kevin Shen | He/him/his | Grew up with Tzu-Chi, now in Southern California and with dear friends in Dharma Seal temple
The many faces of sitting Buddhas on the walls of Ajanta, the caves of Maharashtra, India.
With the summer heat shimmering outside, my sister and I sit in the shade of the garage, surrounded by a sea of boxes. Almost every scrap of paper we had produced since pre-school is in those boxes. We uncover a lot of things in those papers. Memories that had been long-forgotten in the recesses of my mind. Notes exchanged between friends in class (this was the age when texting was literally exchanging pieces of paper). A biography written by my first grade class about me: "Kevin likes eating rice" (guess what: I still do and even wrote an elementary school essay about it). Some things I have no recollection of: apparently I loved drawing penguins in the second grade.
But perhaps the most fascinating to me is a piece of paper from around the 9th grade where I had scribbled, "I am Buddhist, eccentric, misunderstood, Asian, ..." Buddhist wasn't buried in the middle of the list, but the very first word I claimed for myself.
I was shocked, because up until a few months before that summer day sifting through papers in the garage, I actually didn't remember the last time I consciously identified as Buddhist. I'd go to temple, do Buddhist things, knew that Buddhism has had an irrevocable influence in my being and way of seeing the world, but I hadn't felt the need to identify as such for years.
Like many of the readers here, I have recently been engaging with what it means to be Buddhist, what it means to say, "I am Buddhist," and what this means for how we relate to one another. And I am sure that for many, events like "May We Gather" and Chenxin Han's book "Be the Refuge" have opened our eyes to the presence and potential of the broader Asian American Buddhist sangha.
But along with this re-awakening of my Asian American Buddhist identity that I had boldly declared back in the 9th grade but forgotten somewhere along the way, comes an awareness of the many greater tensions that come along with this identity and history. Japanese internment was nearly 80 years ago, Rev. Ryo Imamura's (unpublished) letter to Tricycle was 30 years ago, and Dr. Funie Hsu's "We've been here all along" in Lion's Roar was 5 years ago. Yet a lot of the same resistances and biases against recognizing Asian American Buddhists as American still persist in discussions that I continue to witness today.
Some of these discussions can be toxic and filled with vitriol, but what I find fascinating are the shortcomings and dissonances of how we talk about Buddhist identity, even among well-meaning people free of malice and ill-intent. For example, before learning of the long history of Buddhism in America and reading "Be The Refuge," it had never even occurred to me to identify my parents' volunteer work with Tzu-Chi as a facet of the multicultural phenomenon of American Buddhism writ large. Similarly, in a YBE book club we quickly realized that our language was inadequate – we kept using the phrase "Western Buddhism" as a boogeyman, a catch all to describe problems we saw in Buddhism around us, but was this usage not itself alienating and reinforcing barriers between ourselves and our home in the West?1
I am reminded of Nalika's piece in Lion's Roar on the responsibility of “cultural baggage". There is responsibility to our community, but also accountability for the history and consequences of the actions of our community. It is easy to say, "that is not real Buddhism," or to put ourselves in opposition to "Western Buddhism," to absolve ourselves of responsibility, to use language to demarcate lines between purity and impurity, and to distance ourselves from aspects of the messy reality of Buddhism as practiced. But maybe we can’t run from the mess forever.
After telling a friend about my 9th grade declaration of my identity, she asked what kind of Buddhist I identify as now. There are the standard categorizations. Taiwanese humanist. 1.5 generation. Asian American. To be overly specific, in the age of Covid I joked that I am an English-language-dominant internet Buddhist.2
To be bolder, perhaps I should answer the calls for a more holistic understanding of “American Buddhist” history and declare, "I am American Buddhist." For many of us who have made America and the West our home, and already strive to make it more compassionate and inclusive, this should be a natural act of reclaiming language and responsibility. Of reclaiming the role, for example, my parents and many of our ancestors have played in shaping Buddhism in America.
However, I can grasp a bit of the unintended resistances that such a declaration might engender in both myself and others. For one, to claim “American Buddhism” means I would not have a clean slate and would have to confront the cultural "baggage" and history of how Buddhism has been appropriated in the West. I would have to face questions of my role in and responsibility to this history.
For better or for worse, it is simply not how many people think of the words "American Buddhist" or "Western Buddhist." More pointedly, someone else might look at me and think, "If you are American Buddhist, but you don't look like me, don't practice like me, then what am I?" The simple fact that until recently even I hadn’t labeled my parents nor myself as “American Buddhist” shows these same unconscious semantic divisions lived (and still live) within me as well. I imagine I am not alone when I say that my mind, probably unconsciously, looked at self-identified Western Buddhists and said to myself, "If you are American Buddhist, but don’t look or practice like anything I grew up with, then what am I?"3
The correct response, of course, to this common feeling of alienation when someone doubts their own identity upon seeing another's innocent celebration of theirs, would be to reaffirm, "You are also American Buddhist." This is language that creates space and models inclusivity.
I propose, half in jest, to take this further in practicing a new kind of identity: the Also-identity with a capital A. "I am Also American Buddhist." "YOU are Also American Buddhist." It channels the boldness of reclaiming the space and responsibilities of an identity many of us may feel alienated from. Yet it is also gentler: at least for me, it short-circuits instincts of both othering and feeling othered. It affirms without denying. It is an identity that immediately invites others in. It is tongue in cheek: it is simultaneously meaningless on its own (what exactly does it mean to be Also?4) and yet it also points the imagination to a larger, more inclusive vision (what/who are we Also with?). It explicitly models the Buddhist idea of interdependence: things do not have independent existence, not even identities. It creates space for diversity without being monolithic. This is no doubt just a small piece of the larger conversation, but I wonder if such an approach can also encourage the opening of hearts and imaginations
I understand that people have an intense urge to classify, categorize, and delineate the world, so the "Also" identity may not be functional for those purposes and may not survive as a rallying cry for openness. It can even be a scary identity – it is vulnerable and explicitly opens one’s identity to redefinition by unimagined people. But I do think it is a useful starting point for compassionate contemplation. And who knows? If enough of us use and remind ourselves of it, perhaps we can create space for diversity and compassion, and let down our arms.
So, if you ask me now, what am I? I am Also Western Buddhist. I am Also American Buddhist. I am Also Buddhist. I am Also.
1There are a series of great posts from a decade ago that touch on history, usefulness, and the inadequacy of the phrase "Western Buddhism": https://dharmafolk.wordpress.com/tag/western-buddhism/ In our discussion, we speculated when and where “pop Buddhism” might be a more apt description.
2Perhaps I can call myself a 21st century Buddhist? Of course, not in a way that implies the 21st century is more modern and better, but simply reflecting the fact that these are the times that shape me.2
3This is the unfortunate reality of having too few words to describe an infinitely rich and complex world.
4In this sentence “Also” explicitly models interdependence. “Also” is free of intrinsic, independent meaning, existence and essence.
