Speak Yourself: Healing in Asian and Buddhist Refuge

By HYYH | She/Her/Hers | New York

I traveled through Asia and spent the time getting to know the locals in what became a cultural immersion experience in multiple Asian countries. We connected and enjoyed the friendship, companionship, and community. When I returned to America, I realized that I was disconnected from the Asian American community. We are familiar with the common saying and experience of “not being Asian enough to be Asian or American enough to be American.” This is why I felt disconnected from my own community in America, even though the opposite was the case with the people I came to know in the continent of Asia. Suddenly, the words “people of color” and “BIPOC” were everywhere in America and overused.

To be labeled as a “POC” made me feel invisible and dismisses the bicultural and transnational experiences and history of being Asian and American. Moreover, I was disconnected from the larger Asian American Buddhist family.

Issues around identity showed up like someone knocking loudly on my door in May of 2020. The desire for connection with Asian Americans peaked at this time when I watched the 5-hour documentary on PBS called Asian America. Agust D released Daechwita. Global BTS fans from diverse cultures around the world quickly translated the Korean song within 24 hours to several languages and everyone shared all the educational information around the Korean tradition of daechwita. Then, the murder of George Floyd ignited an unprecedented global protest. There was much to contemplate on with these three events.

Later in 2020, I was in my own quiet space watching in disbelief as the mayor of Los Angeles apologized on TV for the harm that European Americans systemically brought on to all the racial and cultural groups in American history. I never knew how much of the racism, inequities, aggressions against Asians, and acculturation were stored in the history of my body until I shed tears in the moment of hearing the apology that may or may not have been sincere.

During the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in media coverage of the anti-Asian hate crimes in February and March of 2021, I found myself wanting to stretch further and connect with the Asian American community beyond my personal space. The Atlanta murders in March 2021 reminded me how European American men hypersexualized Asian women as part of the twisted psyche in demasculating Asian men. One of the early signs of demasculating Asian American men came from the treatment of Chinese laborers in the 1800s when they were viewed as an economic threat. When Amanda Nguyen’s video on anti-Asian violence and killings went viral, I and many other Asian Americans sent messages to media platforms to cover our stories. Amanda Nguyen is a civil rights activist and founder and CEO of Rise who was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. I watched Lee Mun Wah share his story with racism and clips from his films The Color of Fear and If These Halls Could Talk. The people in the films spoke the language that I couldn’t access from inside myself to air out hurt and anger. March was a particularly challenging month for my mental health, which was made worse by the Atlanta murders as I bore witness to the pain of Asians. I don’t remember smiling the entire month. Meditation was difficult. I had been joining a healing group for Asian Americans to air out the challenges, share fears, and listen with care and compassion to the stories of my fellow Asian brothers and sisters.

It became more important to be together with the Asian American Buddhist community because I am a minority in my own ethnic group in America who are mostly Christian. But I did not know where they all gathered other than local centers and temples of a particular Buddhist tradition.

I was seeking a gathering of all Asian American Buddhists, not singular traditions.

While March was a challenging month for me, I felt a sense of connection when I learned about a talk called “Buddhism, Race, and American Belonging: An Asian American View.” This is how I learned about Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams. It was the first event that I heard Chenxing Han talk about her book Be the Refuge. In hindsight, I suppose that listening to Chenxing Han at online book events was a behavioral form of seeking refuge for healing as an Asian and Buddhist living in America.

It was now May of 2021. One year had quickly passed since I last watched the 5-hour documentary Asian America on PBS during the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May 2020. I cried during the opening of the May We Gather event. I cried because I was witnessing for the first time in America the beauty and colors of Asia and Buddhism merged into one – the robes of the male and female sangha, faces and language of our diverse Asian cultures and heritage, people of all races of Buddhism in America. This was the Buddhism and Asia that I’ve always felt in my heart. But I never saw this come together in all my life in America. I was in joyful tears listening to the Buddhist sangha speak and chant in several Asian languages, as well as Spanish and English. May 2020 was learning about Asian American history, most of which I did not know before.

May 2021 marked being united with the Asian American Buddhist community.

The running thread that brought me to the Asian American Buddhist community was Chenxing Han and Be the Refuge. I learned about the Be the Refuge retreat organized by the Young Buddhist Editorial because Chenxing Han was the facilitator. It was through the journey of learning more about the history of Asian American Buddhists, listening to intergenerational stories and personal historical accounts in Zoom spaces, and reflecting on how natural Buddhism is for me that I came to realize to be Asian and Buddhist are two sides of the same coin. For me, to be Asian is to be Buddhist and to be Buddhist is to be Asian. We come from diverse cultures and traditions as Asian American Buddhists, yet what bonds us together is the Buddha, refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and the Four Noble Truths. Everyone is my teacher. The knowledge and practices of my Buddhist tradition and lineage are enhanced by what I learn from listening to Asian American Buddhists share their views and experiences about the Dharma. I found safety, connection, belonging, communal awakening, and acceptance of all the complexities and cultural underpinnings of being Asian, American, and Buddhist through Asian Buddhist spaces, Be the Refuge retreat, and an Asian healing group.

The more I knew about Asian American history and the Asian Buddhist community, the more my confidence and voice strengthened, even when the sound of my words was the only Asian voice in a white or multicultural environment. Whenever I spoke in the past, I was a lone voice. Each time I speak now, I do not hear my own voice. Each time I speak now, such as for equity and inclusion issues, I feel like there is a wave of Asian Americans and Buddhist spiritual warriors standing behind me. Something is different now about being Asian, Buddhist, and American that I never felt before – a sense of noble, dignified, and Bodhisattva pride of being Asian and Buddhist.