CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A DREAM IS BORN

I’VE HEARD A LAKOTA PROPHECY, attributed to Crazy Horse, which says: I see a time of seven generations when all colors of mankind will gather under the sacred tree of life and the whole world will become one sacred circle again. We are the seventh generation. I feel blessed to be one of the founders of the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC), now known as one of the most diverse and welcoming Dharma centers in the United States.

Creating an urban meditation center focused on serving diverse, disenfranchised communities, accessible, radically inclusive and relying solely on generosity-based economics was a vision a group of us shared, and through a beautiful, collective effort, this dream came true. In 2007, we opened our doors on a street corner in downtown Oakland, and we continue to grow and thrive today. My heart knew a place like this was desperately needed, so I dedicated myself to making this vision happen. It took a lot of years, hard work, and heaps of faith, but all things are possible through love and compassion. Harriet Tubman once said that every great dream begins with a dreamer; always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

The East Bay Meditation Center is a do-it-yourself, community-based organization. A collective effort supported by many loving people, volunteers, and a small, dedicated staff keep EBMC going. Our doors are always open. We have classes, workshops, and day-long retreats 365 days a year. Beautiful groups gather every day for meditation practice and classes on wisdom and compassion. The walls are purple, with rainbow flags hanging in the windows. But what makes it most real is the community. Together we’ve made EBMC a spiritual home, a true refuge for thousands of people. Our Thursday night Sangha has been meeting for ten years. These Thursday nights are my soul food. We welcome newcomers as well as those who keep coming back. It always feels like a warm embrace. We laugh together and sometimes we cry; like a family, we support one another through hard times. We practice opening the heart and learning to be in the present moment. All teachings are provided with an open hand and an open heart. And beyond all else we see the innate wisdom in diversity; it’s something I have come to cherish above all else.

In the early days of my meditation journey, I traveled to retreat centers throughout the US. I loved the teachings and the practices, but I always felt like an outsider. Groups were almost a hundred percent white and consisted mostly of middle-aged people or seniors. All the teachers were white, mostly from upper middle class backgrounds. Consistently, I would walk into a room and be the youngest practitioner and the only person of color, and this would trigger a feeling in me that I was in a community I felt excluded from. The racism and pain I had experienced growing up would arise in me constantly during that time.

This lack of diversity was disheartening. I was unable to communicate my sorrow to the white Dharma teachers in a way they could understand. Some advised me to “be with my suffering,” others advised me to “let it go,” and a few just stared blankly. Without understanding my life experience, they weren’t able to advise me. I appreciated their responses in principle—being with suffering and letting go are worthwhile practices, but compassion was telling me to look more deeply, that I wasn’t truly getting the support I needed. I felt drawn to the teachings with my whole heart, but something was missing. Despite my passion and connection with the teachings, the pain in my heart persisted and I wondered if I’d be able to sustain this noble path while feeling so alone. I wanted to be part of an inclusive community that reflected the diversity of the world, and something in me was crying out for change.

After a while, I realized that if I wanted to be part of a beautiful, diverse Sangha, I’d need to help create it. We formed a small, dedicated group, and we made it happen. It felt like the medicine my heart had been needing, and sure enough, through the process of co-creating the East Bay Meditation Center, so much healing has happened. Gathering with people who look like me, I can allow in both the pain and the support of others who know the experience of racism, as well as sexism and homophobia. We now have a place for those who feel like outsiders, the voiceless who’ve never felt safe or truly at home in this world.

When we begin to practice meditation, our suffering and traumas begin to surface. The pain around racism, hatred, and discrimination goes deep, and to understand how it affects us takes understanding and compassion. As a woman of color, I understand the complexities all too well. When I was very young, my mother met a new man, and we moved from our tiny apartment in the ‘hood in LA to a middle-class suburb in Northern California. My mother desperately wanted a new life, to become successful, and achieve the American dream, and she felt her new boyfriend was the ticket. The separation from the vibrant community of my African American father was, for me, a severing of identity, culture, language, and pride, not unlike the native children taken from their homes and sent to boarding schools. Overnight my mother changed, no longer cherishing diversity. All she wanted now was for my sister and me to assimilate with white suburban America.

In the name of progress and in a sad attempt to fit into the dominant culture and adopt its values, something in me was torn. My mother’s intentions may have been noble—she wanted to give me the best education so I would have opportunities—but the price my spirit had to pay was high. I was enrolled in an elite, all-white elementary school an hour outside of San Francisco. The school was top-notch, and my classmates were very wealthy. I went from seeing all brown and black people to being the only person of color. My family and I never really fit in. We lived in rented homes and apartments and were always two or three months behind paying the rent. We never had money—I remember going with my mother to clean houses on the weekend to make ends meet. My mother lied about our addresses, our income, our status, everything was pretend. I didn’t have expensive clothes like the other kids; all my clothes were from a thrift store in a rich neighborhood.

I kept trying to fit in, but a strong sense of shame was setting in. At one point I even wanted to get a nose job and blue contact lenses. My classmates teased me about my hair and my brown legs, and every so often I was called a nigger. The worst racism was when I went to play at my friends’ homes; some parents didn’t want me around their children. The teachers were impatient and critical with me. I always got yelled at, and at one private school I was called into the principal’s office where he hit me repeatedly with a large ruler for no apparent reason. At the same school I was forced to stand facing a brick wall. I stood for so long that my legs fell asleep, and I collapsed crying. I did receive an excellent education, but the impact on my heart was deadly. I spent those years feeling deeply depressed and, although no one knew, suicidal.

At the age of ten I was ready to end it all. I went on a weeklong camping trip with my fourth-grade class. I was very depressed and didn’t want to go, but my mother forced me anyway. While we were out on a nature hike, one of the guides pointed to a plant with small, red berries and told us to be cautious because the berries were extremely poisonous and would cause rapid death. Soon after the hike, I went in search of the plant, and when I found it, I picked a handful of berries and came back to the dormitory to prepare myself. I wanted to pray before eating them.

As fate would have it, a sweet girl from another class came over to talk to me at that exact moment. She had a face like a fairy and a huge smile that comforted me. She spoke in this squeaky voice, and before long we were both laughing. She invited me outside, and then I realized that my hand was still clutching the berries. My palms were sweaty and it was becoming a mess, so I walked over to a tree and, with a long sigh, I let them go. My fairy friend stayed by my side the entire week, cheering me on and making me laugh. At the end of the week, we said our goodbyes and I never saw her again. I have no idea what prompted her to leave her class and join me, but I can only feel grateful. She arrived at the moment I needed a friend the most. The power of her angelic compassion still leaves me speechless with tears on my cheeks.

To make matters even more confusing, my mother had difficulty accepting that her children were half-black. At Christmas, we got white dolls and on our birthdays we got cards with little white children on them. My mother didn’t acknowledge that I was African American until I was in my twenties. The distance between us grew every day.

By the time I was thirteen, my mother and I were arguing constantly. On the surface we struggled about the same things as moms and daughters everywhere. But more deeply, we were always fighting about race, culture, and identity. I longed for the community I’d left behind and lost all interest in fitting into the world she was a part of. Finally, I refused to go to the school she’d chosen and began to make new friends. My mother had changed so much. She’d once been a free spirit, but now she was conservative and didn’t seem to have any sensitivity to what I was feeling. She made fun of the way I talked and couldn’t understand why I wanted to be around “poor people,” as she called my new friends. The funny thing was that we were the poor ones, living in a tiny apartment, barely getting by. Everything felt completely fake.

When I was fifteen, I decided to reclaim my life. I could no longer live with my mother and her abusive boyfriend. Separation from my African American self had been too painful for too long. Pride in being a brown woman invigorated me, and after a long separation from half of myself and communities of color, I moved back to Los Angeles to relearn how to be at home in my own skin. I had to rediscover who I was, so I could reclaim what had been lost. I felt sad leaving, but I knew I had to find my own path in life. I never lived with my mother after that; I was on my own.

To discover who I am, I went through the depths of hell. But it was all very important, and through it all, my interest in self-knowledge was unshakeable. As a teenager, I began studying psychology in order to treat my own depression. I read everything I could get my hands on to try to understand my mind. At twenty-three, I left Los Angeles and moved back to Oakland for good.

Issues of race, class, gender, and discrimination were not addressed at any of the meditation centers I encountered. No one ever talked about racism or diversity ever. It was a facet of the diamond left unpolished. I needed a practice that looked at everyone equally, that valued everyone’s Buddha nature and their life experiences. Only then could my inner and outer worlds transform together, addressing the oppression and self-hatred that arise from ignorance based on scapegoating and projection.

Creating a loving, inclusive community has been a healing process for me and not always easy. We had to do things differently. I had to adjust and grow; I couldn’t stay the same. The world we live in is changing. Values are changing, and an inclusive Dharma is needed for a global community that is colorful and diverse. On an absolute level, who we are doesn’t matter. But on the level of the heart, race, gender, and sexual orientation matter, and discrimination takes its toll. As I awoke to this pain in my heart, the need to create something new to heal my beloved community and myself got stronger and stronger.

What I’ve discovered is that diversity is a radical form of inclusivity. In diverse communities, we grow more, because we have to consider the needs of others. We all have internal hierarchies, lines identifying who we let in and who we don’t. Can we allow more and more people into our hearts? Diversity challenges these preferences and opinions and exposes our biases. As spiritual practitioners, we want to see our delusions so we can overcome them. One powerful delusion is that some of us are more valuable than others, that some are entitled to privileges that others are denied. Many well-meaning people are unaware of their biases. Our work is to shine light where there is darkness, not to perpetuate lies, even if it’s done unconsciously. My sadness became a river of compassion, and I was ready to act.

We envisioned EBMC as a place for communities of color, LGBTQ, and the many people who often feel left out and unwanted. I thought, “I’m an open person,” and then people came with chemical sensitivities and asked, “What about us?” Then people came and asked “Could we have a Spanish language group?” And I started to think, “I’m not sure we can fit everybody in.” Then someone asked, “Could there be a group for trans people?” I started to feel the barriers to my love. “I only can go so far.” But then I felt my heart expanding. “Yes, we can include all of you.” Diversity forced my heart to open more than I realized was possible. All these people were coming with different needs, “We have this and that special need, and we need EBMC to be accessible, so Spring, can you change this?” I would encounter yet another resistance in myself, and then I would melt it. “What do you need?” That would open my heart even more, and now I see that opening to others’ needs is a teaching, a tremendous gift—not as a place of conflict but as a place of learning and growth. Every new group needed us to change something so they could have a home at our center, and I got to see how I was clinging. It was painful, and liberating. “What about the person cleaning bathrooms in a hotel? How can I let them in my heart?” When we say we love all beings, what are we saying? When we practice these teachings, do we mean all beings, or the clique we have coffee with who are pretty much the same as us? Opening to diversity is a powerful teaching—not just as a noble ideal, but actually learning what it is to love all beings.

There’s something profound about widening your circle. What you learn from different people is a mirror. Einstein said, “Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”¹ The only way to do that is to engage. Every person I look at is a reflection of my own mind. What am I resisting now? What am I pushing away? What do I not want to look at? What do I want to close off to? Every time I open the door, I grow.

Diversity was also a challenge for the Buddha. In ancient India, and in present-day India, there was a deeply ingrained caste system. But within his monastic community, the Buddha treated all as equal. His whole diverse community was expected to live together in harmony. Those considered “untouchable” by society sat alongside kings and princes. It was a bold move, and he gave many teachings on equality.

It is said that a relative of the Buddha, someone accustomed to palace life, asked to join the monastic community. The Buddha told him, “I’m happy to ordain you, cousin. Show up at such-and-such a time and bring your robes.” All the monks wore the same type of robes, but his cousin came to his ordination with a fancy silk garment. “No, cousin. Here you are the same as every other person.” The Buddha also ordained women, which was extremely controversial at the time.

To heal fully, we must heal the places of separation within our hearts. We can use our own suffering to create a lifeline to help others. I believe that I experienced the suffering I did so that I could understand the challenges of both sides. Walking in different worlds is my way, coming in and out of communities, reweaving myself, shape shifting to meet the needs of each. It was part of my trial by fire to practice in non-diverse communities. The suffering that arose became a gift. Everything that hurts us can be transformed in the fire of compassion to create something new to alleviate suffering, not just for ourselves but for the benefit of all beings. We are moved to dedicate ourselves to something bigger. My gifts come from the places I’m the most wounded, and my joy comes from alleviating the suffering I feel in my own heart.

I travel all over the world teaching retreats and workshops and visiting communities. In my heart, the East Bay Meditation Center is my true spiritual home. Thank you, beautiful community, for joining me on this amazing journey! There isn’t enough darkness in all the world to snuff out the light of one little candle. We are that little candle and we will continue to shine brightly no matter how dark it gets. AHO!²

Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind,
Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.

Rest in natural great peace.

—NYOSHUL KHEN RINPOCHE