Meeting Suffering with Curiosity

In my first “Theories of Social Work” class in grad school, my professor declared confidently that Mindfulness is not a Buddhist practice but a western therapeutic invention and, therefore, does not put us at risk of cultural appropriation in its use. From my seat I could identify the bumpy-ride feeling of “something’s not quite right”, the Dukkha (suffering/unsatisfactoriness) of cultural erasure.

This feeling, as always, pairs with the uncertainty of my own expertise. As a white, Western Buddhist convert, I don’t want to overstep or claim competency when I might lack it. Buddhism is a diaspora, afterall, what do I really know? The feeling persisted as I thought about my vows, my work as a priest candidate, and my wish to be a steward for this tradition.

One of the lovely qualities of Dukkha is the way it can encourage us to get curious about feelings and to learn more about the world around us.

After class I met with my professor. I cited the Satipantthana Sutta and a 2022 article penned by Dr. Goto-Jones, which weighs many of the complexities of the Mindfulness Movement. I talked about how Dr. Kabat-Zinn (creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction - MBSR) took a “melting pot” approach to Mindfulness to explicitly remove Asian elements and make it more palatable to Americans. We agreed to help keep each other accountable, to stay in conversation. Just because anti-Asian whitewashing happened in this profession, in this practice, in this country, doesn’t mean we need to keep doing it. We can get curious, learn more, and take appropriate action.

By Yūgen Haley Webb, Priest Candidate at Clouds in Water