LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
HUFFINGTON
03.17.13
In
Pursuit of
Harmony
his week’s issue
of Huffington features
two stories on how
the urge to lead less
stressful and more mindful lives is
colliding with the real world.
Jaweed Kaleem shines a light on
how race and efforts to diversify
have affected the two-millionstrong Buddhist movement in the
U.S. Reporting from Seattle, “a
city both known for its liberal culture and its segregated populace,”
Kaleem takes us inside the challenge of diversifying a tradition in
which “the aim is to be one with
the wider spiritual world in the
pursuit of harmony, and ideally,
that includes going beyond skin
color differences.”
In the U.S., Buddhists break
down roughly into two groups.
Asian-American Buddhists, who
make up the majority, place little
emphasis on meditation, unlike
ART STREIBER
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the white converts, who comprise
about a third of the group. “With
a few exceptions, the two groups
— mostly Asians and whites — do
not mix,” Kaleem writes. “One
of the main reasons is that while
they may share a common name
for their faith, their practices are
often foreign to each other.”
He introduces us to Tuere Sala,
who grew up in public housing
projects and is now a teacher at
Seattle’s Insight Meditation Society. She wants to diversify the
movement, but because many
people of color don’t feel welcome
in the largely white meditation
groups, she leads entirely nonwhite sessions. “Are they separatists?” Kaleem asks. “Or are they
expanding the practice?” The an-
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