Post #4449882

Over the decades I've been a tattooed white guy practicing Vajrayana from the Himalayan region as both a householder yogin and then a divorced monastic practitioner, I have encountered outright racism and seemingly widespread normalization of the ignorant belief that westerners are somehow incapable of genuinely practicing Vajrayana and are fundamentally inferior to people who are ethnically Tibetan, Bhutanese, Indian or Nepali. Buddhanature has no race or nationality. Vajrayana was imported into Tibet and Bhutan. It took time for "Tibetan Buddhism" to develop. It'll take time for a natively Canadian sect or lineage to develop and I hope we can do it without patriarchal power structures and negative cultural nonsense like being intolerant of lgbtq+ folks and racism. We need Canadian dharma communities and Canadian sangha. So, be supportive of non-Asian Canadian lamas, monks and nuns. They aren't inferior. Buddha wasn't Tibetan. You don't have to be reborn as a Tibetan or Bhutanese to attain enlightenment.