Jan Willis, "Decision Time: A 'Piece' or Peace?", "This, too, is Buddha's Mind," and "My Great Seal Retreat," Selections from Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Buddhist Journey

While completing her bachelor's degree in philosophy at Cornell University in the 1960s, Jan Willis found herself pulled in two directions: on the one hand, having lived in fear of the Ku Klux Klan where she grew up in Alabama, she was drawn to the revolutionary politics of the Black Panthers; on the other hand, after traveling to Nepal in her junior year, she was taken with the possibility of learning more about Tibetan Buddhism. How does one decide which values to embrace? How does one decide which tradition to claim as one's own? How does one decide between becoming a Black Panther or a Buddhist? These are the questions that have animated Willis's life, and they are the questions that are at the heart of her most recent book, Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey (2001). The book began appearing in paper in February 2002 as Dreaming Me: From Baptist to Buddhist, One Woman's Spiritual Journey.

Having resolved in the end to follow the contemplative path, Willis returned to a monastery in Nepal, where she found herself the only woman among sixty monks being trained in Tibetan Buddhism. And now, some thirty years later, after completing her doctorate at Columbia in Indic and Buddhist Studies, Willis is a professor of religion and the Walter A. Crowell Professor of the Social Sciences at Wesleyan university. As a scholar and as a practitioner, Willis has committed herself to making the value of Buddhism more evident to people of all races. As the passages from Dreaming Me included here demonstrate, Willis believes that this spiritual practice has much to offer those who seek peace in troubled times, particularly African Americans trying to find relief from the despair and rage that are the legacy of slavery in the United States. Willis remains attracted to the contemplative life because, as she puts it, "Buddhism is a come-and-see model. Meditation is the path. You don't have to accept dogma. You have to spend time on the cushion."

Willis, Jan. Dreaming Me: An African-American Buddhist Journey. (Riverhead Books, 2001.)
Digital image drawn from Jan Willis' home page at Wesleyan University.
Biographical information from Nadya Labi, "Of Color and The Cushion," Time.Com Spiritual Innovators Series and Jan Willis' home page at Wesleyan University.
Quotation from Of Color and The Cushion.

Links to Explore:

Dharma 101: Tricycle Magazine's introduction to Buddhism for beginners.

The Black Panthers' home page: includes links to the Panthers' Ten Point Program and a statement regarding the "New Black Panthers."

Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: homepage for Jan Willis' spiritual teacher, includes links to his biography and a description of his subsequent reincarnation.

Questions for Learning:

• In The Spiritual Journey of Jan Willis, Willis says that, however nation-states respond to the threat of terrorism, what we as individuals "can and must do, I think, is begin with ourselves, first by disarming our own hearts, then by looking deeply into the causes of hatred, and then by seeking to build bridges." What would it mean to "disarm" one's heart? Do you think that a program, such as Willis' Transforming Prejudice Workshops, can lead to such disarmament?
  
  
• Dharma 101 provides an introduction to Buddhism for beginners. How does this introduction compare with the introduction that Willis provides? What is the goal of Dharma 101? Could such a course of instruction be provided by a university? Could it become a required course, like Expository Writing?
  
  
• Willis describes the attraction that the Black Panthers had for her when she was going to college in the late sixties. What is the mission of the Black Panthers now? Has their revolutionary mission changed since Willis' involvement with the party?
  
  
• Willis has described a spiritual journey in Dreaming Me. The biography and the autobiography included in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive make it clear that this spiritual journey makes possible another kind of travel altogether. What does it mean to be reincarnated? What do you think of this idea? What is the relationship between your understanding of what happens when after death and your own beliefs about how to live a good life?
  

Questions for Connecting:

• Eric Schlosser is interested in a shift in consciousness that is rather different from the one Willis describes: in "Global Realization," he tracks the successful spread of McDonald's around the world and the economic, social, legal, and medical consequences this has had. Is globalization a practice that is akin to Willis' spiritual practice? Does meditation react against or reinforce the powers of globalization? Are the end results of these practices similar?
  

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