Note to my Sundance Community: On the end of this talk I sing one of our songs. I felt called to sing the song in this spiritual context and to ease the people for the evening. There was a Native man there and once I began singing I saw him bow and feel into his song. I ask that you and the ancestors forgive me if you see it as a misuse of that prayer. Love to you all.
Thank you Zenju. I love how you are mindful of the possibility of appropriation and/or of certain people receiving what you offered as potentially culturally offensive. Thank you for your continuing mindfulness around so many issues, as well as constantly engaging in what I’d consider a ‘decolonizing’ practice of the Buddhadharma. By this, I mean that a lot of American Buddhist and sanghas are still very much underpinned by legacies of colonialism that most are unconsciously reproducing… such as not acknowledging the realities of cultural appropriation and how it can be hurtful towards descendants of the colonized. Once again, thank you for your sharing…