Diversity Discussion

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Benally: How has diversity been a part of the vision of the school?

Carpenter: I think we struggled with diversity when it became a topic many years ago. The idea of “contemplative” being that reflective piece of us as human beings getting to know ourselves more deeply and opening our eyes to others in a different way, with empathy as opposed to sympathy, with a sense of relatedness or interconnectedness as opposed to that's really too bad that's happening to those people over there. The latter being a feeling you can get very easily from the media. What I saw was that we did have the concrete diversity issues here, which were very painful for some students to take in. They really wanted to come to a place where we were contemplative and could experience a sense of peace or a greater view of humanity. To really embrace the diversity issues was a real struggle for us because it challenged the inner workings of our own biases, and also challenged what I call, in the contemplative path, the absolute and relative truth. The absolute view which is "yes, all people suffer and I'm a compassionate person" and the relative is "how do they suffer and what are the means on the ground to engage that suffering and how can I be skillful in that?" What we're engaging is a really powerful skillful means in bringing the reflective aspect of a human being into a particular situation and being able to truly be present. I think this is how the union happens between diversity and contemplative—being really present with what's in front of you, whether it's a homeless person, mother with a child or an elderly person in the process of dying. It is that presence that allows us to surrender to the moment, be skillful and go beyond our fear of difference. I think these were parallel tracks with contemplative being kind of co-opted into the absolute, which separates us from society like Judith was saying, and the relative being so down in the trenches that it was overwhelming for beginning practitioners. What I'm discovering is the delight on this campus in that union happening between open heartedness and the real issues of diversity. My sense is that we should be leaders in the nation around diversity based on this powerful union, and I think we're heading in that direction.

Simmer-Brown: In the early years of Naropa, Rinpoche always had a strong sense that the dharma center is one thing and Naropa is another. The arena of Naropa was about diversity from the beginning. Rinpoche invited, from the very beginning, an incredibly diverse group of people together and said, "When East and West come together, then the sparks will fly" because that's what he wanted Naropa to be. Whether it was poets or people from different religious traditions or people from different psychological traditions coming together, his whole approach to Naropa was very distinctive as opposed to his approach in his own dharma center situations. I remember, in the early years, we were hiring a faculty member who wasn't a Buddhist for the Religious Studies department. I asked Rinpoche, "Is that a problem?" He said, "Well, we don't want to lay our trip on anyone." There was very much a sense that this is what Naropa is for. Naropa is about bringing all of the aspects of our world together and meeting and connecting and engaging, and the sparks that fly are part of the vitality of Naropa I have always loved.

Carpenter: Rinpoche had this tremendous curiosity about all aspects of life, all cultures, and the wisdom inherent in those cultures. Whatever aspects of a particular culture that invites people to wake up, connects them to their inherent basic goodness, and rouses their confidence to be in the world fully, he recognized. I think Naropa is an expression of the many ways in which we invite people to step into their lives. I think narrowing it down to one way would be going against the founding vision.

Simmer-Brown: And I think we're the ones that separated contemplative practice and diversity. I think we're actually getting closer to the original vision over time.

Giles: I think one of the things that's an ongoing challenge here at Naropa, and in the academy more generally, is the unavoidable truth that discourses about diversity exist within power structures. So there's this question always of who gets to decide whose perspectives are relevant to conversations about diversity. Who gets included in dialogue about diversity and who gets excluded? And that is something I hear a lot on campus: "Is my perspective relevant? Is it something that can be brought to the table? I have a disability ... but I'm white."...

Simmer-Brown: ..."I'm a Republican."

Giles: Yes; who gets to decide what diversity means and what sets of issues are meaningful and worth study and investigation?

Bye: I think one important interface between the two worlds—the local, contemplative view and the more public critical issues of diversity as they meet here—to go back to the teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche—is the experience of meeting fear. Discussion can stay at the level of politically correct discourse, but generally there's encouragement to regard the fear and rage that underlie it as something to look at, taste, feel and then examine. And the experience of fear arises so closely with issues of diversity that they're almost the same thing, the fear of something "other" and different than what one thinks oneself to be.

The diversity work began here about 11 or 12 years ago in a systematic way, and it came from students, and we've had various groups and bodies since then that have looked into it. One general criticism that has come up a lot in the last five or six years is that of our tendency at Naropa to avoid or suppress anger in the overall discussion on diversity. And I think part of the cause of this criticism is that we call ourselves a contemplative university, we are trying to find peace within ourselves and to make each other happy—we all want happiness—and that view might no seem to hold much interest or room for the expression of rage or outrage. But personally, some of the most powerful diversity situations I've been part of here, have happened in silence that followed an intense expression of rage, confusion or pain. In those moments, the ability of the room to hold and feel the intense discomfort that someone expressed personally has been notable, and helpful, I think, in the deepening of our understanding of diversity issues here. And though I’m sure such moments happen everywhere such discussions take place, the contemplative atmosphere at Naropa can allow that kind of attention to hold without anyone jumping in to help or provide a comeback or an answer immediately. And this has something to do with being able to face fear or taste fear, or to be with one’s mind in such moments.

Benally: How do you work with difficult and complex diversity subject matter in your classrooms? How do you balance the emotional and cognitive components of the learning process?

Canty: All of the classes that I teach have a strong diversity or even racism, oppression and injustice thread; and I actually give the students the frameworks for what they're actually going to be experiencing throughout the course. So one thing that I use is Bennett's Stages of Intercultural Sensitivity, showing them the stages of denial, defense, minimization, acceptance and integration and how they're going to go through that. And then through environmental studies, we're integrating that with injustice and looking at histories, integrating some of Joanna Macy's and different peoples' work around empowerment and dark emotions—which I hate that term, dark emotions, because it is biased through labeling dark as negative—putting up front that students are going to struggle with these issues and they are going to have to go into them—not only sit with them, but wrestle with them and engage with them, so it's not a shocking thing for students. I also bring up some of the trends of what might happen in terms of scapegoating, blaming and pushing things onto other people, either in the classroom, the teacher or in their lives.

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