Katherine King's Articles on Lion's Roar

Katherine King reviews Spacious Minds: Trauma and Resilience in Tibetan Buddhism by Sara E. Lewis. Buddhism in the West is having a difficult time. With allegations of misconduct made against teachers in several of our communities, there is now widespread disillusionment and organizational chaos. Of course, similar problems exist in other faith traditions, and the #MeToo movement has been revealing these issues throughout all levels of society. Many of us are experiencing personal spiritual crises and grappling with the reemergence of pain from past traumas, oppression, and other abuses of power to which we’ve been subjected. For those in positions of privilege and seats of power, the challenge has been to listen and acknowledge that others have been suffering. We are at a cultural moment at which collective awareness of trauma is higher than ever. Survivors and their allies are demanding to be heard and calling for meaningful institutional transformation. Trauma-informed care is increasingly expected, and leaders are challenged to create new organizational structures and systems of accountability that are just and fair, particularly for those most vulnerable. In spite of this lotus blossoming out of the mud, Western Buddhists remain confused. Individuals and organizations alike are trying to figure out what trauma is, who decides, and what can and should be done about it individually and collectively. There is a desire to apply Buddhist beliefs and practices in ways that are beneficial; there is also the very real danger of inadvertently falling victim to spiritual bypassing. In this context, Spacious Minds: Trauma and Resilience in Tibetan Buddhism, by Sara Lewis, arrives at just the right moment. In the Tibetan culture described by Lewis, compassion is not just a vague moral imperative. Rather, it’s a pragmatic skill to transform the experience of suffering. The result of a decade’s work, Lewis’ book reports the results of her anthropological research living within the Tibetan exile community in Dharamsala. She reminds us of the plight of the Tibetan diaspora and illuminates how ordinary Tibetans apply Buddhism amid tremendous suffering and widespread personal and collective trauma. Although she offers few words directly to Western Buddhists about our current challenges, relevant applications appear throughout. As a psychological anthropologist and clinical social worker, she handles these topics with intellectual sophistication, nuance, and sensitivity. Lewis provides a brief cultural and political history of Tibet and reveals internal tensions that are often overlooked. She warns against idealization of the Tibetan people and reminds us they are a diverse community with diverse points of view. There are tensions between ethnic groups, generations, refugee communities, and those still living within China. Nonetheless, common assumptions rooted in a Buddhist worldview underlie even the most diverse points of view. The author explains how even Tibetans who aren’t particularly religious seem to share these core assumptions, much like how secular Westerners might nonetheless espouse values or beliefs that originate from the Christian tradition. Two such underlying assumptions the book explores in depth are karma and reincarnation. Many Western Buddhists hold these ideas lightly, if at all. We may wince when we hear Tibetans explain it is a person’s karma to be tortured, for fear of aligning with oppressive institutions or blaming the victim. Lewis emphasizes that this is not the experience of the Tibetans with whom she spoke. Instead, the view of karma, for them, provides meaning to suffering and seems to promote resilience. The explanatory model of karma and reincarnation also helps Tibetans contextualize harmful behavior in a way that seems to facilitate the generation of compassion—even for those who oppress them. It is harder to dehumanize or hate an abuser in a worldview that presupposes that the very fact you are in relation with one another means you had some prior connection in a past life (and likely will again in the future). Further, if one views being harmed as repayment of a karmic debt, then the pain itself can be accepted more readily and even transmuted into an experience of empowerment. Lewis shares numerous narratives providing evidence for this mindset, such as one individual who described thinking “it is my karma to stay in prison. This helped me to deal with suffering because I realized that I created it myself. Actually, I had a great opportunity to experience a lot of suffering, which meant I was purifying obscurations [karma]. Thinking like this, my mental problems gradually diminished.” Many readers will likely be struck by the differences between the Tibetan approach and their own or the one of their home culture, but Lewis herself does not engage in comparison, nor does she ever suggest one approach is better than the other. Instead, Lewis challenges us to inhabit another way of viewing the world, and in particular a Buddhist-informed way of making sense of hardship. Lewis draws a connection between these coping strategies and Buddhist teachings such as the six paramitas, stating, “The training in the six perfections is meant to take place ‘on the ground,’ so to speak, meaning in everyday situations. This is what people mean when they talk about taking adversity on the path … Monks and nuns in Dharamsala talk explicitly about using the six paramitas to cope with adversity. Laypeople do not necessarily use this term by name (although some do), but many of the ‘perfections’ such as generosity and discipline form the bedrock of how Tibetans cope with adversity in life.” Spacious Minds demonstrates that the cultivation of virtuous qualities can be transformative when approached without the self-aggression common to Westerners who are trying to “fix” themselves. Although the author observed a “fake-it-till-you-make-it” quality among some Tibetans, she also noticed that this approach seemed to be working for them. While many in the West may feel invalidated by a comment such as “It’s not so bad” or “Think of those who have it worse,” in Tibet such comments seem to function as useful reminders to train one’s mind, to cultivate a more flexible point of view, and to not become too fixed on a single narrative with oneself at the center. These strategies largely derive from lojong, or mind training, which is of central importance to the Tibetan Buddhist approach to working with trauma and suffering. In the West, lojong is best known as a series of pithy contemplations used to steer the mind toward teachings of compassion and emptiness. Ordinary Tibetans do not necessarily contemplate lojong slogans every day. Rather, lojong’s underlying assumption that the mind is fundamentally workable has become a central component of the Tibetan worldview. The teachings on emptiness contained within lojong also become a useful tool in times of difficulty. By relating more fluidly to both the idea of a “self” and the mind, individuals focus less on their experiences or memories of personal harm—and less on the need for personal healing afterward. Instead, Lewis writes, “when Tibetans find themselves in difficult circumstances, they argue that one should actually take the focus off of the self to skillfully cope with the problem. They should contemplate emptiness and impermanence to recognize that fundamentally the self is an illusion.” In stark contrast to the Western psychotherapeutic assumptions that self-improvement and sharing trauma narratives are inherently healing, Tibetans cultivate sems pa chen po—a spacious, flexible mind—which is “an approach for meeting life’s inevitable problems with openness, humor, and compassion.” Instead of an ideology of self-care, focusing on managing stress through attention and nurturance of the self, Lewis writes that “the perspective in Dharamsala is much more radical in that it delegitimizes the utility of hanging on to the stress (no matter how great) in the first place.” In the Tibetan culture described by Lewis, compassion is also not just a vague moral imperative. Rather, it’s a pragmatic skill to transform the experience of suffering. In a vivid example, the author recounts the story of a nun who described feeling compassion for all rape victims when she herself was being assaulted. By such a radical change in view, her suffering connected her to a vast web of shared human hardship. Lewis does not share this example as something to which others should aspire, but nor does she invalidate or dismiss it. As a social scientist sharing what she has observed, her approach remains curious, neutral, and informative. Lewis also follows the tradition of participant–observer research by discussing her own impressions and interactions with community members. After a woman whom she calls Dolma encouraged her to be equanimous when she complained of how she was treated at the visa office, Lewis explains “at the outset I looked at the Buddhist concept of equanimity with some skepticism and long wondered if this were not some kind of internalized oppression. But Dolma’s usage of equanimity did not sound at all like floating on a tranquil lake or a denial of emotion. This kind of btang snyom [equanimity] was more engaged, active, and intentional. It was a way of refusing to be dragged down—an unwillingness to pick up that ball of negative emotions.” It’s easy to hear these stories and assume such anecdotes must be rare and the individuals extraordinary. However, the author makes a strong case that these qualities exist throughout Tibetan society. As she states, “Tibetans do not always think about others; they are not always content. But a cultural understanding of what one ought to do in the face of suffering (cultivate compassion, reflect on emptiness) guides their recovery.” Spacious Minds explores whether this approach may be a subtle form of internalized oppression. Lewis...

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