About Leslie Booker

Leslie Booker, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Pamela Ayo Yetunde, and Rima Vesely-Flad explore how the life and work of the Black, feminist, lesbian poet Audre Lorde serves as a gateway to the dharma and speaks to Buddhist practitioners. Pathology, Racism, and the Wisdom of Sangha. By Leslie Booker. When Audre Lorde was dying from metastasized breast cancer in the early 1990’s, she had already offered us the great gift of sharing her process of illness in The Cancer Journals in 1980. She wrote “I do not wish my anger and pain and fear about cancer to fossilize into yet another silence, nor to rob me of whatever strength can lie at the core of this experience, openly acknowledged and examined ... imposed silence about any area of our lives is a tool for separation and powerlessness.” Every time I read this quote, I see the complexity of it. Lorde speaks through the lens of her anger, her physical pain, the shame and blame of illness, and all that it was taking from her. Then she became curious about it all — the wisdom that was there to be found, and to come to the conclusion that she refuses to fall into the trappings of white supremacy tactics that separate and enable. She does so with the resolve to not succumb to the malevolence of the violence of illness. As a child, I had a very sanitized and protected view of illness. When our dogs became old and sick, they were quietly taken to the vet, and we were told later that “Snuggles had to be put down.” I had not been exposed to Lorde’s work yet, as I began my own journey with illness. Audre Lorde's writings are very similar to the Buddha’s teachings. They are universal and noble truths about suffering and the end of suffering. My first ovarian cyst appeared when I was about 12 or 13, so I wasn’t a stranger to pain once fibroid tumors began to grow in my late twenties, and the endometriosis appeared in my thirties. I hated the shift in my energy and my self esteem, and that it was invisible to the outside world who saw me navigating life through muscle memory.The way the tumors disfigured my body, depleted my red blood cells with their ferocious hunger, and how chronic anemia was now impacting my lung capacity, obscuring my vision, and creating extreme pain in my joints. Then there was the second arrow of this pain not being believed by overworked doctors who had been unconsciously educated to not believe the embodied wisdom of Queer / Black / Women. I have always winced when there was a reference to folks who have historically been oppressed and have survived great violence as resilient. Not because we are not, but because it allows some folks to forget that resilience does not mean the absence of harm, but rather our resilience is our response to the primal ache to survive. Lorde’s quote “Caring for myself is not self-indulgent, it is self-preservation; and that is political warfare” became my battle cry as I prepared for my radical hysterectomy in 2019. Again, the complexity of a Black / Queer / Woman to speak these words and to insist that her body was worth fighting for. I knew that I could not do this alone, and that it was a disservice to others who were living with disease and illness in their bodies, to pretend that I could. I could not get to that understanding, without the wisdom and reflections of kalyanamitta (spiritual friends), who sat with me through every doctor’s appointment. The writings of Audre Lorde are very similar to the Buddha’s teachings in that they are universal and noble truths about suffering and the end of suffering. These teachings transcend time, class, gender, and sexual orientation. They are rooted in the first paramis of generosity; the first teaching that is said the Buddha often gave as he believed only with a generous heart and mind could one truly understand the whole of the Dharma. They both offered teachings that were incredibly radical for the time, and I can feel the love and care for humanity, as they both put language to the internal struggles that come with being born into this precious human form. It gives a validation, and a reclamation of our dignity to be witnessed in our quest for collective liberation. My Gateway to the Buddhadharma. by Aishah Shahidah Simmons. I am a Black, feminist, lesbian survivor of childhood and adult sexual violence who found refuge in the buddha, dharma, and sangha twenty years ago. Decades before I took my first dip in the dharma ocean in 2002, Black feminism was my refuge. I never met the self-defined Black-Lesbian-Feminist-Mother-Warrior-Poet Audre Lorde in person, but her book, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, saved my life in 1990 when I read it for the first of countless times. I came to Lorde because I was suffering. I was afraid to live my authentic life as a Black feminist lesbian. Sister Outsider was an invitation and call to be fully embodied. I came to Buddhism because I was suffering. I was in search of spiritual tools in tandem with my Black feminist psychologist to help me navigate the terrain of childhood and adult sexual trauma. Vipassana meditation, taught by S.N. Goenka, quickly became a steadfast compass on my life’s journey. I compare my first reading of Sister Outsider in 1990 to my first 10-day Vipassana meditation course in 2002. Both experiences were seismic and paradigm-shifting. Lorde wrote frequently about impermanence in her poetry and prose. She was a breast cancer survivor who courageously wrote about her mastectomy and decision not to wear a breast prosthesis in her landmark, timeless book originally published in 1980, The Cancer Journals. In, "Today Is Not The Day," one of Lorde’s last poems written April 22, 1992, seven months before her November 17, 1992 continuation into another form and realm, Lorde acknowledges her death standing adjacent to her human life. I can’t just sit here staring death in her face blinking and asking for a new name by which to greet her I am not afraid to say unembellished I am dying but I do not want to do it looking the other way Today is not the day. It could be but it is not. How can I not think about the Buddhist impermanence chant when I read those stanzas in Lorde’s poem? All things are impermanent They arise and they pass away To be in harmony with this truth Brings great happiness Despite these undeniable examples of Lorde's relationality to dharma teachings, I retreated from investigating further. At the time, I wasn't in a close relationship with any dharma teachers who could help me expound on this further. Seeing and experiencing dharma through the lens of Black feminist writers, both queer and straight — especially those who weren't Buddhists — wasn't a reality I knew in the S.N. Goenka tradition. Everything came holistically full circle eight-years later when one of my dharma-sister-friends, Rima Vesely-Flad, invited me to co-create and co-teach our six-week Buddhism and Black Feminism course at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS). I re-read the Lokavipati Sutta, more commonly known as the Eight Worldly Winds. “Gain/Loss status/disgrace, censure/praise pleasure/pain These conditions among human beings are inconstant impermanent subject to change” I contemplated Lorde’s poem, "A Litany for Survival," excerpted “And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.” Over and over again, I felt Lorde’s radiant light serving as a portal to the dharma. Lorde’s prose and poetry have been compasses for me since 1990. Her writings are some of my sacred texts. In Summer and Fall of 2021, I experienced the connections between her profound wisdom and the depths of buddhadharma wisdom. I’m not talking about absolutes, but I am talking about parallels. Lorde is one of my gateways to a more profound understanding of the dharma. I had a deeply embodied experience of this knowledge when I taught her writings in tandem with Buddhist suttas. Parts of this reflection emerged from Aishah’s October 16, 2021 dharma talk, “Audre Lorde as a gateway to impermanence and the eight worldly winds,” in the Buddhism and Black Feminism course at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. It is excerpted from a more extended essay. Audre Lorde: Uncovering A Bodhisattva. By Pamela Ayo Yetunde. Buddhism is infused with the cultures it finds itself in, and that is also true of Buddhism in the African-American culture. Like many other Black folks in the U.S., our values, sensibilities , and aesthetics are formed long before Buddhism enters Black consciousness. This happens to be the case as it relates to the art and activism of African-American I Ching-inspired poet Audre Lorde and the emerging Black liberation-oriented Buddhism in the U.S. I was introduced to Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) in 1985, 26 years before I encountered Buddhism, but it was 30 years later that I began researching the psycho-spiritual lives of African-American lesbians in the Insight tradition, and called on Lorde to guide me. Instinctively and then intentionally I drew on Lorde’s body of published and unpublished work as a spiritual interlocutor even though she wasn’t a Buddhist. Why? First, I anticipated there would be a tension between the self-preservation ethos of Black queer women on one side, and the Buddhist teachings on no self on the other side. Second, I was living in Atlanta, GA at the time and Audre Lorde’s papers are archived at Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college. Lorde was calling me over for some conversation! Third, because reading Zami helped...

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