Buddha Black - Black, Gay & Awake

It is said that gatekeepers are so dedicated to the awesome responsibility of caring not just for themselves but for the world that they would sooner die at work tending their gate than leave it unattended and thus close a door to the otherworld. This type of awareness and acceptance is reminiscent of Buddhism. The compassion and resolve to give your life for others is a very common Medicine Buddha pratice, the master of healing. 

Interesting is the blue body of the medicine buddha, that gives him his most distinct characteristic. Blue with gold flecks, lapis lazuli. Having met the Baisajiah Guru thru Dagara cosmology I saw beyond simply and saw water, the Buddha of healing was the color of water. How appropriate that his message would be one of the peace and reconciliation required first in the mind in order for healing to occur. But in Dagara cosmology water is not only blue but black.

Black for the darker parts of our emotions, the deeper pain and anguish that is down in the deep part of our souls. The Yoruba call him Olokun, the spirits of the Africans that line the bottom of the ocean, the deep, deep grief and death. African-American gay and lesbian folk in particular but humanity as a whole must find the courage to dig down into the darkest parts of our grief and shame if we are to find healing. We must be dedicated enough to sit at our gate lest another door close on the world.

Why hasn't buddha been black? The original images of Buddha are very similar to Africans. I mean, Africa is on the other end of the Silk Road. Buddhism was a gift to me from my fathers mother who still at 92 and in the journey toward transition can escape the sufferings of this world in quiet meditation. Her lessons of giving, acceptance and detachment have been beacons for everyone who's met her, even the nuns she meditates with. Her life is an example of the power of diversity. 

One day, while in seminary struggling with my desire to succeed she called me. I was sitting at my desk at work and was as far from a conversation with my grandmother as one might imagine. It wasn't even 9am and she sounded alarmed. "I had a dream about you last night," she started, and it was a wrap from there.

"The leak is coming from inside." she would go on to tell me. That was the message from the very elaborate dream she witnessed. The dream in it's fullness is a private matter between my Grandmother and I but I thanked her and began the journey inside to find the leak. 

I am something queer. I feel as if I have stumbled upon a gift yet I was the one who left it and better yet, I was the one who created it. I asked for Spirit to show me and there, in my grandmothers dream Buddha went from blue to black. 

I had struggled with Buddhism in seminary, it seemed so passive. I felt as if I had been forced to detach myself from the suffering of the world as a result of the abuses I've endured but those lessons were there to teach me other things. The leak my grandmother spoke of is one that only I can conquer, no one can push me or force me into it. I had a lot to learn about Buddhism that reading was not going to give me.

Some 25 years earlier I had gone to visit my grandmother in her apartment in Brooklyn. When I arrived and made the usual rounds of hellos and greetings to the elders present I went looking for my grandmother. She looked like she was sleeping when I tried to tip out of her room and not wake her. She wasn't sleeping, she was meditating. She explained to me that the doctors had told her she had some sort of illness and being the RN in the family she knew how serious it was.

Her response was to go within. She was a devout Catholic woman and was known for giving away more than she seemed to have. She never complained and never fussed. She worked hard and gave herself fully. She was living a good life but realized that she needed to look further and choose Buddhism. I knew enough to not be lost in the conversation but I also knew that she was on a journey and I was watching the train pass through the station...or so I thought. I was already on the train, just sleeping.

So here I am, now trying to discover what being me means and I'm listening to my grandmother in one ear tell me about leaks coming from inside and in the other a trusted friend talking about men who are much like me sitting in service, just like my grandmother did, selfless. I saw a parallel.....

Perhaps the next Buddha is black and gay and living by the thousands in the Diaspora?

Let us gather together in honor of our Ancestors.

Great Day Family,

May the light of the Ancestors illuminate your path and make plain your vision and your purpose. I pray that this note reaches you and your community in abundant health and joy. I greet you on behalf of my Ancestors and my family. I welcome you into this digital space. 

Matthew 18:20 (NIV) - "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them."

May all of the love and compassion of the universe be with us now as we navigate our way through this season of transformation. Our country is preparing to approach a shift in culture on the heals of some of the greatest tragedies and natural disasters this generation has ever seen. 

The earth is bathing, washing, flooding, repopulating, shifting energy and power through the movement of the elements. There is a chaos in the patterns of our human lives but an order to the chaos of the earths patterns. Acknowledge it or not humanity is engaged in a very important conversation with the Spirit of the Living earth. Let us remain mindful and spacious as we attempt to evolve. 

I see the suffering in the world and am moved to create a space where I could some how make a difference, share my vision, my dream. I've tried a few times to share nuggets of it on a local level but who can make clothes for a man based a mothers dreams of her child not yet born. I've been trying too hard to do something and what I prayed for required that I stop trying. I'm not very good at that. 

See, I've been in so many situations and scenarios where I felt a great sense of hope that somehow we were going to follow this thing through and make a difference only to see the group break apart like a glass thrown from a moving car. I've been cut so often in my life that when I look around and I begin to recognize the scars on others I'm reminded that I'm no different than anyone else

So, brothers and sisters, I don't know who might read this but I can no longer sit silent. I've been quiet for quiet some time now. I've isolated myself and turned off my phone, stopped answering my emails, refused to talk to people. I don't talk to my family sometimes for weeks, sometimes my friends don't hear from me for months. I've disconnected myself from work, most responsibilities and a great amount of stress. I don't watch a lot of TV and don't listen to the radio....now before you click off and move on as I'm sure some of you have wanted to do already, please bear with me...I'm going somewhere with this.....I've isolated myself. I've been depressed before and allowed myself to fall into a pit, I've been afraid and scared and hidden away from my responsibilities, I've been angry and pissed and wanted to avoid my rage, this time my isolation was intentional.

All my life I grew up in some sort of personal relationship with Spirit. Ever since I could remember I was engaged with the Living Spirits of The Earth...truly as far back as I am able to remember. I'm fortunate to still remember when I was four and five years how real God was then. I knew that I was special, but then so was everything. 

I also have known since I was a child that I was both masculine and feminine, in  a delicate balance, in my one body. I didn't know this was a problem until I was school age. I didn't realize this was a gift until I was in jeopardy of loosing my life. I am now realizing the responsibility associated with such power and have had to take some time to get a hold of myself. 

Almost eighteen years ago I made a commitment to Spirit and I vowed that I would not stop walking until I fulfilled my promise. Spirit has met me every step of the way thus far. Seventeen years or so ago I contracted HIV. I had been away in college living in Atlanta, Ga. obviously doing a whole lot more than working at my education. I was forewarned and well educated so this wasn't simply about being reckless, I have a contract with God, there had to be a greater lesson.

I moved to Tulsa, Ok. with my mom when I was tested. I was just 20 and was now faced with many very adult decisions, in a place where resources for this type of thing were scarce during a time when there wasn't a lot of hope beyond AZT.

My mother was the one who suggested that I get tested. She took me to the test and went with me to get my results. She was the one who noticed the swelling around my lymph nodes and asked my grandmother, who was an RN, what she thought. Their suspicions were correct. I was indeed HIV+. Now what happened next is partially why I'm still here in conversation with you now. My mother said, Okay, so what do we do next? and whisked me off to the health food store. It was time to get educated.

My mother had just been diagnosed with type two diabetes and was already in a fight for her life. She and I began an intensive look into alternatives for health and healing. My mother who was one of those women who handed out christian tracks and witnessed to strangers on the subway, that woman put down her Bible and picked up her love for her child. The lessons had just begun.

The ability for me, a Pentecostal boy who only knew the Blood of Jesus, to expand his mind and accept the concepts presented  about alternative healing could only have come with infection. The the introduction of an agent powerful enough to give me vision out of the fog I had gotten lost in. I might never have cared about life as much as I do now if I hadn't tested positive when I did.

I've learned that some say that a diagnosis with a severe illness can be a path to enlightenment. Having walked with this virus for my entire adult life, I  can understand that. Once I was aware of my mortality I woke up and remembered why I was.

During the time of my diagnosis I found my way into Higher Dimensions Church, a diverse nondenominational Christian church founded by Bishop Carlton Pearson. At Higher D. I found a space where I could go worship God in shorts, sneakers and a tee shirt around all sort of non black folk and get just as blessed. I realized that God was God for all. I was able to get grounded again and began to worship with members of other of the worlds religious traditions. God was truly God to and for all. 

In the short time following my promise here I was some two years later and I was now engaged with God in a new way without even realizing it. It wasn't because of any one thing but because I was now aware of my body, my mind and my spirit. I had become both subject and witness. And the learning continued.

Seven years ago I was visiting a friend who turned me on to the work of Malidoma & Sobonfu Somé and in particular the topic of Gatekeeping. I knew immediately that the time for my initiation had come. I asked for a vision and clarity of mind to see it through. I was working in the pinnacle of  technology, communication and finance at Bloomberg LP while I was becoming literate in the cosmology and indigenous technology of Africans. That too was not by chance. 

Five years ago I made a very serious commitment and went yet a step further requesting that I assume responsibility for what I saw and work at ways to help. I requested to find my space and demanded that Spirit honor my request and offered my life in service. I learned a valuable lesson. You can have anything you ask for. So be careful what you ask for.

I spent the next 5 years in and out of hospitals often with fatal prognosis. I was engaged in the greatest initiation of my life, experiencing my own death. Once, I feared that I might not live to fulfill my purpose but here I was now studying about being a Gatekeeper and an Earth Priest with an African Shaman, Sweating and camping with men and women from all over the planet. This time the church was outdoors and was full of ritual and mystery.

I was expanding my conversation about alternative medicine and food. Learning the technology of Spirit, the translation of technological concepts. I was tying the threads of body, mind and spirit together and seeing that they are as temporary as the mind that holds them. In conjunction, they are impermanent. 

I don't know how to share what I want, the vision is larger than even in can contain because it includes your vision also. I am but one ingredient in a pot yet I am the pot holding the Stew. I have looked at Initiations, lectures, rituals, classes, workshops, retreats...none of which seem to work for me. So I have an idea....if you've gotten this far then perhaps you might be interested in how this could work. 

Well, starting in January 2008 I'd like to hold weekly retreats in the city. The retreat is intended to run from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. I need people who can commit to help over the next six months with opening the a space where our communities can gather to experience a sacred community engaged in radical ritual. 

Meeting Dates - June 14, 2008 Inwood Hill Park 207 & Seaman Avenue.  8:00AM

We'll give honor to the spirits of the road at the parks entrance. We'll give honor to the meeting of waters at the inlet. We'll give honor to the spirits of this Land and the people of this land at the caves in the park. We will journey together to find our ritual site. We will open a gate and begin our journey. Our destination is to clean the space we once used for our Earth Ritual some year and so ago. We will use our return to that spot to symbolize a return to those things in our lives that we need to return to and clean up. That we might have left behind or that someone else has left behind. Let us gather and lend a hand and a voice in song and story as we ask the Earth to hold us in their lap of comfort and peace as we begin our walk to The Harlem Village Ancestoralization 2008. We will follow this with a small family picnic so those who have the Ashé for pulling together food, music, picnic stuff, clean up stuff...if you're serious about helping send me an email - tingansob@gmail.com and put in the subject line: The Zokpé Collective.  I hope to see you all there...Welcome Home.