Abstract
Racial oppression is a longstanding and widespread problem with significant repercussions and consequences for the health of those impacted. The roots of racial prejudice reach far back into the history of European culture. A contribution to the much-needed change can be found in the cultivation of mindfulness, in particular in its external dimension. This emerges from considering the background provided by the early Buddhist dismissal of caste prerogatives in the ancient Indian setting, granting priority to ethical conduct over birth. Besides opening up a new dimension for mindfulness-related research, which has so far predominantly focused on the internal cultivation of mindfulness, exploring the early Buddhist perspective also shows that diversity work can become an integral part of the Buddhist path of practice. This holds in particular for white Buddhists, who need to confront their superiority conceit as an obstruction to their own progress to liberation.
Highlights
Racial oppression is a longstanding and widespread problem with significant repercussions and consequences for the health of those impacted
A range of reviews and meta-studies converge on highlighting the injurious repercussions of racial oppression on mental health and on physical health (Brondolo et al 2009; Carter et al 2017; Cook et al 2019; Lee and Ahn 2011; Lee and Ahn 2012; Lee and Ahn 2013; Paradies et al 2015; Pieterse et al 2012; Shavers et al 2012; Williams and Mohammed 2009; see Pascoe and Richman 2009 and Schmitt et al 2014 in the context of discrimination in general)
Before exploring these topics further, a survey of antecedents to racism in European history is required in order to evaluate how far contemporary manifestations of racism can be meaningfully approached from the perspective of the early Buddhist opposition to caste-related prejudices in ancient India
Summary
Racial discrimination appears to have early precedents in the history of Europe. Commenting on ancient Greek and Roman literature, Isaac (2010, p. 35) noted that a “characteristic. An attempt at providing a working definition for a broader conception of racism, relevant to the context of the present investigation, could be somewhat along the following lines: Abusive, oppressive, and discriminative behavior by a particular human population that is in a position of power and whose membership is acquired by birth and not otherwise accessible, involving notions of ancestral purity that would be lost by intermarriage and often are related to physical marks (such as skin color), where a pervasive sense of intrinsic superiority and entitlement to privileges tends to be grounded in religious and pseudo-scientific arguments as being divinely ordained or inherent in nature
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