Buddhism is one of the largest religions in the world. According to the Pew Research Center, there are about 400–500 million people in the world who consider themselves religious Buddhists,¹ and about 1.5 million Buddhists² in the US, including women, African Americans, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) communities. Many more Americans of other religious traditions or no religious tradition have intentionally or unconsciously adopted Buddhist philosophy (e.g. letting go), psychology (nondualism), meditation practices like Mindfulness Meditation , and art (Buddha statues). Though millions of Americans have some familiarity with Buddhism, most do not understand the psychological impact Buddhist practices have on their ego structures, internal object relations , and external object relationships. In fact, the claim that Buddhist practice leads to detachment from others and cultivates introversion is not supported by my research on the psycho-spiritual experiences of African-American lesbians in the Theravada Buddhism—inspired Insight Meditation tradition.³ This research establishes how Buddhism in the Insight tradition contributes to Remarkable Relational Resilience , especially for women who live in a context where their humanity is in question based on gender, race, sexuality, and religious biases, discrimination, and oppression, but also for others who are challenged by US society’s disdain for people who are deemed radically different.

In Object Relations, Buddhism, and Relationality in Womanist Practical Theology, I draw on a variety of resources including the narratives of the women I interviewed, my own experiences in the Insight Meditation Community, scholarly articles, commentaries from Buddhist teachers, www.​accesstoinsight.​org, and the Pali Canon , a collection of suttas (like sermons) that include the Anguttara Nikaya (AN)—Numerical Discourses of the Buddha, translated by Nyanaponika Thera and Bhikkhu Bodhi; the Digha Nikaya—The Long Discourses of the Buddha (DN), translated by Maurice Welshe; the Majjhima Nikaya (MN)—The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, translated by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi; and the Samyutta Nikaya (SN)—The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

In “Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Buddhist Practitioners,” Wendy Cadge writes about Buddhists of the Insight Meditation tradition who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual,⁴ but not about African-American lesbians. Roger Corless, in “Gay Buddhist Fellowship,” writes about white gay men who are Buddhists and their experiences of their community,⁵ but his essay is not about women, African Americans, or lesbians. Winston Leyland’s edited volumes Queer Dharma: Voices of Gay Buddhists ⁶ are about men. This book attempts to fill epistemological voids in the psycho-spiritual experiences of African Americans who practice Buddhism, the psycho-spiritual experiences of African-American women who practice Buddhism, and the psycho-spiritual experiences of African-American lesbians who practice Buddhism through the narratives of Alicia, Deborah, Marcella, Mary, Norene, and the 26 other women who completed the Fetzer Spiritual Experience Index (SEI). Filling these epistemological voids contributes to knowledge in several disciplines, including Women’s Studies, Religious Studies, Buddhist Studies, Psychology, Psychotherapy, African-American Studies, Interfaith Dialogue, and Pastoral Care and Counseling.

Most books in pastoral care and counseling are written from Christian perspectives by Christians. In an attempt to include Buddhism into the conversation on what is religious or pastoral or spiritual care and counseling , due to the rise in interest in Buddhist (religious, spiritual, and secular) practices in the US, it is critical to understand some foundational concepts about Buddhism that can be taken as religious or philosophical, or as a way of life, a psychology, a set of ethics, or a combination thereof.

In this chapter, readers are briefly introduced or re-introduced to some of the core elements of Buddhism in the Insight Meditation Community (IMC). The core elements explored include: the founding of the IMC, the relationship between the common Insight Buddha narrative and what is taught in the IMC, the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Brahma Viharas, the paramitas, the suffering of clinging and craving, teachings on self and nonself, and some of the differences between various types of Theravada Buddhism, the foundation for the IMC, and the IMC itself.

Chapter 2, “Womanism and the Absence of Explicit Black Buddhist Lesbian—Black Christian Straight Interdependence in Foundational Womanist Theological Scholarship,” introduces a black lesbian hermeneutic into understanding what womanism was meant to be and is becoming, relying on Alice Walker’s use of Audre Lorde’s essay “The Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic as Power” in Walker’s 1979 short story “Coming Apart,” where Walker first coined the term “womanist”; the invisibilization of lesbians and same-sex loving women in foundational womanist Christian theology , as questioned by Afrocentric Christian womanist theologian Delores S. Williams; and the re-visibilization of Christian queer African-American women in Christian womanist scholarship.

Chapter 3, “The Spiritual Practices and Experiences of African-American Buddhist Lesbians in the IMC,” includes 38 statements from the slightly modified Fetzer Spiritual Experience Index (SEI) that was answered by 31 women; along with responses, analysis, and interview excerpts from five African-American Buddhists lesbians in the Insight Meditation tradition: Norene, Alicia, Deborah, Mary, and Marcella.

Chapter 4, “Self, No Self,⁷ and the Paradoxes of Self and No Self Preservation,” illustrates the psychological-spiritual journey of these women from Christianity to Buddhism, as well as their changing views of self, no self , and the necessity and fallacy of self preservation.

Chapter 5, “African-American Women Buddhist Dharma Teachers and Writers on Self and No Self ,” is an introductory discussion of the works of African-American Buddhist women writers angel Kyodo williams, Jan Willis, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, and Jasmine Syedullah.

Chapter 6, “Object Relations in East and West : Self, No Self, the Abhidhamma , and W. R. D. Fairbairn ,” is a discussion on how mind objects are viewed from Buddhist and Fairbairnian objects and object relations perspectives, the sources of those views, and the impact of those views on how one understands one’s self or no self . Attention is paid to the ego fracturing and creation of the Internal Saboteur, or persecutory object, and contemporary object relations commentary from Aronson, Muzika , Engler , Epstein , and Metcalf.

Chapter 7, “Wholeness as Object Liberation: The Efficacy of Buddhist Lovingkindness Meditation,” returns to the conversation about intrapsychic wholeness , the womanist value of wholeness , the introduction of Theravada Buddhist nun Ayya Khema and her views on wholeness from a Buddhist perspective, lovingkindness meditation as an antidote for ego fracturing, a return to commentary from Engler and Muzika with an introduction to another object relations commenter, McDargh.

Chapter 8 is the concluding chapter that offers care and c ounseling recommendations specifically for African-American Buddhist lesbians, but can be modified for others. Object Relations, Buddhism, and Relationality in Womanist Practical Theology offers current scholarship in Western Object Relations Theory, a Buddhist view on object formation and dissipation through meditation , a Buddhist view on what it means to be pastoral, an African-inspired relational dynamic not present in Buddhist scholarship, a womanist definition with a black Buddhist lesbian hermeneutic that expands what womanism means and can be, and demonstrates how Buddhist practices in the Insight tradition promotes Remarkable Relational Resilience for women marginalized by sexism, racism, homophobia, and Christian supremacy.

Buddhism takes many forms around the world and in the US.⁸ Insight Meditation Society (IMS) was originally founded in Massachusetts in 1975 by Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield , and Sharon Salzberg. Since its founding, an overwhelming number of dharma teachers, perhaps ironically in the context of a racially and ethnically pluralistic society, happen to be white.⁹ Yet, as Insight Meditation has grown in the US, more dharma teachers of color have been trained, including Larry Yang, Gina Sharpe, Spring Washam, DaRa Williams, Bonnie Duran, Bhante (another word for “monk”) Buddharakkhita, Anushka Fernandopulle, and JoAnna Harper. Many more people of color, myself included, have been trained to be Community Dharma Leaders (CDLers). Though CDLers are not full dharma teachers, we can start meditation groups and communities and lead short meditation retreats with the “blessing” of the Insight dharma teachers and community. The impact of having teachers of color may not yet be fully known, but there is greater awareness that the absence of people of color who are dharma teachers has meant that the Insight Meditation communit...