Buddhists use karmic healing against California city’s anti-Asian past

On a recent afternoon on Antioch’s main streets and quiet riverbanks, the scent of burning incense was combined with the sounds of Buddhism and Tao chanting. Their accumulated calming energy was intended to be a kind of balm to soothe the racial and religious hatred that shadowed Antioch’s heritage.

Antioch’s dark past, particularly its horrific mistreatment of early Chinese immigrants, prompted about 200 Buddhists to make a recent pilgrimage to the city of about 115,000 people, located deep in the delta that empties into San Francisco Bay. . Their goal is to reduce the negativity by reconciling the horrifying past and disturbing present in which Asian Americans across the country have faced hate and discrimination with hopes for a more equal and harmonious future. The idea was to replace it with something positive.

In the 1800s, thousands of Chinese immigrants came to the area during the gold rush to work in the mines and build railroads and levees. Local newspapers reported that people living in Antioquia were subject to sunset laws and used secret tunnels to commute to work. Eventually, the city’s Chinatown, which spanned several city blocks and included Buddhist and Taoist temples where new immigrants flocked, was burned down.

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On Saturday, a group of Buddhists gathered for a pilgrimage in an event titled “May We Come Together.” The attack was intentionally timed to mark the third anniversary of the Atlanta shootings, in which a white gunman targeted female employees at Asian American massage parlors, seeing them as “sources of temptation.” Ta. Six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent.

Duncan Williams, a Japanese Soto Zen monk and one of the event’s organizers, said the Atlanta murders date back to 1876, when enraged locals burned down the home of a Chinese woman stigmatized as a sex worker. He said it bears an eerie resemblance to Antioch. In 2021, Antioch became the first U.S. city to issue a public apology for mistreatment of early Chinese immigrants during the gold rush.

Williams, who is also a professor of religion at the University of Southern California, said the event organizers were not just a political reaction, but rather an event “based on our teachings and practices” aimed at honoring our ancestors and healing past racial trauma. He said he hoped for a “Buddhist-like response.” And a present.

There, at El Campanil Theater in Antioquia, Buddhist monks and leaders from across the diaspora engaged in a process of “karmic healing.” They offered chants and prayers at the altar of Senju Kannon, the goddess of compassion and compassion. On the altar were placed four stone tablets inscribed with the names of victims of hatred and violence.

The Buddhists in attendance were from a variety of countries and traditions, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Thai, Tibetan, Indian, and Sri Lankan. The sacred chants echoed in multiple languages, including Pali, an antiquated language closest to the language spoken by the Buddha himself.

Grace Song, an ordained minister and dean of the Wong Graduate Institute in Warminster, Pennsylvania, said she had never before participated in a peacebuilding event that celebrated diverse Buddhist traditions.

“I hope that we can grow closer together, build solidarity and support each other as we deepen our roots in this country,” she said.

Khenpo Paljor, a Tibetan lama from Des Moines, Iowa, prayed at the birthplace of Antioch, built in 1850 by the first European settlers. Here, participants laid down colorful Tibetan katas, traditional prayer scarves. Williams said the colored scarf reflects Buddhist scriptures that speak of a pure soul as colored lights shining all at once, without canceling out other lights.

For Honolulu-based Zen monk Christina Moon, karmic healing is the process of changing “our relationship to what happened and the way we control how we act in the future.”

“It’s important to recognize what happened and acknowledge that it was unpleasant,” she said. “It’s about moving forward positively and not getting bogged down in the painful past.”

Russell Jeung, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, sees these Buddhist rituals as Asian Americans reclaiming their traditions to recover “in the face of moral injury.”

“When President Trump mocked Asians and stigmatized Asian groups by calling (the new coronavirus) the ‘Chinese virus,’ it was a moral injury case, and one that we, as Americans, elected I was betrayed by the officials who were responsible for my actions,” Chong said.

Hatred toward the Chinese during the gold rush was also fueled by political rhetoric. The only provision in the California Constitution, ratified in 1879, that refers to race or ethnicity is that “No Chinese may be employed in any state, county, municipal, or other public works, except in the punishment of crimes.” It stipulated that “no The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited the immigration of Chinese workers.

Kaishin Victory Matsui, a priest at the Brooklyn Zen Center, said faith can be used as a way to heal the harm of racism.

“We come to these historic sites where trauma occurred to bring peace and healing,” she said. “It’s about remembering the past so we don’t forget it. This event unites Asians across time and ethnicity and reminds us how vast and powerful we are.”

Bhikkhunis (Buddhist nuns) Hyokun and Hyun Jeong of the Korean Borisa Zen Center in Las Vegas offered a white ceramic lotus flower to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara during the ceremony.

“The lotus flower is a sacred flower in Buddhism because it retains its purity and beauty even though it grows in mud,” Hyokun said. “Hate cannot solve hate. Only compassion can.”

Tao Master Eman, a priest with the First Taoist Foundation in Arcadia, Calif., held a ceremony on the riverbank as participants quietly walked around the area that was home to Chinatown and its temples some 150 years ago. It was held. He said Eman called on traumatized spirits and comforted them so they could move on to a better place.

For people like Myokei Kane Barrett, who heads a multiethnic Nichiren Buddhist temple in Houston, coming here was about healing her own trauma. She is half Japanese and half African American, and her faith has given her “a foundation to stand up for everything I am,” she said.

“Buddhism teaches that we can’t control how people perceive us, but we can control how we respond,” she said. “Not all Asians look the same, but we are all Asians nonetheless. Our goal is to recognize and respect each other.”

One attendee, Susannah Yee, has been speaking out about anti-Asian hate since her 88-year-old grandmother, Ik Oy Phan, was fatally injured in a San Francisco park in January 2019. Authorities charged a then-17-year-old boy with the attack. Mr. Huang died the following year.

Yi, who prayed and placed a memorial tablet at the altar in memory of her grandmother, considered the event healing.

“This is a really great solution that will lead us to a future where we are connected and share our hopes and dreams,” she said.

Longtime Antioquia residents believed this event was necessary for the city to move away from its traumatic past and become a more inclusive city. Antioch has recently made headlines in several civil rights lawsuits in which 20 plaintiffs claim they are victims of police misconduct, excessive force and racial profiling.

Karen J. Oliver said she was horrified but not surprised to learn how her city had mistreated Chinese immigrants.

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“We all need peace and reconciliation, and we need to continue down that path, whatever that path may be,” she said.

Frank Sterling, who has indigenous roots, saw Buddhist rituals as a major step toward healing the entire community.

“You can’t do that unless you acknowledge the past, and there’s a lot to move forward from,” he said. “This is a good start.”