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This interview appeared in Turning Wheel, Fall 2005

Centered in the Dharma

An Interview with Choyin Rangdrol

by John W. Ellis IV

After pursuing a career in counseling, Choyin Rangdrol was called by a vision to Vajrayana Buddhism. Today he is a teacher in the Tibetan tradition and the founder of Rainbow Dharma in Oakland, California. In 2002, he was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award For Community Service for pioneering Buddhist teaching in Oakland. He is author of Buddhist Meditations for African Americans and Black Buddha: Living Without Fear. John W. Ellis IV talked with him in his home in the spring of 2005.

John W. Ellis IV:

So tell me a little bit about this place. My first thought was that this was your house. Then I walked in and thought, "Oh, it's a center."

Choyin Rangdrol:

It's both. We opened this place in June of 2004, but I've been teaching here in Oakland for about five years. I felt it was important for me to first circulate in the community and get a feel for what's going on. As you know, Oakland is a very diverse place and the black community here has a deep tapestry of belief systems and faith practices. In Oakland we have international people and black people from all over the world.

I practice Tibetan Buddhism, but I volunteered at Spirit Rock [a vipassana center in Marin County, California] and Bay Area Zen centers, just to be in the area. I also worked with the Order of Interbeing, Thich Nhat Hanh's Northern California sangha. Last year I was the first teacher who was not one of Thich Nhat Hanh's students to be invited to that sangha to teach at a retreat. This was a big honor because they have a legacy of Buddhist social and political activity. Thich Nhat Hanh asked his sangha to be more open to other traditions and particularly to have a connection with teachers of color. I was very honored and privileged.

I came to Oakland because of the diverse community here-within Oakland you will find almost all of the sufferings of the world. There are human beings suffering in Africa; their relatives live here. There are people suffering in Southeast Asia; their relatives are your neighbors. You find Europeans suffering; their loved ones work at City Hall. And so on and so forth.

By coming to this microcosm of humanity it's possible to connect Buddhism with almost all the various aspects of suffering that we find in the world.

John:

What are some of the challenges of being here?

Choyin:

The big challenge everywhere is that people see themselves as separate. When I say separate I am not talking about the conspicuous aspects of separate: the kind of hair we have, skin color, eye color, etc. I mean the separateness that arises from self-cherishing, thinking of yourself as special and different from another human being. Look, for example, at the black community. You might think they have had a common history in America, and yet, in the black community, skin color, gender issues, who's gay, who's lesbian-these are still divisive issues. So within the sameness there is a lot of diversity that fuels the conflict that arises out of the belief that we are separate. Even within the same family you can find a mother who hates her husband, children who hate their mother, or a son very angry at his father.

You can't be that way and be happy. Happiness is a great marketing campaign, you know. If you are a happy person, people want to know what you are so happy about. Perhaps I don't mean just happy, but stable. We live in a very unstable world. We are afraid to walk places at night in our own community. We have an unstable world, an unstable community, unstable families, unstable religions. Really look at the world. Who is safe? Are Christians safe in this world? No they're not. Are Muslims safe? Are Jews safe? No they're not. Atheists? No they're not. Nobody is safe. We are all together in this-it is a very difficult world.

That doesn't mean don't engage. In fact, Buddha said that's where we should be. Anybody can be stable on a beautiful day. What about when the thunder rolls and rumbles on the horizon? What about when there is trouble in the air? Can you be stable then?

For me, this is an important point. I'm a wrathful guy. I'm a Trinidadian. I have my nature, which can sometimes be very aggressive. I know that-that's why I need to be a lama. I didn't start out wanting to be a lama. I mostly wanted to tame this thing called me, myself, and I. And when I got down to the skills I really needed, I realized that I needed to become a teacher because I was so obstructive. I really had to learn how to keep me in check-not binding me with my hands tied behind my back, but making me into a human being.

To me the highest practice is to be a decent human being with integrity on the inside. Then, radiate that as best you can in the world and perhaps the world becomes better. If people ask you how you do that, you don't talk about Buddhism, you talk about your spiritual life, because most people have one. How is your Christianity? Is it good for you? Is it creating stability for you? If it is, then you and I have something in common. Your Judaism-is it making you feel comfortable? Then you and I have something in common. Does Islam make you a better father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, community member? Then we have something in common. Then we are having what I call a concentric relationship with people of different faiths, and our wisdom is converging.

John:

Tell me about the center.

Choyin:

I think that this "center" idea can be a problem. The problem with human beings' separateness is the boundaries they create. A center has boundaries, a philosophy, a mission statement. It has revenue streams and a stated objective. Sometimes the idea of a center makes us separate. We have separate in our minds and we imbue everything with it.

I bring people to my house. I really think people have a different feeling about coming to your house rather than your center. They have a different expectation about their conduct and their sincerity. Sometimes centers try to make money off of the students: how many seats, how many people coming to retreat-that's your revenue stream. That's not good for my practice. I'm not saying that other people shouldn't do it. I'm simply saying that for me that's not right, because I need to tell my students what they need to hear. Sometimes the teacher needs to be ugly with a student. I cannot always be their friend. Sometimes teachers are your worst enemy, because we point out your faults and tell everybody. The teacher needs to have that authentic ability to engage without being concerned about damaging revenue streams. This is why I don't have a center.

This raises another issue: I am a full-time teacher, but I don't make a living off of my students. So how do I live? My wife works and she helps, and I have some students who are able to give donations, and we try to make ends meet each month. But it's very difficult.

What I am more concerned about is the quality of heart my students have-and how much money is that worth? How much money is it worth to have two adults talking about divorce who then change their minds because their dharma teacher helped them through it? How much money is it worth when long-term animosity between people is finally resolved and healed? Maybe I am poor in money, but I am very rich in dharma activities, and that is my choice.

When you look at other cultures-for example, Tibetan culture, pre-Chinese invasion-you find a level of peace over centuries that we have never known in this country. Their income per capita, per individual, is pennies on the dollar to what we make. And then ask yourself how many people jumped off the bridge this year? Why are our prisons so full of people? Why are our mental institutions still booming? Why is the medical industry making so much money off of stress-related illness?

There is a level of unhappiness in our individualism that is not only damaging to others but that it is lethal-fatal even-to us as well. And so when you look at the discrepancy between those who are poor and happy and those who are wealthy and miserable and who also create misery in the world, you have the portal from which an important discussion can begin.

Why are we like this? Let's talk about the war going on inside your mind, the war about who you are and what you aspire to be, and whether you believe you can make it. Let's talk about your self-esteem and what misunderstandings and misconceptions you have about yourself and this world that cause you to be dangerous to the people you love. What is it like to love you? Do people survive loving you or are they harmed by it?

I can speak personally about this: it's hard to serve your ex-wife who hates you. It really is, but you have to do it, if you can. But, if you can and you don't do it, that is worse. My dharma teacher helped me do this. I have a family now; it's my second family. But he kept asking, "Where is your first family? Where are your children? How is your ex-wife?" He kept bugging me. He was trying to tell me that I had to go back and rewrite the narrative of my life, and rework the relationships that I had destroyed. Because there are certain things that only a father can tell a child, I had a big mess to clean up.

I think that as a Buddhist if you are really concerned about your karma you have to go the extra mile. You have to think, "I may have been part of the problem and maybe it was my fault." And then, as my students will tell you, you have to be willing to say the three most powerful mantras known to humankind. The first mantra is, "I'm sorry." The second mantra is, "It was my fault." You don't say you're sorry because it was your fault or you were to blame, you say it because it needs to be said. Because if "I'm sorry" can heal the situation, then you can take responsibility for something bad that happened even though you don't deserve it. The third mantra, the coup de grace, and the final thing that really makes it work is, "What can I do to make it better?" You can take action to make it better. Even though it wasn't your fault, and it's not your responsibility anymore, as a Buddhist you can be big enough to take the blame,

John:

How does your teaching of Buddhism heal the pain caused by racism?

Choyin:

Remember Ronald Reagan? His Republican administration said "I'm sorry" to the Japanese for the internments. The Clinton administration asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to apologize to the indigenous people of the U.S. for the way they were treated. The BIA admitted that white settlers had committed crimes, including giving Native Americans blankets with smallpox. The healing was unbelievable-just the admission of the wrong was one of the most powerful moments in U.S. history. That's real power, when you can say, "I'm sorry."

Certainly there is a bigger issue of reparations that we can't take on here. These areas need resolution. We don't have to think that it has never been done, and as a Buddhist I think it is fair and good to point out that it has been done.

John:

So where did your idea of Rainbow Dharma come from?

Choyin:

Rainbow Dharma was created for the diversity of humanity. We are a lineage of family householders and so we don't have a monastic set-up or center where people come. I think the center for every student is called your living room. It's called where you go to work. We don't really need dharma centers, we need people centered in the dharma.

Rainbow Dharma is the place where people who feel that they are different can come and have a sense of what it means to be free in your mind. I teach my students to be Buddhanauts, like astronauts-to step out of the boundaries and go into the Buddha-space, where they can take another look at what's going on. Take a look at the victimization of people all over the world! How do we heal that? How do we heal divisiveness?

It goes back to the issue of how human beings think. We have different hair and different noses, but that is not how we are different. We're more different in the things we believe. And even with people of color, racism is not an issue of pigment. In my view, racism is an issue of resource hoarding. Resource hoarding is my term for who's got it, and how they keep it, and who they are going to use to make sure that it doesn't go away. For example, when you look back at slavery, there were the slaves in the field and there was the overseer, who was black, too. Why?

Because he got some material benefit-maybe a wood floor instead of a dirt floor. He was always going to be a slave, but at least he was one step up from the other ones. To think that it's one race-group against another race-group is naive. Sometimes the most damage a race endures is from its own people.

Look at the murder rate in the African American community-who's doing that? They are killing each other. It's a result of some psychosocial, economic circumstance, yes, but it's not a different race coming in and killing black people. Sometimes people of color can be obstructive to people of color.

But it's not just race; it could be money that makes the division. Sometimes you have an affluent sangha and they don't want to be in the company of the poor sangha. These are problems that teachers and leaders have to work with.

John:

All that separation seems very antithetical to the teachings.

Choyin:

Not really, because Buddhism is the antidote-a problem manifests and then you let Buddhism work with it. A Buddhist environment is not purified. You need troublemakers and enemies. Troublemakers will stir you up when you are too comfortable. And that's good, because then you really have to look at yourself. Enemies are really great because they will tell you about yourself and they don't care what you think.

John:

You just defined teacher and enemy as the same thing.

Choyin:

Actually in our tradition a teacher is called "a dangerous friend." They can love you and tell you about yourself, too. They can give you everything they possibly can to make your life better and also tell you that you need to straighten up. That's real love. Buddhism does not need human beings; human beings need Buddhism. Teachers are in a position to remind students why they came. You asked me about Rainbow Dharma, and in essence, I should say it is my attempt to create a place where people can learn about the blind spots within themselves. My service is seeing deeply and helping others to do that too. This is the real work. It's not just the individual who is hurting, it's whole societies. The world is hurting. Our mission is to help people heal, to help them not be that person who is both hurting and causing harm to others. •••

John W. Ellis IV is a freelance writer, martial arts instructor, and member of the East Bay Church of Religious Science. He lives in Oakland with his wife and five-year-old son.

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