Page 4

In her search for healing, she would march with Martin
Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, take part in the armed
takeover of the Cornell student union building by militant
blacks, and ultimately find her way to the but of a gentle
Tibetan monk in the hills outside Kathmandu. From a
Buddhist perspective, it would be said that a combination
of karma and auspicious coincidence brought Willis to
the doorstep of Lama Yeshe Thubten, the teacher who
would become her root guru. However, for most African-
Americans, she believes, lack of money keeps the door
to the dharma firmly shut.

"There are far too few people of color in Buddhist
centers and retreats, in part because of the nature of
where the retreats are and the fact that they cost
money," says Willis, now one of the nation's leading
Buddhist academics. "It's about class. Working class
people can't take a month off to go on retreat.

"Buddhism is a commodity like everything else in the
States," the Wesleyan University professor of religion
adds. "Trungpa Rinpoche talked about `spiritual
materialism: You can choose among hundreds of
different traditions and lineages in the spiritual
supermarket, and then you pay.

"That's part of why Soka Gakkai has had success; she
says of the Japanese Pure Land organization, which
counts many blacks among its members. "They're in the
cities, they've tried so hard to bend over backwards to
assimilate with American holidays and they have a
simple ritual." The same Willis continues, is true of the
Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, the group she
met with in Britain. But in the American sanghas of the
more traditional Buddhist lineages, blacks are largely
absent.