White & Awakening: Mindfulness Practices for Exploring and Disrupting the Impact of White Conditioning

Overview

This is a self-paced 10-hour course for self-identified white folx and those for whom whiteness is a significant part of their identity. The course walks the learner through the historical creation of whiteness, including how whiteness operates systemically, and offers exercises, techniques, and mindfulness practices for working with the difficult emotions that arise when exploring racial conditioning. The course offers learners an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences of whiteness and offers a framework and strategies for addressing the harm that arises through microaggressions and other types of interpersonal interactions. The course is designed to offer an introduction or a refresher for white people to strengthen their knowledge and skills for building relationships in diverse communities. Participants may take the course on their own or can take it with a group of peers and do the exercises and discussions together. 

The course includes videos with related readings, resources, meditation instructions, prompts for journaling, discussion, and other suggested exercises. It is taught from a Buddhist perspective, using other frameworks as needed. Material is presented in language designed to be accessible to those who are not familiar with Buddhist teachings. Key Buddhist teachings include the Four Noble Truths, ethical conduct, non-self, impermanence, and compassion.  

This self-paced program is ten hours long and includes dharma talks, inquiry, and practices organized into eight sessions.

Course Components

• Videos: Videos that include guided meditation practices and talks.
  • Note on sound in some videos: One of the mics had a technical issue. We did our best to resolve issues during the editing process; however, you may still notice some fluctuation with the sound.
• Inquiry: Journaling and reflection prompts to deepen understanding.
• Meditations: Specific practices to support learning.
• Supplementary Materials: Links, books, articles, videos, and other resources.
• Group Guidelines: For those who wish to take the class with others (highly recommended).

About Crystal A. Johnson, Ph.D., Community Teacher at EBMC

Crystal is a retired clinical psychologist, dharma practitioner, and teacher who has co-created and co-teaches programs for white dharma practitioners seeking to build awareness, knowledge, and skills to challenge the dynamics of white privilege and race-based oppression and to create truly diverse sangha. Programs include White and Awakening in Sangha, a six-month program at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA, Interconnected: Challenging Racism and White Privilege with Mindfulness and Compassion, an 8 session course at the San Francisco Zen Center, and Unpacking the Whiteness of Leadership, a 6 session course offered for Branching Streams, a network of affiliate Dharma centers and Sanghas in the Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. She also consults to (white-dominated) organizations and individuals seeking to identify and address barriers to racial equity embedded in organizational culture, policies and practices. She is currently on the Leadership Sangha (board) and part of the Radical Inclusivity Committee of the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA.

About EBMC

Founded to provide a welcoming environment for people of color, members of the LGBTQI community, people with disabilities, and other underrepresented communities, the East Bay Meditation Center welcomes everyone seeking to end suffering and cultivate happiness.

Our mission is to foster liberation, personal and interpersonal healing, social action, and inclusive community building. We offer mindfulness practices and teachings on wisdom and compassion from Buddhist and other spiritual traditions. Rooted in our commitment to diversity, we operate with transparent democratic governance, generosity-based economics, and environmental sustainability. 
eastbaymeditation.org

About Spirit Rock & Insight Meditation

Spirit Rock is a spiritual training institution in the Insight Meditation tradition grounded in the Buddha’s teachings in the Pāli discourses. Our vision and mission is to bring people to a depth of realization of the Buddha’s path of liberation through direct experience, and to provide practitioners with teachings to manifest wisdom and compassion in all aspects of their lives, for the benefit of all beings. We welcome practitioners of all backgrounds and levels of experience to join communities of learning, support, and connection in our spiritual sanctuary and refuge.

This course is part of Spirit Rock’s new Dharma Institute, which offers in-depth study of the teachings and practices of the Buddha and the Insight Meditation lineage, along with professional trainings and continuing education. 

Spirit Rock was founded in 1986 by a group of Insight Meditation teachers, including Jack Kornfield, who, along with Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Jacqueline Schwartz, founded Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, MA, in 1976. These centers, along with Gaia House (Devon, UK), are among the first centers teaching Insight Meditation (vipassanā) in the West. Read more about the founding of Spirit Rock and IMS in Jack Kornfield’s article “This Fantastic, Unfolding Experiment.” 

Insight Meditation is based in Theravāda (“The Way of the Elders”) Buddhism, as practiced in Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand, though our teachers carry many different lineages within—and outside—Theravāda. Our primary practices are based in the Mahāsī lineage of Burmese vipassanā and the Thai Forest Saṅgha lineage of Ajahn Chah. Read more aboutour Buddhist Lineage and listen to talks from teachers about the roots of our practice.

Questions?

Visit Help for additional information and guidance. After visiting the Help page, if you still need support with the Online Learning Platform, email OLPsupport@spiritrock.org.