Afrikan Wisdom

I picked up this book because it was in my library's showcase and it looked interesting–I just met a Buddhist black woman for the first time the week prior. The meeting (not about Buddhism) left me realizing that I had never met a Buddhist who is black before. Certainly people with East Asian ancestry when I was in Japan or Indonesia, or if it's people from the west, white people. Yet of course there's no reason why Buddhism can't find followers among the black population, and the message from this book (especially the first part), is exactly that: Buddha's teaching can be relevant for Black people, with some parallels/similarities to African ancestral beliefs. (One essay argued that Buddha himself was black–see his hair in his likeness).

That being said, this book wasn't written for me so not a lot of it resonates with me. I'm not big on religion in general (anymore) and when some chapters reads like sermons (with a few that actually guided the readers through the chants), just not my cup of tea. Other chapters with reflections interested me more, but they often only scratched the surface, likely a limitation of the short essay forms.