Teacher Reflections: Profile of Arinna Weisman

Orli Bahcall

Arinna Weisman has been practicing insight meditation since 1979.  She has studied primarily in Theravada traditions, with root teacher Ruth Denison, and has spent two years living in Thai Forest monasteries. Arinna is the founding teacher of Insight Meditation Center of the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts.  She currently lives in Oakland, California and is well known for her political and environmental activism.  She was one of the first insight meditation teachers to lead LGBT retreats. She more recently has pioneered “Uncovering the Heart Retreats” which integrate awareness of social inequality with dharma practices.  She is co-author of “A Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation”, which offers advice to students on practice, the Buddha’s teachings and retreat life.

Arinna was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She grew up in a politically active family that was committed to ending apartheid.  At the age of nine, during a time of mass arrests of activists, both of her parents were arrested and imprisoned. Seeing this, others in this community of activists stepped forward to take responsibility and care of her and her three young sisters. She continues to feel extreme gratitude for their kindness, and appreciates how such beautiful qualities can be awakened during difficult situations. Arinna also recalls feeling that the experience of being part of a community that took care of each other and struggled to end apartheid brought her confidence that community can facilitate transformative changes in society.  She also recalls being aware of the fear associated with being in an activist family, and how she learnt that those feelings do not necessarily have to stop us from realizing our visions for freedom. While Arinna and her family left South Africa several years later, moving to the United Kingdom, these early experiences have inspired her lifelong political and environmental activism, which are infused into her dharma practices and teachings.

Recently, her practice and teachings have focused on exploring the relationship between the dharma, race, privilege, and social inequity. Arinna’s teachings emphasize the Buddha’s central instructions on mindfulness; to bring mindfulness to every aspect of one’s life.  In order to end suffering in both oneself and society, Arinna says, one needs to become aware of our social conditioning.  In particular, Arinna discusses the importance of becoming conscious of the beliefs and emotions we have inherited from our different social locations and how we have used these to build our identity. Some of us, for example, have received messages about being better than or less than according to our race, class background, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation and immigrant status.  These distorted perceptions have become the building blocks of what the Buddha calls ego and bring with them the experience of isolation, separation and unskillful interactions in the world. Bringing awareness to this conditioning is the first step in healing and building respect and equality in our relationships.

Arinna has shared these teachings through workshops she has developed on “Uncovering Our Hearts: Healing the Dukkha of White Privilege”. The inspiration of these workshops comes from the understanding that we are all unique and special human beings, and that the places where we hold suffering are actually clouds that can be dissolved.  This workshop, then, is really about love, honoring the beautiful beings that we are, and beginning to discern the places where this beauty is covered.  The process of this uncovering awakens our beautiful qualities and builds a special friendship and faith in our sanghas.

In this workshop, white participants are invited to explore their own experience of what messages they have received about being white, and how these messages interlock in a way that builds suffering and the whole institution of white privilege. Participants explore in a space of loving kindness and empathy both their own individual experiences and how this interplays with social dynamics.  Often fear or resistance arises when contemplating coming to a workshop like this. Arinna says that is quite natural and that she has found that the opening and understanding that unfolds is deeply appreciated by participants. Arinna has brought this workshop to many insight meditation communities, and in doing so, facilitates their exploration of how these dynamics are expressed within the context of a spiritual community. 

Arinna notes that the workshop offers a safe and supportive environment for white sangha members to begin to enter into this exploration, but also that this should be recognized as the start of a continuing practice.  When working with a community, Arinna often begins by working with a white group on their own, as this environment is most supportive for enquiring and becoming sensitive to their own conditioning.  This in turn creates more sensitivity within the white sangha when the community comes together in a multi-cultural setting, and participants are more able to enter into relationships from a place of honesty and care. From this investigation, sanghas can then begin to discuss how to move towards healing and building a more open and inclusive community.

Arinna Weisman will be leading a non-residential retreat at New York Insight on March 30-31, together with Elaine Retholtz, on “Healing the Dukkha of White Privilege: Awakening Our Hearts: Exploring Authentic Relationships Across Differences”.  Arinna will also present a daylong at NYI on April 1st, together with Sebene Selassie, on “Celebrating the Feminine with Mindfulness, Love, and Ritual”.