What the Buddha Knew About Racism
...and classism, and sexism, and....
My relationship to Buddhism began not as an escape from bulimia nervosa, but as the culmination of decades spent examining the ritualized compulsion at its core—through therapy, community, and relentless inner work.
That recognition that I needed to drop all of it wasn’t just about food, or identity, or suffering in the narrow sense. It was about the mind’s compulsive need to grasp, to separate, to protect a self that isn’t stable. That’s why I trust what the Buddha taught. Not as philosophy, but as direct instruction. I’ve seen those same roots—craving, aversion, delusion—play out in my own body, not just in culture.
So what follows is not a modern critique of racism through a Buddhist lens, but rather something more foundational. It’s a weaving of threads: what we know from psychology about bias and projection, from sociology and anthropology about power and group identity, from neuroscience about fear and pattern recognition, and from the Buddha, who named the roots of human suffering long before any of these fields existed; and there were others, before him and beyond him. Many cultures—Indigenous, oral, ancient—have recognized the consequences of disconnection, fear, and othering. Their stories, rituals, and ethical codes reflect a deep awareness that harm begins when we forget our place in the whole. What the Buddha offered was not a replacement for this wisdom, but a map: a way to trace the roots of that forgetting not just in culture or power, but in the mind itself. I’m dancing on the thin edge of a blade with this Substack blog, writing for the academic and the Buddhist.
The Science and the Study
We begin with science, not because it holds the final word, but because in the modern West, it holds the cultural authority. Neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and anthropology have all contributed to our understanding of racism. Not as ideology, but as conditioned behavior—emerging from ancient survival mechanisms, social dynamics, and deeply embedded habits of mind.
Just a few months ago, Kluge et al. (2025) published a study exploring the gap between self-reported attitudes and actual intergroup behavior using neuroimaging and a new tool they developed—the Immigration Attitude Score (IAS).1 That researchers are now probing bias at the neural level isn’t just innovative, it’s unnerving. Because what they found isn’t easy to dismiss.
The study recruited 47 native Finnish university students. Participants listened to 22 pro- and 22 anti-immigration statements, rating their agreement on a five-point scale. But before completing that questionnaire, they underwent brain scans using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a technology that records the brain’s magnetic fields in real time.
While undergoing MEG, participants also completed the Implicit Association Test (IAT), categorizing a series of faces—either Finnish locals or Muslim immigrants—paired with positive or negative words. The design aimed to measure implicit bias by tracking how quickly and accurately participants responded under different conditions.
The results were telling. Even among students who expressed supportive views toward immigrants, MEG detected subtle but consistent neural biases in how their brains processed out-group faces. The study revealed a persistent mismatch: what participants said didn’t always align with how their brains responded. And that discrepancy—that residue of bias beyond conscious awareness—is precisely what makes this research so disturbing.
Anthropology, psychology, and sociology suggest several dynamic evolutionary, mental, and social conditions at play in better understanding these results. So does Buddhism.
Group Identity and the Construction of “Otherness”
Sociology and anthropology have long examined how identity is formed not in isolation, but in contrast. As Émile Durkheim observed, the collective depends on the outsider; it is through differentiation that a group comes to know itself. Without a perceived “them,” there is no coherent “us.” It’s tribalism. We inherit these frameworks and rarely question them.
In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Durkheim shows how religious systems classify the world into sacred and profane, clean and unclean, in-group and out-group. These distinctions aren't just theological—they’re social technologies. They create identity through exclusion. This matters because racism operates the same way. It defines “us” through what we are not. Durkheim didn’t frame this in terms of moral failure—he framed it as structural necessity: the group needs the outsider to recognize itself as a group.2
Pierre Bourdieu extended this understanding with the concept of habitus—the internalized social dispositions that shape our perceptions, tastes, and behaviors without conscious awareness. Bourdieu also coined the term "symbolic violence," referring to the subtle, invisible pressure exerted through dominant cultural norms that perpetuate themselves. This violence isn’t physical. It operates through language, education, posture, and etiquette—what counts as “appropriate.” And because it feels unremarkable, it goes unnoticed. That’s what makes it effective.3 This is also how bias works. It isn’t always loud or intentional. It’s often subtle, patterned, and self-justifying. We don’t question the frame because we are the frame. Contemporary frameworks like critical race theory and structural analyses attempt to map these dynamics in modern terms: systemic injustice, institutional racism, and social reproduction. These models name patterns—but they rarely provide tools for transforming the mind that enacts them. They often flatten nuance in pursuit of moral clarity, creating new binaries in the name of justice.
In Buddhist terms, symbolic violence is the social expression of saṅkhāra—the mental formations that shape perception and action. The difference is that Buddhist psychology doesn’t stop at description. It offers a path for deconditioning—so we don’t just see the frame, we dissolve it. All of this reinforces what early Buddhist psychology made explicit: perception is conditioned. Identity is fabricated. And clinging to either gives rise to suffering, not only personal, but collective.
Psychological Roots of Othering: Bias, Projection, and the Fragile Self
Modern psychology has mapped out the mind’s defensive architecture—the ways it protects, preserves, and inflates a sense of self, often at the expense of others. These processes aren’t exceptional; they’re ordinary modes of operation. They function silently, forming the background noise of human perception.
Studies on implicit bias show that people routinely associate threat with out-group members, even when they don’t consciously endorse prejudice.4 These biases are automatic, fast, unconscious, and often in contradiction to our stated values. The problem is neurological, perceptual, and social.
Freud didn’t study Buddhism. He wasn’t interested in the Vedas. He thought religion was a mass delusion—wish fulfillment dressed up as metaphysics. And yet, without knowing it, he described something the Buddha had already mapped.
In 1911, Freud wrote about projection as a basic defense of the mind. When we can’t tolerate something in ourselves—rage, fear, envy, shame—we throw it outward. We locate it in someone else. Not consciously, not strategically. Automatically. The mind says, “I’m not angry. You are.” Or, “I’m not violent. They are.”5
Modern psychology still recognizes this mechanism. Projection isn’t rare. It’s not pathological. It’s how the ego protects itself—by refusing to see what it doesn’t want to own. It’s also a core part of how racism works. People don’t just learn to hate. They displace the parts of themselves they fear and assign them to someone else.
Freud called this projection. The Buddha called it delusion, and the stories built on top of it, papañca.6 One frames it as neurosis, and the other as the root of all human suffering.
Either way, the function is the same. What we can’t face internally, we recreate externally—and then we believe it’s real.
Racism, in this light, becomes a psychological reflex: an inability to tolerate the unfamiliar within, so we weaponize the familiar without. Social identity theory adds another layer. We don’t just see ourselves as individuals—we define ourselves through group membership. To be more precise, in the late 1970s, Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that humans only take on roles associated with group membership if and only if they identify with the group; as such, the group serves as an extension of the ‘self’. In-groups become containers for safety, meaning, and status. Out-groups become the mirror we reject. The mind does this to maintain coherence.7
In early Buddhist terms, this is all mana—the conceit of "I am," and the drive to compare: better than, worse than, or equal to. It’s also papañca—the proliferation of mental content that distorts experience into narrative, opinion, and enemy-making. Psychology explains the scaffolding, and the Buddha showed how to dismantle it.
Buddhist Psychology: The Roots of Division
I often mention that I’m no Buddhist scholar, nor monastic. I am a devout lay Buddhist, a.k.a. ‘householder’. For the next part of this post, I’ll be drawing directly from early Buddhist texts to explore how the Buddha understood the roots of perception, bias, and harm; specifically, racism, classism…the isms associated with the ‘I’.
A Note on Method
With Norbu—a Theravāda-informed AI trained on the early canon—I explored further textual evidence that shows how the Buddha confronted caste, status, and the illusion of self.8
What Norbu Said
When I asked NORBU to fetch ancient interpretations of Buddhist teachings on racism, it said:
NORBU:
The Buddha directly challenged the caste system and racial prejudices that existed in ancient India. Here are some key teachings:
In AN 3.58, the Buddha explains that moral conduct, not birth, determines one's worth: "It is not by birth that one becomes an outcast or a noble one. It is by one's actions that one becomes an outcast or a noble one."
The Vasettha Sutta (MN 98) contains a powerful rejection of caste-based discrimination. The Buddha points out that while animals have many different species with distinct characteristics, humans are one species. He explains that biological differences between humans are superficial, and what truly matters is a person's actions and ethical behavior.
A practical example is the story of Sunita, a street sweeper from the "untouchable" caste who became an enlightened monk. The Buddha accepted him into the Sangha despite social opposition, demonstrating that the path to enlightenment is open to all regardless of social status or birth.
The Buddha's first Sangha was revolutionary for its time, accepting members from all castes and social backgrounds. This radical inclusivity was captured in his famous statement:
"Just as the great rivers, when they reach the ocean, lose their former names and identities and are just called 'ocean', so too do members of different castes who join the Sangha become simply 'followers of the Buddha.'"
My Follow-Up
Lest I lose you with content overload, I’ll keep this discussion between Norbu and me brief. Here’s a follow-up question.
What the Buddha Didn’t Say (And Why That Matters)
The Buddha taught that clinging (taṇhā) to views, identity, even righteousness, is the root cause of suffering (dukkha). In the Upādāna Sutta (SN 12.2), he outlines four types of clinging, one of which is clinging to views (diṭṭhupādāna). That includes ideological positions. Even true views, when clung to, become fetters.
When we filter Buddhism primarily through frameworks like critical race theory, intersectionality, or systemic analysis, we may unintentionally reinforce identification with race, gender, trauma, or social roles. These are forms of sakkāya-diṭṭhi—the view that there is a solid, enduring self or group-self, which the Buddha said must be relinquished to attain stream-entry. Sakkāya-diṭṭhi is one of three fetters one abandons through right view. But the Buddha didn't reject all views - he emphasized the importance of Right View (sammā diṭṭhi) while warning against clinging to views in general (MN 2, Sabbāsava Sutta).
In psychology, this concern echoes identity fusion theory and collective narcissism, which show that strong identification with group identities can lead to increased us-vs-them behavior, moral rigidity, and reduced empathy for outsiders9. Sociologically, we've seen that well-meaning movements that elevate systemic awareness often cultivate ideological in-grouping, performative virtue signaling, and silencing of dissent. This is documented in critiques of “call-out culture”10 and “moral grandstanding”11, both of which suggest that collective identity movements can devolve into status-seeking rather than systemic change.
Someone once said to me, “I use Buddhism for compassion and systems theory to understand racism.” Their synthesis sounded thoughtful, but it revealed a contradiction worth naming. From within their own framework, their goal is clear: to alleviate suffering by transforming both the inner mind and outer structures. They believe systems of oppression—like racism—create collective trauma that must be named, analyzed, and dismantled. Buddhism, in this view, offers emotional regulation and compassion; systems theory provides the diagnosis and intervention.
This isn’t early Buddhism. It’s a hybrid that reframes the Dhamma as an ethical supplement to activism, without addressing its roots. Buddhism teaches that suffering arises not from systems, but from taṇhā (craving), upādāna (clinging), and avijjā (ignorance). Systems exist, but they are not ultimate. Clinging to identity, even in the name of justice, is still clinging. The Buddha didn't say, “Fix the world to free your mind.” He said, “Free the mind—and see the world clearly.”
This synthesis feels compassionate, but it’s built on opposing principles: one deconstructs identity; the other depends on it. One reveals liberation as the end of self; the other doubles down on selfhood to redistribute power. You can’t walk both paths fully. And pretending you can is how we end up with a Dhamma that soothes egos but never uproots them…and let’s face it, it’s also the West colonizing Buddhism.
Final Thoughts and Invitation
I’ve experienced sexism my entire life. Not as a concept, but as a pattern—subtle and overt. I know what it feels like to be dismissed, talked over, misread, and underestimated because of my gender. I’ve lived it.
And I know some people have been deeply affected by racism, caste, class, gender, by all the identities this world uses to divide. The pain of being on the other side of othering is real. But the Buddha didn’t promise liberation by reorganizing the categories. He showed us how to see through them.
That doesn’t mean we ignore harm. It means we stop fueling it with delusion. It means we stop clinging to identity, even the ones we’ve been hurt by.
This path isn’t easy. But it’s clean. It’s honest. And it’s the only one I’ve found that doesn't require me to hate someone else to heal. If your experience of Buddhism has only been filtered through therapy, wellness culture, or activist frameworks, you haven’t seen what the Buddha taught.
Please don’t take my word for it. Look. Strip it back to the root texts. Sit with it. You don’t need to believe—just observe. See what happens when you stop reinforcing identity and start questioning perception itself. That’s where the real path begins.
Will You Help Me Choose My Next Deep Dive Post?
I’m getting ready to write my next in-depth post for Resisting the Drift, and I want to hear from you!
📌 Vote in the poll. In my next post, I’ll take your feedback and dive deep into the winning topic. Did you pick ‘other’? Let me know what you would like me to write about.
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A Skillful Means? When VR Helps Where Nothing Else Could
For many people, virtual reality has offered a doorway into relief, reflection, and connection. Whether easing chronic pain, supporting trauma recovery, helping with phobias, or offering moments of stillness in lives marked by isolation, VR has shown real potential to support well-being. This post reflects on how VR—when used with care and intention—can function as upāya, a skillful means that gently meets people where they are and invites them into a deeper relationship with their own experience.
I also offer embodiment coaching for those who feel ready to go beyond “mindfulness as stress relief” and explore a deeper, more integrated way of being. If you're curious about how embodied awareness can support real transformation, you're welcome to reach out.
References
Kluge, A., Zebarjadi, N., Tassinari, M., Lin, F., Jääskeläinen, I. P., Jasinskaja-Lahti, I., & Levy, J. (2025). Supportive but biased: perceptual neural intergroup bias is sensitive to minor reservations about supporting outgroup immigration. Neuropsychologia, 109068. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109068
Durkheim, É. (1995). The elementary forms of religious life (K. E. Fields, Trans.). Free Press. (Original work published 1912). https://ia801600.us.archive.org/25/items/elementaryformso00durk/elementaryformso00durk.pdf
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812507
Greenwald, A. G., & Krieger, L. H. (2006). Implicit bias: Scientific foundations. California Law Review, 94(4), 945–967. https://doi.org/10.2307/20439056
Freud, S. (1911). Psycho-analytic notes upon an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (Dementia paranoides). Standard Edition, 12, 3–82. https://www.proquest.com/openview/7caae63a6336a8450a3ecf9899abaa80/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1820903
Bhikkhu, Ṭhānissaro. (2017). On the Path: An Anthology on the Eightfold Path Drawn from the Pali Canon [Digital]. https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Ebooks/OnThePath210213.pdf
Haslam, J.R.S.S. A. (2017). Social Psychology (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications, Ltd. (UK). https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781526414953
Norbu. (2025). Norbu AI: Early Buddhist insight assistant [AI large language model]. Developed by Bodhi Vision in collaboration with Theravāda practitioners. https://norbu-ai.org/en/norbu
Golec de Zavala, A., & Lantos, D. (2020). Collective narcissism and its social consequences: The bad and the ugly. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(3), 273–278. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420917703
Ng, E. (2022). Cancel culture: A Critical Analysis. Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-97374-2
Tosi, J., & Warmke, B. (2020). Grandstanding: The use and abuse of moral talk. Oxford University Press. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361001105_Grandstanding_The_Use_and_Abuse_of_Moral_Talk
The essay title might be a little provocative, but the Buddhist understanding of our true Self being well beyond our atomized vision of of race, class, ethnicity and sex can't be stated too much.
I wonder though why so few practitioners (and teachers for that matter) continue to sidestep a core tenet of the Buddha's teachings; that of our individual lifetime as being one of many. That this has been now backed up by rigorous scientific investigation for 50 years (Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia) would seem to give Western writers a foundation that is certainly more than "taking it on faith." In any case, I won't argue that point beyond saying it's central my own practice and is clearly central to most Buddhist texts. Actually, I became Buddhist "because" of persistent past life memories; it's not a "belief" as much as an understanding.
Even if one has no living memories of previous lifetimes, contemplating this concept will inevitably lead to some pretty radical realignments of how we view people out in "the world." I personally recall a moment during meditation where I realized that all my "family history," which recorded back to 300 years, is really not "mine" at all. It happened, obviously, but I'm less a part of it than temporarily adopting it. Sure, my "body" and upbringing inherited plenty from the last two generations, but that's all it really is: an external set of clothing you're given to "play" a given persona for a little while.
At the same time, though our current body may have inherited some generational karma, there's nothing at all to say that your consciousness shared in any of it. It's more likely it didn't, at least not in the way we assume. One's "body" today may black, or white, or ethnic Han, male or female, weak or healthy, beautiful or ugly, wealthy or in poverty...it's practically endless, which of course, is BY DESIGN. We come to "play" and forget. Luckily the Buddha, the embodiment of our actual real Self came along and said: "Hey, you know, there's a much better way than all "this."
Once this perspective settles in? It becomes nearly impossible to truly see anyone as the "other" for very long. At some point we "were" that other, and likely will be again.