Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Treasure Mountain, the podcast that inspires and guides people to find the treasure within human experience. Our return guest today on Treasure Mountain is Banter Kalako, who is an Australian Buddhist monk from the Terrafada Forest tradition. He's the Spirit's, director of Little Dust and founder of Rainbow LGBTQIA Buddhist community. Bante Akalako is also the spiritual advisor of Central West Buddhists and a chaplain at Western Sydney University. He sits on the boards of the Buddhist Council of New South Wales and the Federation of Australian Buddhist Council.
Bante Akalako's inspired project that we're going to be focusing on today is Rainbodhi. Rainbow is a spiritual friendship group for LGBTQIA Buddhists and an advocate for more inclusion and diversity in the broader Buddhist community. They offer meditation, dharma, discussion and social events in a safe, supportive environment.
Rainbowdhi welcomes everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexuality or ability. Rainbowdi is a non sectarian Buddhist group, welcoming people from all faiths or with no faith, and all their events are free.
The Rainbow name combines two words rainbow, representing our diverse community and bodhi the Buddhist concept of enlightenment. And it's Rainbodi that we'll be discussing with Banter Kalako in this interview. So join us as we seek for the treasure within.
Welcome back to Treasure Mountain. Bunte, how are you?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Thanks so much for having me back, Saul. I really appreciate it. It's really good to be here and.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: I'm really so pleased to see you again. And I can't imagine how busy you've been. I believe you've been touring around Is, New South Wales and Queensland. Is that right?
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been to Dubbo, Orange, Malong, Singleton, Newcastle. And now I'm back in Sydney for a bit, actually. World Pride. Sydney. World Pride here in Sydney at the moment.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: It is.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: A lot of stuff going on. Yeah.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Is Rainbowty having a get together in the near term future?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: We're having a get together in the Botanical gardens. We're having a meditation morning and a picnic, so it'll be really nice to connect with our community again.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Fantastic. Look, let's get stuck into this. And I know we discussed this before we went on to record this interview, and I like to think of it as a basic question, but I'm assured it's not. And I know you've been asked this many times, but for the clarity, for the sake of listeners who may not be aware, in a nutshell, what is the Buddhist perspective on sex for lay Buddhists, especially as it may regard queer people?
[00:03:16] Speaker B: That's right. And so I mentioned to you before that it's always interesting when we kind of think about our queer community in terms of ethical issues.
And I think it shows the power that religion has in our minds to be the arbiter of whether these queer, trans or intersex communities are ethical beings. And this is something that we see in other religions and in various cultures across the world. And I think when Buddhists ask about this there's a slight apprehension perhaps that maybe we might be also secretly not quite cool with our queer community. And people are perhaps looking for a bit of reassurance because we like to think that Budhism is very open and accepting and for the most part it definitely is.
So when we talk about sexual ethics, we're talking about sexual misconduct or kamesu mi Chachara and this means to abstain from misusing your sexuality in ways that harm.
And so this applies to everyone equally. And when I talk about this issue, I usually talk about it in terms of trust and consent. So the trust usually refers to the quality of a relationship.
You don't want to break the trust that you have with your partner. And the consent is about who can consent.
We have in the ancient scriptures, people who are protected by their parents or their guardians, people who are protected by nature or the Dhamma, and people who are protected by law.
And so this is a modern way that we talk about this precept. But I just do want to make the point that this is quite a different way of thinking about it than perhaps it was at the time of the Buddha, which was a very specific culture and a point in time. And so what counted as sexual misconduct at that time perhaps was a little bit different to how we might think of it today. And certainly in the thousands of years that Buddhism has flourished and moved around the world, what has been regarded by various cultures as sexual misconduct has actually changed from place to place and from time to time.
And sometimes things like masturbation are regarded as sexual misconduct or having sex during the daytime. And definitely queer relationships have also been regarded as sexual misconduct in some cultures, in some times. And I also want to acknowledge the effect of colonialism in Buddhist cultures such as India, Sri Lanka and Burma, where the imposed morality of the colonizers had a really big effect on the culture in those countries and how certain things were perceived. And this was also taken up by the spiritual traditions, including Buddhism. And the consequences of those laws are still being felt today and shape certainly the conversations that occur in those places about sexuality and identity.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: That's true. I do feel, though, that some other religions have sex is like it's just for procreation and that's it you shouldn't do it outside of whereas I think the Buddha was a bit more pragmatic. He understood that people have sex for fun.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think it was when you read the Vinya and you kind of hear about the wild stuff that was going on, like sex parties down by the river, people having sex with all sorts of animals and necrophilia, all sorts of things. It was certainly a pretty wild time. And a lot of the things that we kind of would be quite prudish about seemed to have been very matter of fact. And so I think that it's worth pointing out that the Buddha wasn't he was a realist, perhaps when it came to human nature, and that he didn't see these things as inherently sinful or that they were in of themselves bad.
But certainly to kind of broaden the topic just briefly, the Buddha was pretty down on sensual pleasure, and so that's something that we kind of have to consider. But at the same time, he didn't go around condemning people for having sex and for having relationships and things like that.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: So I don't know that he was inherently anti gay or lesbian or anything like that. He was quite aware that there was these different types of sexuality.
I don't think he was inherently down on it. Was he?
[00:08:58] Speaker B: No, it doesn't seem like that.
It is something that we can only infer in that it's just simply not talked about.
And so we can kind of say, oh, it doesn't seem like it was. There are some cases where I think that we would have to say that there is some discrimination that occurred at the time, and this would be in regards to the class of beings we call the pandica. We're not really sure, is this a human? Is it an imaginary creature? Is it a mythical creature, rather, or is it a third gender? We're not really sure what it is, which is why we have to be so careful when we talk about these things two and a half thousand years ago. Very different time and place. And those people are banned from ordination. And the same with people who have what we would call intersex characteristics today. So those people who had perhaps presented with male and female genitalia, genitalia or indeterminate genitalia, these people are also prevented from ordaining. So there certainly has been, and not just at the time of the Buddha, but throughout the history of Buddhism, there has been, regardless of whether the know, endorsed or condemned, there has been these kind of little snippets of homophobia, transphobia Interphobia that pop up through Buddhist cultures over time.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Okay, well, yeah, I want to move on now away from the theory more to the lived experience, to understanding the experience of LGBTQIA people in society. And in particular, what is the experience like for LGBTQIA Buddhists, according to, for instance, what they say to you in the modern era?
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's actually a very diverse group of people, and these people are lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, queer, questioning and asexual. So it's actually a very broad group of people, and they all experience various levels of privilege and various levels of disadvantage in our society and also in our Buddhist communities. So there's no one single queer experience, and I certainly can't speak for all of them, but I think that, generally speaking, buddhism tends to be quite open minded and quite welcoming, and that's really wonderful. It's regarded by many people, especially in the west, as being friendly towards queer people. But the situation might not be the same in other countries. And certain places I know where discussion of these issues is just simply not welcome and people are not comfortable being out in those communities, for example. So just as there's a diversity of experience in the Rainbow community, there really is a diversity of Buddhisms and cultures. So it's not easy to talk of one and all of these different cultures. They have very different attitudes and they have very different social norms. And this all plays out in how queer people feel welcomed, accepted and loved or don't. They may feel that they simply don't belong in those communities.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Right, well, I was reading on your website there was a section where there's some results of a social survey which was compiled by Dr. Stephen Kerry from Charles Darwin University. And I was quite surprised by this. And I guess coming from my privileged straight point of view, I like to think of Buddhism as being friendly to queer folk. But it said that there was 37% of people or respondents had seen or heard homophobia and 16% people have been told that their queer identity was inconsistent with Buddhist teachings.
Does Buddhism really treat LGBTQIA people fairly well?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: This is why it's really important not just to rely upon our assumptions, but to actually go to the people who we're talking about and listen. And this is something that I feel a lot of marginalized communities grapple with. They just don't feel like they're being heard and their experience is being recognized. It's really easy to gaslight or trivialize or minimize. But when we got those results in the survey, I was really quite disheartened because I've also experienced homophobia, I've seen transphobia, I've seen sexism, I've seen racism in our Buddhist communities. And it's really important that we actually recognize it when it's there so that we can work on it. And otherwise, if we continue to think, oh, everything's fine, we love everybody, but we don't do the work that needs to be done, then we're doing the Rainbow community a real disservice. So I think generally people like to think, oh yeah, budhists are really welcoming and everything's fine. But for queer people, that might not necessarily be the case.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: I'd like to come back to that topic a bit later on and also the issue of what can we do about it? But I want to just get on to what was the initial impetus that got Rainbow started? So how did that happen?
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah, so actually it happened after a conference called the Sakhudita Conference, which is a conference for Buddhist women held in the Blue Mountains. And I went along to that and there was a queer group that has been meeting at the conference for many years now. And I was asked by a woman in Sydney to please start something like that on an ongoing basis for queer Buddhists in Sydney. And so I kind of thought about it and thought, oh, it's going to be really hard and difficult and put me in an awkward position.
But in the end, I saw that there was a lot of benefit and a real need, and so I said yes. And the reason for that actually was because we just had the horrible experience of going through the marriage equality plebiscite where everyone got to talk about were queers allowed to get married? And everyone had an opinion, everyone had a judgment, and our identities really were being discussed in the public forum by anyone and anyone and including in our spiritual spaces. And I'd had people come up to me and give their opinion and things like that. And so I saw that there was a need to support our queer Buddhists, especially because at that time there was legislation, so called religious freedom legislation, that was coming up in the state and national parliaments. And it was essentially clear to me that this would be another time when our queer Buddhist community, especially because of the focus on religion, would need community support and would need advocacy. And so that's why I decided to do Rainbow.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: And what year was that when you first got started?
[00:17:49] Speaker B: It feels like a very long time ago, but it's probably only been about three years or four years.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Yeah, right, okay, so what are Rainbowty's aims and what projects have you been working on to achieve those ends?
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so Rainbow started off just as a spiritual friendship group and was just a place where people could come together who are already Buddhist, who already belonged to communities. They could come to Rainbow and they could be themselves 100% their true, authentic self. They could use whatever pronouns they wanted, they could bring their boyfriend, they could be as camp as they wanted to be or whatever it was just a place where they could be themselves and would be welcomed and loved and they wouldn't have to monitor themselves, they wouldn't have to present differently. And this is what queer people do all the time in various spaces, including our religious spaces.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: So that was the main aim, was just to let Queer Buddhists know, we love you, you're welcome, you belong, this is your space.
And as time went by, we started to put on more and more social events and meditation events, and that's when the pandemic hit.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: And messed it all up for a while, at least.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: One of the good things to come out of the pandemic, there were many, many bad things. But one of the good things for Rainbow was that we moved from being just a small Sydney based group to a national and then international community of queer Buddhists. And that was really wonderful, actually, because there's a lot of queer Buddhists who are the only queer Buddhists in their village or city or whatever, and they could come together online and they could feel connected to other Kriya Buddhists. They could be themselves, we could talk about issues that affected us and that was really important to those people. And that's been a really wonderful thing to see Rainbowty go from being so small to this kind of international thing.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: So I'll ask you now, if there are any people who are listening who want to get in contact with Rainbowty online, how would they go about doing that?
[00:20:23] Speaker B: They go to Rainbowty.org or they can stalk us on Facebook and they can send a message via our website. And yeah, we love hearing from our Korea Buddhist family around the world, so please do get in touch.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Okay? And if you don't want to type it into the browser, I will have a link to Rainbodhi.org in the description below.
Now, I believe that something that Rainbodi has been working on. Well, actually, before I ask that, I'm going to ask, you've just said that many queer folk, when they go to be part of a Buddhist community in a spiritual space, they don't necessarily act according to their authentic selves and they feel a sense of judgment.
So what can be done by Buddhist organizations and communities to help queer folk to feel more included and safe?
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Asking Sol, that's a really important question because as a Buddhist community, we have a task, which is to make sure that everyone feels welcome in our Buddhist spaces. So the analogy I often use is that of someone who uses a wheelchair. So if you're a Buddhist center and you don't have wheelchair accessibility, then by default, you're locking out part of your community from accessing. And so when we talk about inviting in our queer community, it has to be more than just basic goodwill, which is something that we should have for everyone anyway. We are going to have to do some work to let queer people know that they belong, and that's by walking the talk.
One starting point is just to do some training, basic training among leaders on queer issues and how to be a good ally. And this will give a lot of knowledge to the leadership teams so that they can then enact these in their centers. You can do things like put a little sticker up saying that this is a safe space or put something on your website, but you've got to make sure firstly, that your space is safe.
You need to know what you're doing because you have a responsibility. If you're inviting people in saying, we welcome everyone, you're going to be safe here. And yet people complain if a trans woman is using the bathroom or if there are homophobic comments made. You need to be able to deal with those appropriately and hopefully prevent them from happening.
And so some really basic things, for example, could be like making sure that there's all genders toilet available at your monastery or retreat center or meditation center.
You could have an option on your membership forms for different genders. You could have accommodation options for different genders. You could get rid of old fashioned ideas like men sit on this side and women sit on this side, or women sit behind the men, which is really difficult for people who are non binary or trans.
You could make sure that people know that the community welcomes queer people and have the leadership teams, teachers, presidents, committee members, volunteers, talking positively about our queer community, letting them know that they're welcome, and even doing things like celebrating pride. Um, these are ways that you can let your your career community know that they're welcome.
Then we have a job to do to make sure that they're safe while they're in that space. And that would be around things like policies about homophobia or transphobia, treating people with respect and consequences. So if you have publicly available policies saying, we're an inclusive, budhist center, we don't tolerate homophobia, we don't tolerate transphobia. And then if it does occur, you need a process to back it up, so that if someone complains, they're not just dismissed or gaslighted or given some sort of spiritual solution that it's actually dealt with, because otherwise those people won't feel safe. And I think this is probably the biggest outcome from that survey that I saw, was that we have this idea that Buddhist communities are open, welcoming, and safe. But it turned out that it wasn't always the case, and it was. Almost 40% of people who had experienced homophobia, 16% had been told, as you mentioned, that their identity wasn't consistent with Buddhism. And so this shows that there is some work still to be done.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I imagine it's quite a lot because especially, like, just telling people that your queer identity is not consistent with Buddhism. Personally, I don't get where that's coming from, but maybe, like you say, there's the influence of colonialism and so forth.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: But it does, in really subtle ways, soul. And I think there was a percentage I can't remember what it was now, but of people who just didn't feel like their Buddhist community supported their identity. And we see people saying things like, oh, no, we don't talk about that here.
This isn't spiritual enough, and this is a shutting down of people's ability to feel comfortable and safe, that a really important part of their identity just isn't welcome in that space. And we're told that it's not spiritual, whereas I know that so many straight people go and talk about their marriage or the problems they have with their kids, and they're never told that their identity isn't welcome.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: In the context of the legislation I was talking about and the Plebiscite, people in our community were going through a really hard time. It was mixed up with their identity of being queer and their religion. And so it's perfectly valid that these things should be discussed in those spaces, and yet they were often shut down and dismissed.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: So we need to go beyond just having this kind of theoretical ethical stance of where we're lovingkindness for all. We should be inclusive of people of different identities and sexualities. We need to go beyond that to actually see, well, how does this work in practice? And I have to admit there are certain things as a straight person that it's like a privilege. I guess that's right. When we go to the retreat center and we have a male dorm and a female dorm, I've never once thought about, well, what if you're intersex or trans or something like that?
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Or even if you're queer, even if you're gay, being in an all male dorm.
Yeah, it's such a really mess with the whole system, doesn't it? The queers always kind of cause chaos. That's our job.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah, but even things like, you say, talking about your wife or your husband and then not allowing or not accepting it, when perhaps queer people might talk about their spouse or their partner, there's a lot to actually absorb, I guess, for these organizations. I know that Rainbowdi has started taking some action in that area. Do you want to talk to us about what Rainbowdi was doing for Buddhist organizations to assist them?
[00:28:55] Speaker B: So I produced a booklet called Welcoming the Rainbow, which is just a small booklet that goes through the basics of the various identities and gives some just very general information.
And it also gives some suggestions as to how organizations can make changes that are needed.
I think it's a very light and easy booklet. It's not confronting. It's got gorgeous illustrations by our illustrator friend, Venerable Yoda. And I think it was just a way for me to get this information into the hands of people who might read it and might think about the issues raised in the booklet and take action. Because the experience that I had in monasteries and with other Buddhists was that we were a little bit behind the rest of society. And religion is generally quite slow moving, I think. But the things that might be taken for granted in workplaces, for example, about safety and about consequences and about inclusivity, these just weren't ideas that I found in Buddhist communities. And I felt very much like individuals were having to do the hard emotional labor of advocating for themselves, which is really difficult to do, especially when there's a power structure, especially when it's about your religion and your safe spiritual home. And so I thought that I would try to give the general information in one big lot so that no one had to do it ever again. But of course, that's not the case. And this has been very well received. We actually raised 12,000 Australian dollars. And I just want to thank all those supporters who did that. It was just so wonderful to see that this was so well supported and we had professional designers and printers and we shipped it out around the world. And the reverberations from that have been amazing. And we get a lot of emails from the most random places and thanking us for that booklet, which is also available online.
And since the English version had been produced, it's been translated now into Dutch, into Thai, into Portuguese and Polish rather randomly. I'm hoping in the future that there'll be editions in Sinhala which address the particular issues in Sri Lanka that are quite different to the issues we have in the west and Chinese, which also address the specific culture and issues in Chinese communities around queer Buddhists.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. It sounds like Rainbowty has been growing quite quickly. Like, as you say, it was just a few years ago, it was just a small group in Sydney and a safe space where queer Buddhists could come together and meditate and be themselves and just participate in that spiritual community. And now it sounds like you're doing so much more. I mean, how is it growing and where do you see things going? What's on the agenda for Rainbowty going forward?
[00:32:37] Speaker B: I feel like for me personally, I've done quite a lot of work with Rainbowty and I'm just keen to kind of see what happens. So little things are happening around the world. For example, there's Rainbow to Singapore, which I should just mention this because of Singapore's anti foreign influence laws. Rainbow to Singapore is a completely separate organization, but they've got a really nice community there now that they've built, thanks to Kyle, their leader. And I was fortunate enough to go and be able to visit with them when I was recently in Singapore and do some events. And it mattered so much to those people to have a place where they could be themselves.
Singapore only recently repealed the criminal offense of same sex interactions, and so that's happened. And when the Polish translation came my way, I had no idea it was being done. Someone just posted it to me. So I'm quite happy for these kind of ripples to go out through the world. I don't think there's the same need for the ongoing kind of social interactions and things like that. I think people are generally just really happy it exists.
The idea of rainbowty exists. So many other faith groups have queer specific groups where people can kind of connect or exchange ideas or whatever. And so I think it's probably good that the Buddhists have got one that's dedicated to that too.
And yeah, my own personal energy for it has waned a little bit, but I know that the community is still growing and there's rainbodies popping up around Australia and.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: Like, it's not really happy.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: To let it be.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Yeah, and that doesn't sound it's not like a top down kind of arrangement necessarily. It sounds like it's almost like a grassroots thing. So if somebody in a different part of the world wants to start their own rainbow.
Can they do that?
[00:34:58] Speaker B: They can. And they can get in touch. And we just have some very simple guidelines which you mentioned at the beginning. Like our events, Rainbow events have to be free, they have to be inclusive. We try to make all our events accessible so that people can get into the spaces that we use.
And apart from that, it's non sectarian.
I think it's great that we give priority and privilege queer Buddhist voices. We give a space for people to explore their queerness and their faith in the one place which is good. And these things, my Buddhism is queer and my queerness is Buddhist, so these things are interesting to explore.
So if people want to do a rainbow, please get in touch. And it can be just as simple as a few friends getting together and just affirming each other's queer Buddhist identity. Or it could be going to your local Buddhist community and talking to them about what could be improved to make it a safer and more inclusive space. Or it could be networking with other queer faith groups or advocating within Budhism or within your society for queer people and Queer Buddhists, which is another role that Rainbowty has taken on, like giving submissions to parliamentary inquiries and things like that, because this is what is required. There is an education aspect and some advocacy and this is not what I expected to be doing on the spiritual path, but I can see that there's a benefit for those people who are affected by these issues. And I can see that there's a benefit for Buddhism to get some upskilling and to maybe feel more confident about working with our community.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Right, well, I think you've just anticipated my last question, but I just wanted to say, just by way of wrapping up for people out there who identifying as queer or maybe they're questioning any departing advice you have, or what's the next step for affirming them in their practice and in their participation in the community?
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Thank you for asking. Firstly, for those people who are listening, I just want to tell you that you are loved and that you belong and that you're a really important part of our Buddhist communities. There has always been queer, trans and intersex Buddhists and they have been a really important part of our Buddhist culture. As laypeople, as nuns, as monks, as teachers, as translators.
There has been and there always will be queer, trans and intersex Buddhists. So you belong and Budhism is for you.
And I just want to make sure that you feel welcome and loved. And if you don't, then start your own Buddhist community and make sure you get what you need.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: That is a fantastic message and very budhist, I think I have to say as well, in terms of if we're talking about universal lovingkindness, then it means absolutely everyone is loved and is part. Of this. And I have to say, as a straight person, we need our queer brethren and sisters to be part of our community and to contribute. They've got so much to offer, and I think that we should really take that positive view and embrace everybody, I think is probably the way to go. Look, thank you very much, Bantia Calico, for all your efforts. What a positive project to be working on, and I hope it really kicks off and does go global. And we've got lots of little Rainbow y groups everywhere. Because I think on a personal note, I think we are in the process of creating our own Buddhist culture, and if we want it to represent Buddhist values, then it's up to us to make that happen, right?
[00:39:41] Speaker B: Very well said, Sol, and thank you so much for having me back.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Okay. And thank you and I wish you all the very best and all the people involved in Rainbowty. All the very best. Thank you very much.
And thank you to all our listeners for joining us for this episode of Treasure Mountain in which we discovered from Bantia Kaliko, the spiritual director of Rainbow, about activities to support the LGBTQIA Buddhist community and how we can develop more welcoming and inclusive communities.
If you enjoy this podcast, I'd appreciate if you could share this episode with your friends or other people who could benefit from its inspiring story. And don't forget to click on the follow button on your podcast app so that you get the latest episodes turning up in your stream. Treasure Mountain podcast is part of the Everyday Dharma Network. You can find out more about Treasure Mountain podcast by going to the link in the description below. This episode, you can also find out about on the Treasure Mountain website information about previous episodes and guests, as well as getting transcriptions of our interviews and especially for people who may be hearing impaired. And if you go back to the Everydaydammer Net homepage, you can discover more about the other three podcasts on the network and links to subscribe to any and all of them. I hope you'll enjoy us again for our next episode of Treasure Mount Podcast as we think of the treasure within.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: Sam? Sam. Sam.
