When an East Asian practitioner enters a Western "mindfulness" space, they are often met with a profound and painful irony. They are entering a room dedicated to the teachings of an East Asian master—such as the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh—yet they frequently find themselves treated as either an invisible guest or a demographic category. The current structure of many Western Buddhist organizations, including Plum Village UK, has attempted to address racial inequity through "Racial Affinity Groups" (RAGs). However, by creating a binary system of "White Awareness" on one side and "People of Colour" on the other, these institutions have inadvertently created a new form of exclusion: the homogenization of the East Asian experience.
The Irony of the Ancestral Seat
The most striking element of this exclusion is the historical erasure it requires. Buddhism is an Asian tradition, and the Plum Village lineage is specifically rooted in the Vietnamese Zen (Thien) tradition. For an East Asian person to walk into a "Deep Listening" Sangha and find a room of white practitioners who refuse to introduce themselves is more than just social awkwardness; it is a manifestation of cultural appropriation.
In these settings, the "white default" has taken over the space. The practitioners have adopted the aesthetic and the techniques of the Dharma, but they have failed to adopt the radical hospitality and communal warmth that are hallmarks of Asian Buddhist cultures. When the majority-white group retreats into a "mindful" silence rather than welcoming a person of the same heritage as their teacher, the silence becomes a weapon of exclusion rather than a tool for peace.
The Trap of the "BAME" Umbrella
To "fix" the problem of white-dominated spaces, organizations have turned to the "Racial Affinity Group" model. In the UK, this usually results in a "Colours of Compassion" or "BAME" (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) group. While well-intentioned, this "one-size-fits-all" bucket for non-white practitioners is fundamentally reductive.
For the East Asian practitioner, being placed in a generic "PoC" group can feel like being "othered" twice. First, they are excluded from the "general" group by the coldness of white practitioners. Second, they are told that their specific cultural history, their unique experience with "model minority" myths, and their ancestral connection to the Dharma are the same as every other marginalized group. By defining everyone simply as "not white," the organization centers whiteness as the sun around which all other identities must orbit. It erases the specific nuances of East Asian identity, treating it as a secondary category rather than a primary heritage.
The "White Awareness" Binary
The existence of "White Awareness" groups highlights another tension. These groups are designed for white people to "do their own work" so they do not burden people of color with their realizations about privilege. While this is a valid social justice goal, it creates a "closed door" policy based on race.
When an East Asian practitioner is told they cannot join a group because they are not white, yet they find the "general" groups to be culturally white and socially unwelcoming, they are left in a spiritual vacuum. They are too "Asian" for the white group, but the "PoC" group may not speak to their specific East Asian experience. This leaves the practitioner as a "ghost in the room"—present in body, but unseen and unaccommodated by the institutional structure.
Toward a True Interbeing
Thich Nhat Hanh’s core teaching was Interbeing: the idea that nothing can exist by itself, and that we are all interconnected. A structure that relies on rigid racial bins is, in some ways, a failure of that teaching. It reflects a Western obsession with categorization that prioritizes political identity over human connection.
True inclusion in Western Buddhism would not look like a "White bucket" and a "Non-White bucket." It would look like a "general" Sangha that practices actual hospitality, breaking the cold, middle-class social barriers that currently define many UK groups. It would also involve recognizing that "Asian" is not a monolith. East Asian practitioners should not have to "audition" for a place in their own ancestral tradition.
The anger felt by those who are ignored in these spaces is not a "hindrance" to practice; it is a valid response to a systemic failure. For the Dharma to truly take root in the West, it must stop treating East Asian practitioners as "others" and start recognizing them as the very face of the tradition itself.