Emptiness Is to Womanism as Purple Is to Lavender: Buddhist Womanism Revisited in Alice Walker’s Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart

Abstract

This paper argues that the philosophy of Buddhist emptiness not only finds expression in Alice Walker’s Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart with its two most salient manifestationsdependent origination and impermanence, but is applied to alleviate suffering in the poetry, and the two approaches the poetry collection are (1) to recognize emptiness in times of crisis and (2) to cultivate bodhicitta through using emptiness to extend loving kindness to all beings. Furthermore, it is argued that emptiness enriches Buddhist womanism by strengthening its theoretical underpinnings, redirecting the focus from practice to cognitive transformation, and harmonizing the priorities of individual and communal wellbeing.

1. Introduction

Buddhist womanism, as an emerging field at the intersection of Buddhist thought and womanist philosophy, traces its academic origins to the first dedicated scholarly project in 2009, marking a conscious effort to bridge these two traditions. Central to its framework is the foundational vision of Alice Walker, whose womanist principles—rooted in celebrating marginalized women’s resilience, prioritizing communal solidarity, and insisting on holistic liberation—provide a critical anchor. As Keri Day (2016) highlights, “Womanist religious thought and the more gender inclusive Buddhism provide rich cross-disciplinary and interreligious conversations on religion and gender justice” (p. 11). A core alignment between Buddhism and womanism lies in their shared commitment to exploring women’s freedom: both traditions emphasize dismantling oppressive structures that constrain women’s agency, whether through Buddhist teachings on breaking cycles of suffering or womanism’s focus on empowering women of color and marginalized groups to claim their full humanity. This confluence not only amplifies women’s voices within Buddhist discourse but also infuses womanist thought with spiritual dimensions of interconnectedness and compassion, creating a framework that seeks both personal awakening and collective liberation.

As the progenitor of Womanism and an unflagging activist who utilizes writing as an effective weapon to address the ills of the world, Walker exemplifies the essence of Buddhist womanism, and many scholars have already delved into Walker’s works in great depth to reveal the Buddhist elements embedded in her womanist philosophy. For instance, in their book Ancient and Modern Religion and Politics, the authors expound on the Tonglen meditation, a Tibetan Buddhist practice that Walker employs to awaken compassion and open her heart, arguing that “Walker finds this in her art and in tonglen: as the writer, she is that being who realizes that all beings mother her into being” (p. 182), a vision that contributes to womanist love and commitment to the survival and wholeness of an entire people. Additionally, Keri Day (2016) notes that “Walker’s black feminist-womanist thought has intentionally engaged Buddhist texts and practices in order to demonstrate the contribution that both discourses make to each other.” (p. 9), and Carolyn M. Jones Medine (2016) reveals that Walker points us to “the importance of practice for survival in the midst of violence and oppression, but also for going beyond survival to healing by recognizing our own Buddha-nature” (p. 17), noting that “Immense love, sublime ecstasy, and Spirit, that Womanist source, are given and received as everyone engages in a Tonglen practice that gives peace” (p. 24). Hence, it is not difficult to perceive that the common denominator of the existing research is the focus on the Buddhist practice in Walker’s philosophy.

In addition to emphasizing practice, a small number of studies have also noticed the non-substantial factors in Buddhism in Walker’s womanism. For instance, Ikea M. Johnson’s article delves into the Buddhist philosophy in The Color Purple, elaborating several fundamental Buddhist concepts such as no-self and the five clinging aggregates, as well as emptiness (Johnson 2020). In addition, Zhi Huang (2022) contends that “Celie displays the Buddhist teachings of emptiness in the process of practicing Tonglen” (p. 660) and elucidates this in great depth through Celie’s revealing remarks, her transformed attitudes and feelings, and her spiritual growth, suggesting that the signs of emptiness had already found their way into Walker’s The Color Purple (first published in 1982). However, Johnson overlooks the main dimension of womanism in Walker’s philosophy, while Huang’s interpretation of Buddhist womanism still emphasizes its practicality.

It can be seen that by amalgamating womanism, which “primarily centers its attention on the suffering and oppression among women of colour within religious spaces” (Day 2016, p. 10) and concerns commitment to “survival and wholeness of entire people” (Walker 1983, p. xii), and Buddhism, which is gender-inclusive and offers enlightening practices to address troubling issues, the aforementioned scholars have already provided in-depth analyses of Walker’s Buddhist womanism.

From this angle, Walker’s Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart (2018) is a revealing piece detailing her Buddhist womanist thoughts. Although not all poems in this collection are solely dedicated to oppressed African American women, these poems embody the core tenets of Buddhist womanism by synthesizing womanist compassion and a commitment to collective wellbeing with Buddhist insights to navigate life’s journey. For example, within this volume, Walker voices for the children in Palestine, the victims of police brutality, and other marginalized communities, reflecting the overarching theme of womanism. Meanwhile, from the metaphorical and Buddhist-inspired title “Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart” to lines such as “Impermanence. So the Buddha taught” (Walker 2018, p. 54), Buddhist thoughts heavily permeate her poetry, by dint of which the speaker is not pessimistic when confronted with miseries and sufferings but offers us a portal into her enchanting and emancipating realm of activism, hope, and boundless love. As Tessa Rose (2018) comments, in Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, “on the side of the oppressed”, Walker “once more explores themes of feminism and humanity, while writing with a sense of urgency for action and constructive contemplation”, this poetry collection being “a four leaf clover for all activists and fighters against injustice needing a glimmer of hope” (Rose 2018).

However, Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart touches upon a cardinal Buddhist concept—emptiness, which denotes the ultimate, undifferentiated nature of reality and underscores the interconnectedness and impermanence of all things. While Walker never explicitly mentions the term “emptiness”, many of Walker’s poems contain the essence of emptiness, or, in other words, cannot be conceived by a mind that is utterly alien to the wisdom of emptiness, as evidenced in lines such as “with a soul made of everything” (Walker 2018, p. 25). Nonetheless, scholarly discourse often overlooks this pivotal aspect of Walker’s Buddhist womanist philosophy, focusing chiefly on Buddhist practices, with emptiness being a crucial yet underappreciated dimension of Buddhist womanism.

In this paper, leveraging the rich material from Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, we contend that emptiness, a cornerstone of Buddhist understanding, is also articulated in these poems and is an integral part of Walker’s Buddhist womanist philosophy. Moreover, this paper posits that emptiness in the poetry offers two healing pathways for people in distress, namely to recognize emptiness in times of crisis and to cultivate bodhicitta1 through using emptiness to extend loving kindness to all beings. Incontrovertibly, employing Buddhist strategies to address the afflictions of suppressed women is a hallmark of Buddhist womanism, yet this mission to extend love and mitigate suffering for all finds its sustenance and depth from the wisdom of emptiness, which adds more complexity to Walker’s Buddhist womanist philosophy.

This paper unfolds in three sections. The first section analyzes how emptiness manifests through dependent origination and impermanence in Walker’s poems; the second examines the application of emptiness as a curative to human suffering and interprets the significance of the collection’s title; the third rethinks Buddhist womanism by contrasting its emphasis on emptiness with conventional frameworks, highlighting how this ontological shift deepens theoretical foundations, redirects practice from ritual to cognitive liberation, and harmonizes individual and communal wellbeing.

2. Dependent Origination and Impermanence: Manifestations of Emptiness

Emptiness, to cite Buswell and Lopez (2014), is “neither nothingness nor the absence of existence, but rather the absence of a falsely imagined type of existence, identified as svabhāva. Because all phenomena are dependently arisen, they lack, or are empty of, an intrinsic nature characterized by independence and autonomy” (p. 872). As all phenomena are woven in an intangible web of cause and effect and come into existence only because of other phenomena, all are inherently dependent and impermanent, lacking an independent, substantial, and unchanging essence or self-existence. Although emptiness is a fundamental characteristic of existence, the way it underlies our universe is not easy to understand and defies our imagination and understanding, but with its two more tangible and palpable forms, dependent origination and impermanence, we can better relate to it.

Nagarjuna, one of the most pivotal, influential, and widely studied Mahayana Buddhist philosophers and founder of the Middle Path, once demonstrated the nature of emptiness and the relation between the two truths: emptiness and dependent origination. He points out, “Whatever is dependently co-arisen/That is explained to be emptiness” (Garfield 1994, p. 244). Since every phenomenon arises dependently and is interconnected with numerous other phenomena, subject to changes, and can never remain, it is devoid of an autonomous and stable self-existence, with an empty nature. Meanwhile, its empty nature is closely correlated with or characterized by dependent origination and impermanence, which become two crucial manifestations of emptiness. A simple example is a blooming flower. It exists only through interconnected conditions: sunlight, soil, water, and the seed from which it grew, none of which can be removed without altering its existence. Yet this flower is also impermanent: it buds, blooms, and fades, its form shifting daily until it withers, dissolving back into the earth to nourish future growth. In this cycle, we see both interdependence (no flower exists alone) and impermanence (no form endures)—twin markers of emptiness.

It can be noticed that dependent origination and impermanence have already infused many of Walker’s works. For instance, the 1982 The Color Purple has already been tinged with some tinges of emptiness. This book witnesses the protagonist Celie’s journey towards self-actualization, with her friendship with Shug being a potent catalyst for her spiritual growth, under whose guidance Celie unravels the mystery of emptiness. “It come to me that feeling of being part of everything, not separate of all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed” (Walker 2017b, p. 176). The remark “being part of everything, not separate of all”, which is strongly reminiscent of emptiness, illustrates the dependent origination and interconnectedness of all, revealing “the concept of ‘Oneness’ inherent in all of Buddhist philosophy” (Johnson 2020, p. 105) and signaling Celie’s deepened understanding of the world.

Turning back to Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, we are not surprised to encounter a handful of poems embodying the wisdom of emptiness. For instance, in “The Future Captured in a Heartless Fist”, after witnessing the abject plight of children in Palestine, the speaker extends her genial empathy and utters,

• Little One,
• you are Palestinian
• you are also Earthling,
• you are Every Child.
(Walker 2018, p. 88)

Referring a Palestinian child as an “Earthling” seems understandable, but a leap from “Earthling” to “Every Child” necessitates the participation of emptiness, since these lines not only signify that Palestinian children are hewn from the same material as any other child as human beings, but also deliver to us a message that Palestinian children are empty of an inherent existence or self-nature. That is because they do not exist from their own sides but are interconnected with numerous other things, which makes the statement “you are Every Child” possible. More specifically, “Palestinian” is only a label, and not only is this label dependently arisen, but these children’s existence is dependently arisen, thereby being empty of self-nature.

First, regarding the emptiness of the definition of “Palestinian”, if there were not a country called Palestine, if nations had not emerged in our long history of human civilization, then the word “Palestinian” and the subsequent thoughts and emotions aroused by it would not exist. In fact, “Palestinian” is only a referent of a name and, as it is arbitrary and apart from the numerous factors that contribute to its existence, it does not have an independent and intrinsic nature to claim. It is empty, but it is not nonexistent. Therefore, the speaker acknowledges that “you are Palestinian”, yet is not confined to this empty label. Secondly, a Palestinian child, like every child, comes into being only by virtue of virtually everything, such as the child’s parents, their parents’ parents, the Sun, which provides life, and the Earth, which provides shelter, rain, trees, food, and bees. Just as Thich Nhat Hanh (2011), a venerable Vietnamese monk, elucidates to us that “As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it”, the line “you are Every Child” conveys to us a message that as part of the self, everything else exists. Emptiness, as Thich Nhat Hanh articulates, means “empty of a separate self”, but “empty of a separate self means full of everything” (Thich 2011). Therefore, a Palestinian child is certainly not only a Palestinian child, but the epitome of every child, even the epitome of everything. Thus, to the speaker, children in Palestine are not only Palestinian. They are all children, neither separate from each other nor irrelevant to others. Instead, what is happening to those little creatures is not different from us, not other than us.

These insights fall exactly under the auspices of emptiness, with which one can comprehend the interconnectedness and oneness of all sentient beings, and further inspire the poet to achieve self-realization. In an interview with David Swick, Walker remarks, “True self-realization comes with a realization of the connectedness to all, the inseparability of the self and the all” (Swick 2007). Highlighting the interconnectedness of all, Walker opines that this realization “leads one to understand oneself as an earthling, not an American, Canadian, African, or Indian. Beyond that I realize myself as the cosmos, the universe, the whole thing” (Swick 2007). This very vision, as an alternative to fostering individual partition and opposition, extols interdependence and unanimity, breathing a fresh air of love and compassion into our otherwise dingy world. The notion of being an “Earthling” and even “the cosmos” originates not solely from Garton-Gundling’s assertion that “Walker develops a metaphor of spiritual descent that casts Hindus and Buddhists as African Americans’ ancestors”, a “cross-cultural adaptation” that significantly contributes to “current debates about ethnic identity, transnationalism, and cosmopolitanism” (Garton-Gundling 2015, pp. 1–2). It arises instead from an understanding of emptiness. Walker’s profound recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things underpins her cosmopolitan vision, and this vision greatly informs her Buddhist womanist commitment to the “survival and wholeness of entire people” (Walker 1983, p. xii).

The notion of oneness and dependent origination also finds its way into the poem “Inner Landscape”. Here, I extract a highly relevant part,

• This tree,
• so far from its home
• reminds me
• of neighbors,
• of friends,
• of the welcome we can
• sometimes be
• for each other
• or find
• among strangers.
(Walker 2018, p. 210)

If a tree is just a tree, or if it is independent and staid, it cannot conjure up so many feelings and emotions. It is the inherent emptiness of the tree that can arouse the speaker’s luxuriant association, the tree itself being everything. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to discern that our feelings and thoughts are empty as well, resembling an incessantly flowing river, racing and changing without a moment of respite and lacking a permanent and independent nature. Here, we can better relate to why emptiness also underlies our minds and thoughts with reference to the Heart Sutra, an extremely brief yet highly influential sutra containing the essence of emptiness demonstrated by Avalokiteshvara. “Avalokitesvara, the Buddhist figure who personifies compassion, tells us that when we go deeply to the very core of our existence, we do not find any particular thing to hold on to” (Rosenbaum 2015, p. 172). According to the Heart Sutra, form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, taken together, are the five elements that constitute a human being, defined as the five skandhas or five aggregates. Be it noted that the skandha “form” denotes not only what we can see but also encompasses our hearing, smell, sense of taste, and touch. The five skandhas, each depending on one another and changing incessantly, are devoid of an autonomous self, revealing the “self” to be “fluid and constantly changing” (Rosenbaum 2015, p. 183). On the one hand, all five skandhas are of the nature of emptiness; on the other hand, emptiness is not a mystical state of mind or an alternative non-worldly dimension but constitutes the very nature and fabric of the reality in which we currently find ourselves (Sunim 1995). Given the empty essence of the five skandhas, the speaker herself is empty as well. Consequently, when faced with a tree, her emotions and thoughts are in a state of flux and transformation. This illustrates that emptiness is not an abstract or mystical concept; rather, it is a fundamental aspect of our daily existence—the sight of an empty tree elicits empty feelings in the empty speaker.

Turning back to Walker’s lines in “Inner Landscape” again,

• Thank you, my friends,
• who
• so many years ago,
• brought back to me
• from sobering
• travels
• a solitary small tree
• from far away
• and very troubled
• Chiapas.
(Walker 2018, p. 209)

With many years lapsing by, the once solitary sapling the speaker’s friend brought back to her from faraway Chiapas has grown into a towering, lush tree, reawakening flashes of heart-warming scenes she shared with her friends. The “form” of this tree arouses the speaker’s “perception”, brings a “feeling” of pleasure, and conjures up her numerous “mental formations”, i.e., reminding her of neighbors, friends, and “the welcome we can sometimes be for each other or find among strangers.” It is because of emptiness, both that of the tree and of the speaker’s feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, that she can associate with so many things, illustrating the dependently co-arisen nature of everything.

By presenting a vivid picture of an entangled co-existing web, this poem serves as a powerful illustration to reinforce the idea that emptiness denotes dependent origination just as much as the absence of inherent existence. “To be is to inter-be”, as once contended by Thich Nhat Hanh (Thich 2011). Indeed, nothing exists in isolation. Everything, from a tree to our feelings, sensations, and ourselves, has to be interconnected with all other things. These lines from Walker reveal that all living beings are devoid of a separate, independent self, yet are deeply connected to the whole. It is precisely because of the empty nature of all phenomena that our world is fraught with possibilities and filled with marvels. It is emptiness, or dependent origination, that allows a tree to evoke memories of friends, to greet and impart a sense of simple joy to the speaker. “Without emptiness, the multiplicity of phenomena known to humankind could simply not exist, as the inherently empty nature of the universe means that there is limitless space and potential in terms of the measure and type of phenomena that can manifest” (Van Gordon et al. 2021, p. 1848).

In addition, impermanence, another typical feature or interpretation of emptiness, is also embedded in many of Walker’s poems. As mentioned above, everything is intricately interdependent and does not have an intrinsic entity to remain or claim, so everything is transient, changes as circumstances change, and can never be permanent. It can be said that owing to the principle of dependent origination, all phenomena are impermanent, and owing to impermanence and interdependence, all phenomena are existent yet intrinsically empty. As Jay Garfield (1994) notes in a commentary to his translation of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK), “Without viewing the world as empty, we can make no sense of impermanence or dependent origination and hence no sense of change” (p. 317). On one hand, it is this prime and pervasive character of reality—emptiness—that warrants impermanence and dependent origination. On the other hand, we should also notice that these three truths are tightly bound up and mutually supportive, each defining the others’ roles and interpreting the others.

In Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, Walker highlights impermanence in several places. The most salient quintessence is the poem “To Have Once”. This poem depicts the destruction brought by a hurricane that battered the village, despoiling the palapa, tile, and the speaker’s solitary retreat. For years, the speaker (probably the poet herself) meditated peacefully in that small retreat, yet suddenly it was devastated and surrounded with “fallen trees, broken limbs, broken windows and broken doors” (Walker 2018, p. 53). Indeed, impermanence is inherent in that small retreat, and the same with all others. Though confronted with the unexpected disaster and feeling unreal for “so much beauty and peace of solitude have been destroyed” (Walker 2018, p. 53), armed with a profound perception of impermanence, the speaker understands that the ebb and flow of everything is ineluctable and can better face the mishaps and tribulations of life with a positive light; therefore, after the hurricane, she is overwhelmed with gratitude. “Our beautiful friends and their beautiful children/are alive” (Walker 2018, p. 53).

On top of this, in this poetry collection, Walker writes a number of poems in remembrance of some beloved figures, such as Martin Luther King. For instance, in “Later We Would Miss You So Much” (Walker 2018, p. 191), Walker recalls the day when she saw Dr. King during the modern Civil Rights Movement, who had such a prodigious and far-reaching influence on Walker that she said her life found its beginnings and purpose at the precise moment that she heard Dr. King speak. She conveys her gratitude, commendation, and remembrance of him most exquisitely. There is no denying that a sad ambiance envelops this poem, as everything is so fleeting and impermanent—Martin has left us, we are all no longer young, the world has rotated, and time has marched on in its own way.

Impermanence—one cannot encounter a more inherently pessimistic word than this to delineate the pain all life forms are subject to, which implies the deepest impotent despair of the ephemeral nature of life. As a man lives, so shall he die. As a phenomenon exists, so shall it disappear. Although Martin once showered Walker’s and others’ wounded and weakened psyches with his example of “fearless love” and was the one who possessed “the gold for all their digging all over the earth/they had never have”, they at last lost Martin, and are also “no longer the girls and boys of 18 &19” (Walker 2018, p. 194). Indeed, “all things manifest within, and are part of, the dance of impermanence” (Van Gordon et al. 2021, p. 1847).

However, what Walker stresses is that we should not be scared by this word. One, from the angle of emptiness, everything is empty of an intrinsic existence, and even when it exists, its nature is already empty. What is permanent and stable is only our factitious phantom. Therefore, when we are disposed to take off our armor of duality and clinging and try to reconcile the fact that Martin and all human beings are empty of an independent and permanent nature, our hearts will undoubtedly be lightened. Second, by dint of impermanence, everything is possible. It is the ground for possibilities and change. If everything is already charted out and stable, light can never pour into an abyss, and a bud can never blossom into a flower. It is by virtue of impermanence that we can create meaning in a sometimes pathetically contradictory world, that the human race can be extricated from tribulations, that generations of pioneers can bring Buddhist womanism to the forefront to address the oppression and ills of society through concerted endeavors, and that Martin’s message can be “never confined only to dreams” (Walker 2018, p. 193). With consciousness of the inalienable rights and a glorious example of fearless love, a multitude of people are inspired to inherit and pass forward Martin’s cause and love, and are dedicated to life, to each other, and to the Earth. Generations of African Americans thus hold a firm conviction that love can overcome fear, thus cheering “every young voice that raises the bar of love” to Martin’s standard (Walker 2018, p. 195) and knowing for sure that

• Martin, Beloved,
• you ran the race
• for Love
• and won it.
(Walker 2018, p. 194)

In an interview, Walker also mentions that “It is such a gift to have his (Martin Luther King) books and recordings of his words, and to be able to understand his death as a teaching on both the preciousness of human existence and impermanence” (Walker 2017a). Therefore, to Walker, impermanence is more of a boon that can nudge us to cherish our existence as human beings.

To recapitulate, as profound and elusive as emptiness is, with its two most salient manifestations—dependent origination and impermanence—we can comprehend it more easily and discover how it underlies a large number of Walker’s poems. Emptiness is, in essence, as T.R.V. Murti (2013) puts it, “the removal of the constrictions which our concepts, with their practical or sentimental bias, have put on reality. It is the freeing of reality of the artificial accidental restrictions, and not the denial of reality” (p. 212). Rendered much freer with the aegis of emptiness, let us move on to unravel how we can apply emptiness to taking the arrow out of our hearts and healing our wounds.

3. Healing Suffering: Application of Emptiness

According to Buddhist teachings, the world we are living in is called the Saha World, meaning the world where we can bear numerous imperfections and suffering. At the first turning of the wheel, Buddha taught his disciples the truth of duhkha, which is usually translated into English as “suffering”, or less frequently, “unsatisfactoriness”. Life involves suffering. It is “not as a mistake you made, not as a punishment, but as a part of the human condition” (LeBlanc and Medine 2012, p. 180). It is inherent in all beings. Suffering, in the case of African Americans, is especially exquisite and perennial, as they have been victims of racism, sexism, and capitalism for centuries and are struggling in execrable conditions under what bell hooks labels “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (Watts 2022b, p. 1). As an African American writer, Walker brings the suffering of African Americans into the spotlight and centers on it in virtually all of her novels, such as The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Meridian, The Color Purple, etc.

Walker once self-mocked, “What are hearts for? Hearts are there to be broken” (Walker 2017a). However, instead of wallowing in self-lamentation and despair, Walker rises from suffering and encourages her compatriots not to be consumed by suffering or caged by miseries, but to keep their compassionate, generous, and life-affirming nature. Her sentence following her statement of “Hearts are there to be broken” is “but it just seems to be broken open more and more and more, and it just gets bigger” (Walker 2017a). It seems that suffering, from Walker’s perspective, is salutary, which cannot be manifested more clearly than in her poem “The Long Road Home”. Walker writes,

• I am beginning to comprehend
• the mystery
• of the gift of suffering.
• It is true as some
• have said
• that it is a crucible
• in which the gold of one’s spirit
• is rendered,
• and shines.
(Walker 2018, p. 20)

As contradictory as it seems, the gift of suffering is actually true according to Buddhist beliefs. In his first sermon, Buddha presents an overview of suffering and the way out of suffering. It is due to suffering, which is inherent in all life forms, that we can have an opportunity to examine our lives and resolve to transcend ourselves and achieve enlightenment. Likening suffering to a “crucible”, Walker intends to convey a message that it is through the intense heat and pressure of life’s challenges that we are refined and transformed. In this sense, suffering becomes a mechanism for personal growth, spiritual maturation, and the development of qualities such as compassion and wisdom. The gift of suffering, therefore, is not in the experience of pain itself, but in the opportunity it provides for self-examination, growth, and the realization of our true nature and the interconnectedness of all. Nevertheless, that is not to say that if we did nothing but experience our suffering, then we can obtain spiritual growth; rather, what Buddha and these lines encourage us to do is to recognize suffering, address suffering with appropriate approaches, and ultimately rise from suffering. Therefore, “the gift of suffering” continues to inspire us to seek methods and turn to the timeless wisdom of Buddhism to address and alleviate suffering. As Chera Jo Watts remarks, “Buddhist teachings and practices (particularly those under the auspice of engaged Buddhism) might be uniquely positioned for healing, inspiration, and forward-thinking action as we collectively demand justice and undo systems of racism, heterosexism, and patriarchy” (Watts 2022a, p. 157). Buddhist teachings and practice are indeed a good medicine for us to use to heal wounds and create a better world. For instance, Tonglen practice, which involves inhaling one’s own and others’ suffering and exhaling joy, awakens compassion and cultivates bodhicitta. In addition, research has identified that utilizing Buddhist practices can lead to benefits, including increased feelings of contentment, resilience, and focus (Fraser 2013), as well as a positive sense of wellbeing (Wiseman and Brasher 2008).

Apart from practice, non-substantial tenets of Buddhism, such as emptiness, also hold the potential to significantly alleviate the pain and suffering in our lives. Intangible and more profound, emptiness is snubbed by the current scholarly discussion, although the cultivation of the awareness of emptiness can also exert a prodigious and advantageous bearing on relieving suffering and improving mental health. Sharing the same goal of helping us step into that realm of enlightenment, practice and teachings only differ in forms, and even practice cannot survive without the teachings underpinning the theoretical basis. For instance, the Tonglen practice is deeply rooted in the understanding of interconnectedness and interdependence. Walker’s connection to Tonglen, as noted, reflects a mutual “mothering” among beings, although this is framed as “transforming love” (LeBlanc and Medine 2012, p. 182) rather than exploring emptiness’s role. In addition, Medine’s definition of practice as “a patterned activity that aligns mind, body, and spirit in the doing of it” (Medine 2016, p. 18) suggests that an awareness of emptiness can free us from the constraints of dualistic thinking, thus paving the way for a more harmonious coordination of our selves. Nevertheless, although she mentions that “For a Buddhist, practice undoes the illusion of self as an essential construct” (Medine 2016, p. 20), Medine does not further involve emptiness in her scope. Here, distinct from the previous studies, I would like to explore the possibility of applying emptiness to our lives, to see in what ways it can be conducive for people in distress to alleviate their suffering, i.e., how can one, under the auspices of emptiness, take the arrow out of the heart.

Before we come to Walker’s own illustration on this title, it is noteworthy that the title probably derives from a classical Buddhist story—a man shot with a second arrow. It is a story originating from Agama, a collection of early Buddhist discourses. In this story, Buddha explains to his disciples that the difference between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is that when touched with a feeling of pain, the former feels detached from it, while the latter sorrows, grieves, and laments, just as if the latter was shot with an arrow and, right afterward, shot with another one. The first arrow brings physical pain, and the second brings mental pain. It is the same with pleasure and neither pleasure nor pain. The uninstructed one feels connected and obsessed with every kind of feeling, such as with birth, aging, death, and suffering, while the well-instructed disciple discerns the origination, passing away, allure, drawback, and escape from his feelings, thus detaching from suffering and being shot only once with an arrow, the one bringing physical pain. Indeed, “while the pain that comes with an actual experience (the first arrow) is unavoidable”, “the degree to which the second arrow is fired and where it lands is controllable, or at least, trainable” (Williams et al. 2015, pp. 33–34). What Buddha seems to convey to us is that one should learn to discern the empty nature of pain, pleasure, and neither pleasure nor pain, i.e., our feelings, hence we can detach ourselves from them and never suffer from the pain brought by the second arrow.

With this background information, we can gain a glimpse into the title’s philosophical meaning. Meanwhile, it is not difficult to discern that the title accentuates an action, that is, to take the arrow out of the heart instead of continuing this painful situation of being shot with an arrow, implying that suffering can be alleviated and ceased. It is an axiomatic discovery, yet legions of people are inclined to ignore it and, numb with suffering, have never even encouraged a thought to find ways to allay it, to pull the arrow out of the heart. As Walker states, “Suffering is not the end-all in life. It is a part of it, and then we rise above it, we work through it, we transform it” (Swick 2007). Exactly chiming with her contention to take the arrow out of the heart, this sentence propels us to find ways to rise above suffering and transform it, and see how emptiness can help people in pain to overcome suffering. Here, I maintain that Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart suggests two methods of applying emptiness to addressing suffering. One is to recognize emptiness in times of crisis, and the other is to cultivate bodhicitta by using emptiness to extend loving kindness to all. Both, in the short-term and in the long-term, are instrumental for us to take the arrow out of the heart.

First and foremost, I would like to expound upon the first method. The last poem in this poetry collection, “Taking My Seat”, goes on like this,

• Taking my seat
• I bow
• to my arrow.
• Breathing in
• I thank my teachers
• who are
• all around me.
• Breathing out
• I thank them
• more.
(Walker 2018, p. 331)

In this poem, the speaker (probably Walker herself) extends her gratitude to all of her teachers who have taught her how to remove the arrow from her heart. Meanwhile, the verb “bow” exactly shows her transcendent state of spirit, which is rendered much freer and invincible by emptiness. Perceiving the empty nature of the self, the arrow, and the archer, the speaker transcends the dichotomous mindset and chooses to bow to the arrow, thus rising from and transforming her suffering in times of crisis. She does not dwell on suffering, and her attitude towards suffering is sagacious and inspiring.

Additionally, in the poem “Loving Oakland”, although lamenting that Oakland is no longer “an urban Paradise” due to the destruction brought by the gentrifiers who intend to get rid of the “poor and black and people of color”, the speaker does not cling to this saddening fact. Instead, she regards Oakland as a place where you can enjoy your “sit on the grass by the lake”; where there are many “good places to eat and play/with one’s children and families”; where a saxophone-blowing black man will smile back to you, and give “mellowness/and sun, free of charge,/to you”; and where the smile of people will “hit you in the heart” (Walker 2018, pp. 34–36), gaining a reassuring sense that

• something that was alive
• for a very long time
• is still alive. Not yet beaten into
• submission
• or oblivion
• by those who kill everything
• they touch
• with money.
(Walker 2018, p. 36)

Here, emptiness serves as a good medicine to alleviate the speaker’s sorrow and heal her suffering. As has been explored by modern science, emptiness is an effective tool that can be used to enhance psychological and spiritual wellbeing. One second-generation mindfulness-based intervention that also integrates emptiness techniques “has been shown to improve a range of health, wellbeing, and human functioning outcomes in both clinical and non-clinical populations” (Van Gordon et al. 2021, p. 1846). In the poem, through the dynamic scenes in Oakland, the speaker learns that Oakland lacks a permanent and independent nature. Recognizing the empty nature of Oakland, as well as the suffering of the oppressed, the speaker is not totally engrossed by it but can still appreciate and love Oakland and rejoice at the intact spirit of Oakland, showcasing the healing power of emptiness.

Apart from addressing suffering in particular circumstances, emptiness can facilitate and foster the cultivation of bodhicitta, under the aegis of which we will no longer be shackled by suffering. As Rosenbaum (2015) points out, “Suffering comes from looking selfishly for something special onto which I can hold and proclaim”, and “Release from suffering comes from the discovery that we exist in the act of touching each other” (p. 172). This discovery entails emptiness, since it is the insight of emptiness that enables us to learn that “each can only interbe with all the others”, with “empty self” fundamentally being “connected self” (Rosenbaum 2015, p. 212). Thereby “Love and compassion [can] arise in the joy of inherent connectedness” (Rosenbaum 2015, p. 209). In addition, research has shown that practicing emptiness is the most effective means of deconstructing the erroneous belief in the inherent existence of the self (Van Gordon et al. 2015), and the relaxed attachment to selfhood can cultivate an open and uninhibited manner (Segall 2003; Sills and Lown 2008), hence promoting therapeutic transformation. Better still, nonattachment to self and experience fosters increased implicit and explicit affection towards others (Sahdra et al. 2010), which is essential for the cultivation of bodhicitta.

Bodhicitta, translated as the mind of enlightenment, is believed to be inherent in all sentient beings yet to be awakened and generated, the cultivation and achievement of which is the path to Buddhahood. There are mainly two kinds of bodhicitta, the conventional and the ultimate. The conventional bodhicitta is a mind that wishes to free all beings from suffering and bring them to the state of enlightenment, and the ultimate bodhicitta is a mind that has realized emptiness. Therefore, loving kindness and emptiness are the two cardinal aspects embedded in bodhicitta, which has “the nature of emptiness and compassion” (Williams 1989, p. 199).

Therefore, how can we awaken and cultivate our bodhicitta by dint of emptiness? Apart from the aforementioned “relaxed attachment to selfhood” and the perception of interconnectedness, through her poems and speeches, it is not difficult to find that Walker suggests a way of cultivating our loving kindness by practicing on small things and learning to see things from a different angle. For example, in an interview, Walker owns her fear of Germans, but she tries some “peculiar and maybe perverse ways” (Walker 2017a) to see the good, to see people differently, and to love others, such as buying herself a German car, echoing the description in her poem “And When They Spy on Us”,

• And when they spy
• on us
• let them discover
• us
• loving—
• it really doesn’t
• matter what we are loving
• let it be
• an exercise
• of the heart.
• You can begin
• with
• your car—
• if that has been
• your training.
• After all
• the great ones
• tell us
• it is all about
• and by any means
• necessary
• opening the heart.
(Walker 2018, p. 226)

As for Walker, her practice to overcome her fear of Germans and extend her compassion to them is through a car, which allows her to recognize that her fear or love for Germany is empty, as it depends on multifaceted factors and is unstable (when Walker thinks of Germans as “people who are hunting me through the woods or frying people in concentration camps” (Walker 2017a), she is scared; but when she thinks about them “on the car level, the Mozart car-making level” (Walker 2017a), she can confess to an affinity for German cars and learn to think about Germans in a different and more positive way). Just like the emptiness illustrated in the Heart Sutra reminds us, the self has no permanently fixed “thing-like” characteristics, the perception of which “helps us avoid getting stuck in some particular sensation or some particular idea”, and “by reminding us of the fluid, interconnected nature of our physical hurts, it fosters a wider awareness with which our relationship to our experience can shift” (Rosenbaum 2015, p. 192). The above practice is itself an application of emptiness, as, instead of allowing herself to be stuck in her fear of Germans, Walker perceives that neither the outward world nor her feelings are stable and unchanged. Thus, she is not attached to them and is capable of overcoming her fear and transmuting it into positive emotions, demonstrating that everything is just the manifestation of our hearts. Echoing the description in the poem, a cross-sectional study investigating the Buddhist principle of nonattachment found that nonattachment to self and experiences predicted greater levels of acceptance, nonreactivity, mindfulness, self-compassion, subjective wellbeing, and eudemonic wellbeing (Sahdra et al. 2010). This practice of “opening the heart” enhances the poet’s level of acceptance and subsequent wellbeing.

On top of this, Walker once stated that she finds that one love leads to another and just gets bigger and bigger, and one can start from anything. “You can start with a daffodil, but if you sincerely see it and if you sincerely love it, then it’s like the key. The daffodil is like a key to the big, big, big storeroom. Then everything becomes something that is lovable” (Walker 2017a). To start from tiny things, such as a daffodil or intimate ones, and then extend this love to all is a useful recipe for cultivating our loving kindness and bodhicitta, since if we can open our heart to one being, then that is a key to loving all beings. This is because, with the perception of emptiness, there is a cosmos in a daffodil, so if we sincerely love a daffodil, we are actually loving the universe. This method of cultivating bodhicitta by practicing loving small things gradually awakens our compassion and loving kindness to all, encourages us to be more “other”-focused as opposed to “self”-focused, and furthers our willingness to alleviate the suffering of others. It also represents a “win-win” scenario because it not only helps others but also helps the practitioner assume a humble demeanor that is essential for dismantling attachment to the belief in an inherently existing self (Shonin et al. 2014), thus bringing a broad range of salutary health outcomes. It has also been found that adopting beliefs of Buddhism, such as compassion and kindness, may result in effective treatments for a wide range of psychopathologies, including mood disorders, substance use disorders, and mental illness (Shonin et al. 2014).

It Is at this point that we come back to Walker’s own illustration of this title. Walker opines that while white racism is the arrow that has pierced our collective heart, only screaming at or attempting to bring down the archer is a futile way to address the dilemma, which only leaves our wounded heart untended, and “A better way is to learn through meditation, through study and practice, a way to free yourself from the pain of being shot, no matter who the archer might be” (Walker 2007).

Taken together, the deeper meaning underlying this title is that one should not focus on the pain or the archer, but to eliminate and free ourselves from “the pain of being shot”, i.e., not to be shot with a second arrow. As previously discussed, suffering, the self, and the archer are all characterized by emptiness. Dependent on other “non-suffering” elements, suffering is interconnected with a world of things, and can thus never be permanent or stable, as its nature is empty. In addition, the five skandhas that comprise a human being are empty and constantly changing, and during the entire operation process, there is no individual participation or control, and our illusion of self is destroyed. It is the same with the archer, an ephemeral human being without an autonomous and separate nature to claim or remain. With a thorough analysis of the self, the archer, and the pain, one will jump out of the mindset of duality and find that what we are most obsessed with is actually devoid of an intrinsic existence, hence no longer being fettered by the illusory object–subject differentiation of the world and not dwelling on suffering any more. Hopefully, through the two methods discussed above, we can obtain a clearer notion of how to apply emptiness to relieve suffering and will never be shot with a second arrow.

4. Rethinking Buddhist Womanism with Emptiness

Traditional Buddhist womanism has long remained rooted in practice. Although Medine mentions that “For a Buddhist, practice undoes the illusion of self as an essential construct” (Medine 2016, p. 20), the analysis stops short of addressing the ontological basis of that illusion—emptiness. Herein lies a pivotal shift: by anchoring Buddhist womanist thought in emptiness, Walker not only deepens its theoretical foundation but also provides a metaphysical rationale for dismantling the self. This move transforms the discourse from a pragmatic approach to one reckoning with reality’s interdependent, impermanent nature.

Secondly, this ontological shift redirects focus from ritualized practices, such as Tonglen meditation or prayer, to cognitive transformation. As Carolyn M. Jones Medine defines it, traditional practice is “a patterned activity that aligns mind, body, and spirit” (Medine 2016, p. 18), yet emptiness allows us not to be confined to patterned activities but achieve freedom and peace through a shift in mindset alone. In her paper “Freedom on My Mind: Buddhist-Womanist Dialogue”, Keri Day inquires, “But freedom toward what? Perhaps it is free movement toward the cultivation of peaceful, calm, and healthy perceptions that enable one to see oneself anew” (Day 2016, p. 12). Emptiness actualizes this freedom by uprooting the “proclivity to define our humanity through our misery, disappointment, and suffering” (Day 2016, p. 12) and allowing us to see ourselves and the world anew. While traditional practice relies on structured activities, emptiness reveals that suffering arises from clinging to the illusory solidity of experiences. Thus, the shift is not about performing rituals, but about awakening to the interdependent and impermanent nature of everything—a cognitive shift that allows Buddhist womanism to transcend formalistic constraints.

Crucially, this framework resolves the methodological conflict Day identifies between womanism’s focus on structural oppression and Buddhism’s emphasis on individual transcendence (Day 2016, p. 14). Grounded in dependent origination, emptiness dissolves the “individual/collective” binary. Walker’s redefinition of a Palestinian child as “Every Child” (Walker 2018, p. 88) exemplifies this: through emptiness, enlightenment inherently includes alleviating communal suffering, as the Bodhisattva vow emerges from recognizing interdependence. Therefore, the emphasis on emptiness is of vital significance for Buddhist womanism to pursue personal awakening and collective wellbeing simultaneously.

In a nutshell, Walker’s integration of emptiness into Buddhist womanism achieves a threefold transformation: it deepens the theory by grounding it in ontological truth, providing a more robust philosophical foundation for the movement; it redirects the focus from ritualistic practices to cognitive liberation, emphasizing shifts in perception and awareness; and it harmonizes the priorities of individual and communal wellbeing. This shift does not discard Buddhist womanist traditions but reinterprets them through the lens of emptiness, revealing that the liberation of marginalized groups is not a battle against fixed adversaries but a process of unmasking the illusory nature of duality, thereby transforming Buddhist womanism into a radical philosophy of non-dualistic, universally inclusive emancipation.

5. Conclusions

This paper examines how Alice Walker’s Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart weaves Buddhist emptiness, as expressed through dependent origination and impermanence, into the fabric of Buddhist womanist thought. It concludes that recognizing emptiness during times of crisis and cultivating bodhicitta are crucial for alleviating suffering. Furthermore, it points out that emptiness enriches Buddhist womanism by strengthening its theoretical underpinnings, redirecting the focus from practice to cognitive transformation, and harmonizing the priorities of individual and communal wellbeing, thus offering a radical framework for collective healing and social justice.