In April 2019 I became a United States citizen. Naturalization was a long, arduous process, riddled with heartache, uncertainty, professional stagnation, endless waiting, and sheer terror every time I returned from abroad, for fear the immigration officer would not let me back in. Further, the Indian Constitution prohibits dual citizenship, so becoming a US citizen also required the difficult decision to renounce my Indian passport, which felt like ceding my Indian identity.
But despite the 20-year journey and the sacrifices involved, when I stepped foot on Indian soil for the first time as a US citizen in December, I had a visceral urge to “give it back.” This sudden and immediate desire to reclaim my Indian identity left me gasping for air in the Mumbai night.
Where was this coming from? Part of the dilemma of literally being displaced came from feeling like I had lost my sense of a specific place: Bombay, a city where I was born and raised. Despite having visited the year before, during the first few days of this particular visit, I was quite simply lost. I found myself forgetting landmarks and roads. Places that I once knew like the back of my hand, and that carried a sense of home, were indistinct and unfamiliar; the familiar now foreign. If I didn’t belong in India then who was I? An American? I felt caught between two identities: my native identity, and my adopted nationality.
Buddhist wisdom teaches us that we belong everywhere and nowhere. From this perspective, national identity simply separates us, causing the pain I felt in the midst of a Mumbai traffic snarl. I created this life in the United States seeking refuge, and was lucky to fulfill not just that most basic human need for safety, but also find a warm and embracing community at CIMC.
Amidst all this fuss in my head about belonging as I flew half-way around the world and back, on the cusp of a new decade, the words of a beloved teacher came to mind. At the end of a silent residential retreat, as I was both relieved and happy to be going back home yet sad to be leaving the container of the retreat center, she said, “If you are at home in your heart, you can be at home anywhere.”
Perhaps you come to CIMC for refuge, seeking a safe place away from the noise and suffering out in the world at large or in your own mind. You find a precious teaching that connects rather than separates. And you begin to trust the highest refuges: the Buddha (clear mind), the Dharma (truth), and the Sangha (community). A sustained, full embracing of the present moment enables us to see clearly and take refuge in awareness. Living our lives in tune with the truth of things helps us find more joy and ease, and de-escalate aggression and intolerance. Finding belonging with like minded community nourishes and supports us as we walk similar paths together.
This doesn’t mean obliterating one’s many identities to dissolve into an amorphous blob, but rather acknowledging and celebrating all of them. The country of the passport I am carrying does not define who I am. I am as Indian now as I was the day I was born, and nothing will change that. Everything else, such as my anxiety about citizenship, can simply be released in the full awareness that home rests right here.