Black Lives Matter: A Call to Awareness for Non-Colored Practitioners of Mindfulness

Like a child grabbing for a treat, white people, white institutions reach out to black people they barely know or have forgotten about over time. I am a crone and was around the last time black people were feared and thus brought into white awareness. As a crone, a Buddhist, and a practitioner of mindfulness, I choose to understand this reaching out rather than reaching in.

Reaching in is the first obligation of practice. It is by this practice that I have found space and freedom. I have found a space - not afforded to me as a black, female body in this world - to discover my body, my breath, and for the purpose of this writing, the contours of my life. I have had an opportunity to really see the ways in which white supremacy has shaped my vision, my possibilities, even how I might choose to love.

It is through this practice that I have understood white people to be human. This did not come from a home that trained me "to be kind to everybody”: a mantra that was rooted more in fear and whose real message was to be watchful because you never know when that white person who seemed so nice would turn and cause you to lose your job or your life. I have learned about white humanity from sitting in spaces where I am one of few people of color and often the only person who lives at the intersection of blackness, age, working-class, queer. Over the years, I have heard the broken-heartedness of the lives of white people, even as that heartbreak sits atop a skyscraper of privilege granted by the white supremacy system which has encased my life and the lives of all black people.

It is also through practice that I have seen the deep chasm between our lives. Coming together to share in spaces and then separating as they go to Johannesburg, and I return to Soweto. We live in different geographic and spiritual places. Our histories are so divergent; even those who have studied and even worked with black people and those who have worked on black people have only a prophylactic awareness. I have chosen to share my heart and my life in the circles over many years and have often struggled with the idea that what I share is seen as performative. That my life is an extension of "The Wire", to be consumed for how different it is from "real life."

On the election of Donald Trump, I was not amazed but saddened by the surprise and shock of many of these practitioners. I was frankly angry at the new awareness of being unsafe. I have been unsafe since the day I was born. I was, and sometimes still am, so angry at this new awareness. Those that know me are aware that the central place of beginning and ending for me is the Buddha's understanding of how the delusion of separation is a core reason for the suffering in this world. It is that delusion that allowed for the genocide of indigenous people in this country. It is that delusion that allowed for the enslavement, torture, rape, and murder of my ancestors. It is that delusion that has allowed for the continued effort to destroy the lives of Black people and all People of Color through a system that holds the people that benefit from it blameless.

It is from that understanding that I choose to continue to open my heart to white people even as I keep using the historical eyes of wisdom through which I view them. I want to ask white people to reach in to discover the contours of their lives as white people. To question why it is they have no black friends, colleagues, etc... I ask that they look at the power relationships that almost certainly inform their relationships with black people. I want white practitioners to look at the way "mindful communication" serves to protect their innocence. Too many white people have Black Lives Matter signs in their yards, but they fear my son and have called the police if he and a friend were walking too slowly past their newly colonized streets.

I am curious about my own willingness and call to be connected with white people. Is it some sad holdover from slavery? Am I that "house nigger" that is so reviled by my community? Am I using Buddhism to "take care of Massa”? My younger self would certainly have this critique. She would say, I am not so open-hearted as I am bound by a "love" that has been defined by white people that has carried over into this practice. A love that cushions white people from their history and their pain. I hear her and understand, but this journey has allowed me to reconnect, not with a white construct that demands forgiveness, but with the ancient understanding of my ancestors who proclaimed, "I am because we are." I am connecting with the sometimes unbearable and unending call to that truth that we are all one and it is through our connection that we can and must all finally be liberated.

I ask you to examine your life and privilege without shame, but with a deep curiosity that I sat with you for years and you felt no need to know me and can't call me now because you don't have my phone number.

Seeing Clearly from the Bottom of the Well

I have never been in despair about the world.  I've been enraged by it. I don't think I'm in despair. I can't afford despair. I can't tell my nephew, my niece. You can't tell the children there's no hope.
James Baldwin


Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.   L.R. Knost


I am neither young nor naive.  I have lived in the shadowlands of America my entire life, experiencing a world that white America regularly either denies the existence of, in part or in full. So I am puzzled by my own brokenness as my reality emerges more and more each day, where the nonsensical is being made normal before the eyes of white of surprised and confused people. While there is a part of me that is enjoying an "I told you so". In the main, I am not comforted by these new or invigorated allies. I feel instead a deep weariness.

I have often pushed back against any idea that this path of awakening is sweet, though there can be sweetness found along the way. I believe this is especially true for black people.  Being fully in touch can be painful as hell. Awareness is the antithesis to numbness. The pain of life is no longer something that can be escaped through various false refuges.

So what am I left with? I touch into that inquiry every day and often several times a day, particularly when the depth of racist murderous activity is videoed for my consumption. So what does this practice give me to move in freedom even as the slave master psionically lashes my back? For me, it is to cradle myself in my lineage. I let my heart break with my lineage,  a heart that this insane construction in which I have spent my life believes I don not have. I sit with the children sold and raped to make other children to be sold and raped.  I sit with those burying the mothers, fathers, children who have been killed because of white upset and arrogance.  I sit with the mothers and fathers moaning, I sit with Emmett and his mother, I sit with Trayvon and his last breath, I sit with his mother receiving the call that her baby was killed for walking on the sidewalk. I sit and cry and I hold them and they hold me and remind me my son is alive for now.

I also sit with their laughter at the end of the day and smile at the suspicious glance of slave masters, overseers, supervisors, and bosses who wonder why and how they/we are laughing and what we/I may be up to. I sit with greens with hot sauce and my mother cooking them and singing about greens off  key. I sit with dancing with with grandmother and having a party,  just the two of us. I sit with the miracle of my life, the miracle of my breath, knowing I was never meant to survive.

 I sit with the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha.

'Cause trouble don't last always and Pharaoh's army got drowned in the sea. I sit in silence and trust.

Safety: In Black and White

The Five Remembrances

I am of the nature to age
Aging is inevitable
I am of the nature to experience illness
Illness is inevitable
I am of the nature to die
Death is inevitable
All that I hold onto, treasure, and love
I will be separated from
I am the owner of my actions
All that I do skillfully and unskillfully
I will be heir to


The above is my translation of the remembrances and I say them often.  They embody for me the reality of being a human being.  They also underscore impermanence.  Appreciate, enjoy, but do not attach.  It is all going away, both the good and the bad, however we define those things and experiences. The remembrances also speak to me as an African American that safety is delusional.  I have never been safe.

As I have chosen to move outside my community and engage with people of other races of different ecomomic status, in light of the dharma, I have been intrigued at how differently we see ourselves in the world.  One of those differences is the belief in safety.  As someone who believes the dharma calls on us to be more hardy, more able to see clearly the 10,000 joys and sorrows, I am intrigued by the call for safety.  The dharma has not made me safe.  It has turned my life upside down in wonderful and dangerous ways.  It has allowed me to be more present to my place in this society and the real physical, social, and economic peril that is part of my life.  It has also, in large part freed me from the terror that can come with being "woke."  It has not made me safe.

In fact, it supports the reality of my life and most people on the planet, that we are not safe.  To believe in safety is to be delusional.  Yet belief in safety is often a place of deep difference between me and white people I know.  That desire to be "safe" means we will never be able to connect deeply, because by nature of my skin and status I am unsafe.  I come with a history and a life that will open "safe" spaces to pain and knowledge of the clear injustice of this society.  We can only be together on cushions in beautiful and quiet and safe places.  Are you afraid to come where I live?  Do you think i live in "hell?"  The shock at video of black people being killed by the police is shocking to me.  Did you think slavery was an unpaid farm workers program?  Did you think the various skin tones of black people was not often the result of rape? Why were you surprised? Did you think all those instances you read about were due to bad choices?  I think the delusion of safety is a mask for the delusion of separation.

Safety also is explained as the result of making "good" decisions.  You live in the right neighborhood, went to college, got the good job, are a good person and stay away from bad/criminal people and places.  The "goodness" that proceeds from being safe also assumes that people struggling in some way brought that on themselves.  It is a kind of social Darwinism.  The belief in safety is a barrier between you and me.

Being Present: Numbness vs. Strength

My son has recently had a gun held to his head and robbed of a small amount of money this past Wednesday (August 17, 2016).  I was within a nano second of being another black mother torn asunder by the death of her black son.  This tragic figure that is so common in our media that it is viewed and barely remarked upon.  This is what happens to us, we black people.  We get killed in every day existence and some even see this as "our lives."  The violence erupting because of fatal flaws and decisions.

I have always understood that my child, my black son is at constant risk.  My stomach tightens every time he leaves me.  At nineteen, he doesn't even have the patina of childhood to protect him, although some studies show that black children are seen as adults as young as 10 years old.  This recent occurrence changes my black and white fear to Technicolor.  Not beaten and left concussed as he was a year and four months ago, but dead this time.  A violent anniversary.

I am numb.  I talked to police, I went to work, and I cancelled the phone and made arrangements through the insurance company to get him a new phone.  I am numb, not strong.  I cannot fully deal with the idea of burying another child.  The thought occurs that I have often mistaken numbness for strength.  The crash that awaited came as a surprise.  It devastated me in part because I was unaware of its roots.

I am numb, but because of the practice I am aware of it and not lost in the only positive fantasy this society allots to black women...we are sooooooooo strong in the face of real nightmares.  Many of us carry outrageous burdens of awareness every damn day.  Many of us are numb.

The gift of the practice is awareness.  I am numb, but aware of it.  I am numb, so I am walking and feeling my body as it moves and awaiting the inevitable crash that will come with curiosity and hope.  The crash will not surprise me and the hurricane of fear, despair, resentment, anger and tears will find me ready.

Namo Amida Butsu

When Being in the Moment Saves the Life of Your Child

On April 28, 2015 my son was attacked by four young men.  He struggled home and lay in bed.  That is where I found him.  On my way home from work I had been alerted to what had happened   I got home to find him shivering and incoherent.  The simple thing to do, is what I did--call 911.  My heart raced, I worried, I feared for him.  I did not concern myself about anything else--he was a victim.

The ambulance arrived and so did the police, with hands on their weapons.  I watched as the paramedics shook him and seemed to think nothing was wrong--shaking him "Hey man, you don't look bad etc."  The police stood back and kept their hands on their weapons, waiting for????

I cannot express the rage, the fear, the horror that came together as I watched the people I had called for help, hell, called for a ride to the hospital both dismissed my son's poor physical condition and viewed him as a physical threat, a danger at the same time.  There was a time when I would have reacted to their clearly racist action with a diatribe, I would have asked for names, I would have cursed, screamed...I'm not sure, but I do know I would have reacted, been in reaction, lost to reaction of this blatant racist display.  I would have been lost in the history of murder and brutality that shadows the existence of Black people.

That did not happen.  I said to them, "I called you for help, not to mistreat my son.  You can leave.  I have Uber."  They stopped the harassment.  The police moved back, their hands still on their guns.  The paramedics took my son to the Emergency Room.  He was diagnosed with a concussion and an orbital fracture.

It took me this long to write about this because I grew up in the shadow of Emmett Till, but I never considered how close my son would come to being another dead young Black man, who if he had seized might have frightened the police into killing him.  He lives in Emmet Till's shadow, but in that moment we both escaped because the dharma allowed me to see clearly what was needed...to get to the hospital.  Even if we had to take Uber,  The historic and present pain, in that moment, did not capture me, and my reaction got my son treatment in a timely manner.

I have felt bludgeoned by the constant reporting on the murder of Black people and the reaction of so much of this society, like those paramedics--dismissing pain, like the police--ready to respond with lethal force.  However, on this day, because of the dharma I did not join the delusion of either the paramedics or the police and my son and I survived another day.

In Gassho

The Siren Call of Separation

It calls to me, the call to separation, to move away from "them," those people who I find myself sharing spaces with, spaces I've chosen to be in to learn the Dharma.  The call is strongest when I feel myself misunderstood, dismissed, or rejected.

I am an African-American woman of maturity and bring a history of people and a life journey that is filled with rejection, of being the absolute "other."  No matter what the particular circumstances of "them," they are NOT my caste and in that one regard they have privilege in this society.  My choice to not turn away and follow the Dharma into these foreign spaces has had great reward.  I have encountered the reality of "them" as fellow beings, even if their "privileges" have buffeted them from the struggles of my life.  I have continued the tradition of many African-American women who can see with a clear eye the ways I am not seen and yet choose to see others as human and whole, even when they deny me the same privilege, either through ignorance, laziness, racism, agism and/or sexism.

This choice has softened my heart and mad me hardy in a way that I did not expect.  It has reconnected me to my Blues heritage, holding the bitter and the sweet.  Yet the siren call is there always.  I want to shout at "them."  I want to say, "Do you know how much shit I had to go through to get to this place?"  I choose not to give in to my frustration and sadness most of the time.

It is a choice to be in these foreign places, my choice, for my soul and for the liberation of all beings.  It is the path I must take.  It is a path I think all sentient beings must take.  So I will reach out again, feeling I'm playing out some sad old story of asking to join others at the fire and perhaps being told again, "no" or "not unless you don't bring all of you to the fire." 

The Dharma leads me farther and farther away from the places and people I know, but the siren call of the Dharma is greater than the call of separation...for now.

Gassho

When Sangha is Like Church

For good or ill, probably both, church was a time to dress up.  It was a place for putting your best foot forward.  In the culture that I grew up with, that was alright because people got plenty of chances to see you on your wrong foot.  However, in the case of the sanghas I am a part of most of the people I meet there only know me from my sangha attendance.  Even people that know me will note, and I've shared this in sangha, how my voice becomes lower, my manner less animated.  In other words, I start with my church behavior which quickly morphs into behavior that can connect with "white people."  I am "reasonable," thoughtful, etc.

Mindful communications models, in my experience, are very useful for people unfamiliar with Buddhism and/or each other.  Frankly, I don't know how a monthly sangha meeting could be a safe place without it, however, I no longer believe it is useful for the development of sanghas with a consistent or nearly consistent group of people.

 I often reflect on how "careful" and tentative people are in the mindful/Buddhist communities I've been and continue to be a part of.  The issue for me is not the necessity to be kind and compassionate in language, just that the carefulness should come from development of the heart and not be "church" etiquette.  It also may explain, to some extent the concern that activism in various social areas will somehow take away or be a distraction from "practice."  We have to work so hard just to be with each other is very modest ways.  If we started going back and forth without structure, something might happen.  The something that might happen is that we can learn to see and perhaps even love each other and look each other in the eye after having a real and tough disagreement.  We might even discover that those differences enhance our individual and personal growth, even if the room took a beating while we were throwing things around (I do not encouraging trashing a room during a disagreement). 

It is rubbing up against each others prejudices, seeing each other at our "worst" that will, to my mind, produce the hardiness of heart and mind that to me is all about Buddhism.  Walking on egg shells is as stressful as walking through a minefield.  The wrong step can prove to be ruinous.

 Namo Amitabha Buddha