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

A Great Gift of the Dharma - Loving w/o Fear

At the last meeting of the POC Sangha, one of the anchors of my life, we were asked about how our practice hand informed our lives. I threaded through the different answers that presented themselves to me, but this is the one that has had the greatest impact on my life and stands as the reason I am so wedded to the Dharma--the ability to love without fear.

Specifically, I said (as I remember it), "I can meet my desire to love without fear of being destroyed by the loving." Because of Buddhism, I have come to understand that real love does not come from a hungry heart, but a whole one. It does not come from sacrifice, but bounty. Most important to me, I can love without depletion. It does not trigger fatigue, or depression as the object(s) of my "love" "disappoints" me and a "love them anyway."a

Instead I am both emboldened and humbled by the joy of loving without fear. The old "disappointment," when its echo arises, is replaced with either a wry sense of understanding (a recognition that "I've done that") or a deep sense of compassion (a recognition that "I've done that") often it's both.

I am no longer am lost in the illusion of separateness. I am free from that illusion and that means there is no "other" who will either fulfill my love or disappoint me. I have my preferences, I would rather you smile than frown at me, but more and more it is just a preference. Some days, I walk the streets greeting strangers with my bucked tooth smile. How do they respond? It doesn't matter :-)

Through the Dharma, I am free to love whoever presents themselves in my life--without fear. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Metta

The Tyranny of Fluffiness - Thinking About Wise Speech

I've been thinking about wise, I prefer skillful, speech over the last few weeks. I see the benefit and even the necessity to speak with compassion and awareness, but I've often seen how much damage and suffering can arise not from wise speech, but from fluffy speech. By that I mean speech that only vaguely deals with what the speaker really wants to say. It is speech so soft and fluffy as to be, at least sometimes, useless and at worst damaging.

As I've reflected on this, it can be a real issue with "educated" and "progressive" people. The have both a large vocabulary and a sense of what is "correct." This causes suffering for the people who are trying so hard to be kind and for those they communicate with as they try to understand what they are hearing and what they feel about what they may be experiencing under the words.

"Taking care" of other people under the label of wise or skillful speech, is a type of co-dependency that assumes people are too weak for clarity. It also allows the speaker to be unconscious of their lack of clarity, while being "compassionate."

I've had an opportunity to see the difficulty that arises when speech is unclear. Some of that lack of clarity arose from genuine confusion, some arose from an effort to maintain relationship, but all of it served confusion. One of the many benefits of this path is the goal to be clear. Fluffy speech is not kind, it is confusing.

I am willing to restate or even apologize for inelegant words, but I have faith in my heart, a growing faith in the skillfulness of my words as I grow in my Buddhist practice, and faith in the beings I interact with. I offer my best effort to be both kind and clear to all sentient beings.

Metta

Wise Speech: A Translation for Me

"My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences."
— Audre Lorde (The Cancer Journals)

I almost didn't go to Sangha, because the article to read in preparation was "Wise Speech." I reacted with such resistance to what I initially read as another way to shut up people of different colors and culture, particularly my color and my people, without feeling like you're being oppressive. That resistance came on a day when my body, mind and spirit was feeling all the weights that I carry and I didn't want to hear about my need to use speech to be harmonious and not cause people to suffer.

Of course, the article was not an attack against me or anyone, but it did contain within it certain ideals and language that seemed dismissive of the realities of my history and my life. The article dismissed "frivolous"speech and "lies" as being unwise speech. Some might consider the kitchen talk that passed on wisdom and stories of pain and laughter and life both lies and frivolous, but it is where I continue to draw much of my strength and wisdom from. Like many articles about wise speech, silence is lauded as a wonderful way of being. My journey in this life to be a better person has often led me to silence rather than peace and the silence gave me no protection. I get triggered when I am given the goal of silence. Like most things, I have to translated the Dharma for me (this is Buddha's instruction) and I had to do it for this article.

What is the goal of "wise speech?" For me the goal is to be true to my deepest, most authentic self, come from love, and come from clarity. My speech is "wisest" when I know what's going on with me and the situation. It should be timely and appropriate, but it may not always be "nice." On the contrary, "harmony" may work against not just my truth, but get in the way of my coming together with a person I love, care about, or work with. Buddhism for me is all about moving beyond the delusion of separateness and wise speech is a tool to move beyond that delusion.

Wise speech is a crucial tenet of Buddhism, but to be useful it must be understood deeply by me. There is a place for silence, both strategic and Noble. I have experienced the deep dissatisfaction that comes after an angry eruption and I clearly see how wise it is to not project my speech from the place of anger, but I certainly see it as wise to speak from the place of pain. Just as I've learned to trust that just as I will not die from unmindful speech from another person, I don't believe they will they die from my unmindful speech. I believe that sometimes authentic and unmindful speech may be necessary to move to a place of love and connection. This space gives me the courage to continue to speak from a place of wisdom, the ideal that I'm often presented with, only leaves me futility.