Shut up and Listen!
"We don't have to wait for death to approach to liberate ourselves from hatred. We can begin by asking ourselves, have I loved enough - within myself, within my house, beyond my doors, and into the world? Have I expressed the loving being that I am? Have I borne this love even when someone's heart is closed to it? I am not advocating love or the way of tenderness as an answer to all ills in the world. Then again it is just that simple: to be love. We need such love to continue to confront the truth of the prolonged mistreatment that oppression brings into the world."
Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, The way of Tenderness
I just finished a most amazing book at a most opportune time. Recently, the issue of identity, race, ethnicity, belonging, ignorance, involvement have come up for me full force. I live in a society where the question of race, superiority, inferiority are ever-present. In the public discourse, people's life experiences, historic deeds. Up until the last meditation teacher training, I assumed that the role of the observer, the one in the background was mine. After all, I was not raised in the US, it was neither an experience engrained in my life nor that of my family, and the collective responsibility lay with my US-American fellows not me. It feels good to have woken up from that dream!
I still claim some space of emotional dis-involvement based on the fact that I did not grow up in this society, whose collective deed and responsibility lies in reconciling and healing the wounds of slavery. Nonetheless, putting the individual shape and taste of oppression and hatred to the side, I came to understand that it would be hypocritical if I assumed that I had nothing to do with the pain, anger, and desperation that the African-American collective has felt for centuries in this country. The idea of racial or gender superiority (just to name the most prevalent ones) has been going on for a very long time, all around the world, in exactly those societies that I have been living in. Knowingly or unknowingly I was raised in it and in various forms I continue to carry that sensing, thinking, and acting into the world. One must be born enlightened if one was not to continue down that road.
I don't think that the dominant reaction from those that want to correct that route is necessarily the right one: While it is necessary to name racism, sexism, homophobia and similar distortions, I do not think that it'll be all over if we only call out and/or bring to justice the obvious perpetrators. As with everything the work starts much closer to home, and as always I find that incredibly empowering.
Which is what brings me back to Manuel's writing. As an African-American, homosexual Buddhist nun she speaks out of her experience, yet, at the same time she manages to give the book a tone of fluidity, non-fixation, and inclusivity. She so greatly outlines the predicament that many spiritual people find themselves in: knowing that identity is a man-made construct, which is meant to give a clear framework and orientation in this world. And then knowing that it feels unreal, limiting, and indeed acts as the basis for assuming to be separate, superior or inferior to others. So better to get rid of it altogether and better even, without fully diving into the pain and discomfort that it brings us and others.
What I realised during my training and in the subsequent reading is that being part of the traditionally dominant white majority, whether American or not, I have the duty to listen to those that have been oppressed. It is not my responsibility to judge the form, words, or validity (it is subjective experience anyway - don't argue with that!). I was reminded of an experience I had in India, when I got verbally attacked by a man on the street, based on my appearance and in connection with the colonial past that the country had to endure. While I was super puzzled at that time, I now know that it was wise and empathic not to react. It doesn't matter whether we are speaking about racism or sexism (or homophobia), in all cases what needs to be done now is to shut up and listen! The words and rhetoric may be clumsy, it may get a tat personal, things may go to another extreme for a while - all of that is needed to clear the space, to recollect, to put the pieces into their new form.
If systems and structures are changed, it is significant to do that out of wisdom, compassion, and inclusivity. If changing the makeup and relationships of a society but doing so on the basis of the same mindset and premise (i.e. notions of superiority, exclusivity, dominance), it won't go well and won't be sustainable (e.g. Tsarist Russia turning into Communism). Finding equal and inclusive solutions is not the quick fix. It requires humility (big time!), forbearance, flexibility, and trust (to know that all will be good if everybody wins).
Once I was told that our good deeds at this time may not be for our own benefit and that what we are contributing today is perhaps for those who will live in the year 3000 or 4000, should humans survive as a species. Perhaps the way of tenderness, as a path of spiritual awakening acknowledging race, sexuality, and gender, seems futuristic. Perhaps nourishing our lost kinships seems impossible. What would we have to give up to experience such today? As Audre Lourde says, "Our silences."
And for the rest of us to listen.