This person, is young in appearance,
She is of barely
Over twenty years.
But she is well-lived,
From her words I can tell
She knows many deep experiences,
This person, has lived many lives.
I am gently reminded:
Age is best seen,
Through the Practice,
And nothing more.
- Written in honor of my friend, Mar who will turn twenty two tomorrow.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Story of Gift
We begin with a fundamental and paradoxical truth: our ultimate freedom is bound together through one another. If you are less free, this reality manifests itself into the world, and inevitably suffocates my I perceived to be my freedom, too. I understand that any intention or act which makes any person less free takes us further from what is true. Truth is made slippery. The mind's eye sees clearly when we look upon these innumerable choices that lay ahead, and we either see a brilliant shine or humming dullness. Put another way, we either choose freedom or...not. Gift is simply a free choice to offer freedom to another. It is--choosing--toward true. Here we realize a lesson:
Last night I attended a Bahá'í Faith Devotional hosted by a dear law school friend. I am always happy to be invited, and I embrace an opportunity to be in another spiritual space. Devotionals vary in form; there is no standard way to organize one. My friend has chosen to combine prayers and (multi-faith) holy text passages onto a paper handout for group reading. Each person reads a passage and during the end we open up a discussion. Last night's topic was adoring our words with deeds. A very good topic, indeed.
This is my second Devotional, in which among the 5 -7 participants are predominantly of the Bahá'í Faith. We reach consensus most of the time but last night we had different views about generosity. Our discussion about right deeds led to right intentions about giving, and specifically, service.
I recalled a conversation with a sangha friend that I had not too long ago (one of my partners in crime, in fact). We were exiting the Columbia Heights metro station when we were approached by a person who asked for spare change. Recently I have committed to giving what I have in my wallet to whomever asks (there are many times that I have nothing because I rely on my debit card). I offered my remaining dollar. Following this my friend and I had a conversation about stranger-giving; we talked about my commitment, her grapplings with that question while abroad, and other reservations. We actually parted ways disagreeing about whether stranger-giving is right action.
I can only account for myself this way: any gift with conditions is not free. It is not a gift. My view is informed by a well-known story that has variations throughout many faiths about a man and his neighbor. This man offers his neighbor a fish and his neighbor graciously accepts only to return the fish into the ocean in front of the man. The teaching goes, if you react angrily to your neighbor, you have not given the fish. Your anger demonstrates an attachment that is not truly a gift. Such a view is also informed by the Buddhist teaching on the wisdom of nondiscrimination. A person's response to a need is generosity. We do not discriminate as to that need nor do we discriminate to whom we give because of our non-self. Our "emptiness" does not distinguish between my suffering or yours. So when a need is expressed, I respond accordingly.
This was not a popular view in Devotional :) One person responded that she'd rather give to an organization which helps beggars because that way she can be sure that it is rightly given and used. Another person shared the same belief. He did not wish to contribute to bad things. I suspect that these views are widely shared and they are rooted in our beliefs about who is in need, and our experiences related to whom we are responsible. But I will tell others like I have had to tell myself: it does not matter. The irrelevance of these questions does not reflect my desire to abrogate responsibility; instead, it reflects my lack of ownership and choice not to discriminate among needs or suffering. We are as we are.
I will qualify this lesson by acknowledging that context matters. The heart of the lesson, however, is a principle that we should refrain from prioritizing needs, projecting our righteousness onto others, and discriminating against persons.
Finally I think that lessons of generosity extend from strangers to our dear ones. Those who we find easy to love. In the same way unconditionality is important. I am so fortunate to be embraced by many forms of love by many people. A particular relationship that I will write more about is with my friend, Terrell. Terrell and I began as penpals but have grown close over 18 months. I call him my big brother and I am his little sister. We offer our presence of mind to one another, a demonstration of love. Our true presence resides in our ability to practice the wisdom of nondiscrimination. We relate to one another because we choose to understand each other. The freedom that accompanies boundless love and mindfulness is most powerful. I try to replicate this lesson to all of my other relationships.
Freedom is not discriminatory so why are we? Reciprocity is conditional so why do we wait? Love is a form of generosity so why do we choose against love? A story of gift.
Metta,
R.
A special thanks to Yujin for our quality discussion on this topic.
Last night I attended a Bahá'í Faith Devotional hosted by a dear law school friend. I am always happy to be invited, and I embrace an opportunity to be in another spiritual space. Devotionals vary in form; there is no standard way to organize one. My friend has chosen to combine prayers and (multi-faith) holy text passages onto a paper handout for group reading. Each person reads a passage and during the end we open up a discussion. Last night's topic was adoring our words with deeds. A very good topic, indeed.
This is my second Devotional, in which among the 5 -7 participants are predominantly of the Bahá'í Faith. We reach consensus most of the time but last night we had different views about generosity. Our discussion about right deeds led to right intentions about giving, and specifically, service.
I recalled a conversation with a sangha friend that I had not too long ago (one of my partners in crime, in fact). We were exiting the Columbia Heights metro station when we were approached by a person who asked for spare change. Recently I have committed to giving what I have in my wallet to whomever asks (there are many times that I have nothing because I rely on my debit card). I offered my remaining dollar. Following this my friend and I had a conversation about stranger-giving; we talked about my commitment, her grapplings with that question while abroad, and other reservations. We actually parted ways disagreeing about whether stranger-giving is right action.
I can only account for myself this way: any gift with conditions is not free. It is not a gift. My view is informed by a well-known story that has variations throughout many faiths about a man and his neighbor. This man offers his neighbor a fish and his neighbor graciously accepts only to return the fish into the ocean in front of the man. The teaching goes, if you react angrily to your neighbor, you have not given the fish. Your anger demonstrates an attachment that is not truly a gift. Such a view is also informed by the Buddhist teaching on the wisdom of nondiscrimination. A person's response to a need is generosity. We do not discriminate as to that need nor do we discriminate to whom we give because of our non-self. Our "emptiness" does not distinguish between my suffering or yours. So when a need is expressed, I respond accordingly.
This was not a popular view in Devotional :) One person responded that she'd rather give to an organization which helps beggars because that way she can be sure that it is rightly given and used. Another person shared the same belief. He did not wish to contribute to bad things. I suspect that these views are widely shared and they are rooted in our beliefs about who is in need, and our experiences related to whom we are responsible. But I will tell others like I have had to tell myself: it does not matter. The irrelevance of these questions does not reflect my desire to abrogate responsibility; instead, it reflects my lack of ownership and choice not to discriminate among needs or suffering. We are as we are.
I will qualify this lesson by acknowledging that context matters. The heart of the lesson, however, is a principle that we should refrain from prioritizing needs, projecting our righteousness onto others, and discriminating against persons.
Finally I think that lessons of generosity extend from strangers to our dear ones. Those who we find easy to love. In the same way unconditionality is important. I am so fortunate to be embraced by many forms of love by many people. A particular relationship that I will write more about is with my friend, Terrell. Terrell and I began as penpals but have grown close over 18 months. I call him my big brother and I am his little sister. We offer our presence of mind to one another, a demonstration of love. Our true presence resides in our ability to practice the wisdom of nondiscrimination. We relate to one another because we choose to understand each other. The freedom that accompanies boundless love and mindfulness is most powerful. I try to replicate this lesson to all of my other relationships.
Freedom is not discriminatory so why are we? Reciprocity is conditional so why do we wait? Love is a form of generosity so why do we choose against love? A story of gift.
Metta,
R.
A special thanks to Yujin for our quality discussion on this topic.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Love Is A Comfort
To abandon all that he has fashioned,
And hold in the palm of my hand,
The simple proof that he loves me,
That is the goal of my search.
- Rabi'a Al-Adawiyya (717-801) Female Sufi Mystic Born in Iraq; Ninety-Nine Names of Love: Expressions of the Heart, edited by Priya Hemenway.
And hold in the palm of my hand,
The simple proof that he loves me,
That is the goal of my search.
- Rabi'a Al-Adawiyya (717-801) Female Sufi Mystic Born in Iraq; Ninety-Nine Names of Love: Expressions of the Heart, edited by Priya Hemenway.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Circles of Belonging
Late in night this week, I was on a bus from school to home. I was sitting on a right-hand side near the back, leaning against the window. I was tired, and I had just enough energy look outside. For several minutes I stared into the darkness. Then, I saw my own reflection against the glass. There was my transparent silhouette—my hair, my glasses, my mouth, my winter coat—that contained all the things which I was seeing. A foot bridge, brownish leaves, townhouses, and much more quickly passed by me, yet were captured by my own image in the glass window. My image encompasses the outside, and within that moment, I saw myself in everything.
Last weekend our People of Color (POC) sangha gathered for our monthly time together. I always look forward to sangha because it is my true spiritual community. I have attended for a year now, in which I have deepened my practice amongst unconditional love and support. There is no other place like this for me.
This particular time together was challenging. We had a special guest, Tara Branch, founder of the sangha’s home organization (Tara is a long-time teacher and mentor who coined “circles of belonging” to describe affinity sanghas; she is also white). During this time an inquiry was put forth by two newer sangha members. The inquiry essentially was this: if we are striving for collective liberation, why do we need a POC sangha? Both members expressed concern that our sangha encouraged separation from others, and suggested that the teachings guide us toward joining majority sanghas with everyone else. Other sangha members had passionate responses whose experiences among the majority were painful, violent, and threatening to their spiritual and psychic well-being. The dharma talk went back and forth between these views. I left sangha that evening exhausted, confused, unsettled, and a little upset.
Afterward, I joined a few of my sangha friends for dinner. I was left in a very poor mood. We eventually visited the topic of sangha: our feelings, thoughts, and reactions. I had been reflecting until this point, and I finally shared that I was unhappy. I felt negative energy for several reasons. I did not believe that the two new members who introduced the inquiry practiced deep listening (part of right speech, an Eightfold Path branch and Five Mindfulness training) because they did not acknowledge the suffering others had expressed. Nor did they extend compassion to these members (a Four Immeasurable Mind). Their beliefs were formed on an intellectual level, one that exists in Absolute Truth. But as I understand the Two Truths (absolute and relative realities), absolute truth is only understood through our relative experiences. The strong implication I received from the two sangha members was that if we acknowledged the genuine pain felt in the room that we were bad practitioners who desperately clung to our identities and their associated experiences when, instead, we needed to shed these things to attain liberation.
I looked deeply into this aspect throughout the week after my sadness and anger passed. I disagree with this view for a lot of reasons, but I will share just two here.
The description, “true sangha,” is used to convey an ideal spiritual community for a person. The POC sangha is my true sangha because it reflects the world in which I live. We’re tall, we’re short; we’re young, we’re elders; we’re Buddhists, we’re non-Buddhists; we’re dark-skinned, we’re light-skinned; we’re straight, we’re queer. We are so many things. This is the world I see. Other sanghas I have attended are not this way. Every sangha is diverse, yes, because each person can uniquely contribute to a community. But there’s an inherent richness in an inclusive sangha—one which truly represents, and invites difference. (Please keep in mind that I appreciated the new members’ inquiry for this reason but I was hurt by the way they brought forth and pursued the inquiry.) A room consisting of people who look the same, talk the same, dress the same, and think the same—especially when you’re not the same—is false. When I attend a majority sangha, no matter how hard I try to bring an open heart, I feel like I’m underwater.
This feeling builds into my second insight that majority sanghas tend not to be inclusive. I believe that these sanghas possess a real earnestness to invite people of color and others, but they so often lack the skillful means (compassion, openness, deep listening) necessary to care and nurture diversity within their sangha. They simply do not know how, and in my experience many resist the notion when there’s an offer to teach them. This is an incredibly hard and painful experience for a person of color. Moreover, it feels like a betrayal to experience this kind of spiritual violence every day, and repeat it again and again with practicing brothers and sisters.
When I board a bus, I sometimes wonder how others see me. Am I another young professional rushing to the office? Or am I an out-of-place city kid who is venturing into a new part of town? Am I an aloof young person who prefers the back of the bus to ignore people? Or am I a polite rider who moves around to make room for families and elders? Am I pretentious hipster preparing the waste the day in my head? Or am I a pragmatic working person brooding over the day’s demands? So many stories; I am probably all of these things. People perceive me many ways because I do not appear to be any single way. I’m afraid that stories develop around me within a majority sangha. I stand out for whichever reason, so that if well-intentioned people reach out to me they load a set of expectations on me that is too heavy for any one person. I feel the heaviness, and I’m made even more uncomfortable.
An inclusive sangha, one that nurtures one of the six paramitas, does not feel this way—it feels light—inviting me to feel free to touch my Buddha within. People of color cannot realize their buddahood if they are contained. A David Whyte poem I recently discovered concludes, “Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive, is too small for you.” Most majority sanghas are too small for me. The danger, the poet has publically warns, is that our vision can, too, become too small so that we cannot see all the goodness that embodies a particular thing. I have tried, and tried again to do this with majority sanghas. At this time I do not believe that I’m making a mistake. I am too small within these sanghas because they make me small. So I go elsewhere.
I witness absolute truth every day. Home has become many places for me. I have always been sort of a chameleon. In fact, this week I was able to take part in a Baha’i devotional, organized by a law school friend. Truth comes in many forms, and I will not deny any of them.
Am I a less enlightened person for preferring a people of color sangha? No. The POC sangha just happens to be the truest sangha I have come across; it brings me closer to the Universe. I do not live in a colorblind world, but instead, I live in a colorful one for which I can see myself, and the world can see me.
Last weekend our People of Color (POC) sangha gathered for our monthly time together. I always look forward to sangha because it is my true spiritual community. I have attended for a year now, in which I have deepened my practice amongst unconditional love and support. There is no other place like this for me.
This particular time together was challenging. We had a special guest, Tara Branch, founder of the sangha’s home organization (Tara is a long-time teacher and mentor who coined “circles of belonging” to describe affinity sanghas; she is also white). During this time an inquiry was put forth by two newer sangha members. The inquiry essentially was this: if we are striving for collective liberation, why do we need a POC sangha? Both members expressed concern that our sangha encouraged separation from others, and suggested that the teachings guide us toward joining majority sanghas with everyone else. Other sangha members had passionate responses whose experiences among the majority were painful, violent, and threatening to their spiritual and psychic well-being. The dharma talk went back and forth between these views. I left sangha that evening exhausted, confused, unsettled, and a little upset.
Afterward, I joined a few of my sangha friends for dinner. I was left in a very poor mood. We eventually visited the topic of sangha: our feelings, thoughts, and reactions. I had been reflecting until this point, and I finally shared that I was unhappy. I felt negative energy for several reasons. I did not believe that the two new members who introduced the inquiry practiced deep listening (part of right speech, an Eightfold Path branch and Five Mindfulness training) because they did not acknowledge the suffering others had expressed. Nor did they extend compassion to these members (a Four Immeasurable Mind). Their beliefs were formed on an intellectual level, one that exists in Absolute Truth. But as I understand the Two Truths (absolute and relative realities), absolute truth is only understood through our relative experiences. The strong implication I received from the two sangha members was that if we acknowledged the genuine pain felt in the room that we were bad practitioners who desperately clung to our identities and their associated experiences when, instead, we needed to shed these things to attain liberation.
I looked deeply into this aspect throughout the week after my sadness and anger passed. I disagree with this view for a lot of reasons, but I will share just two here.
The description, “true sangha,” is used to convey an ideal spiritual community for a person. The POC sangha is my true sangha because it reflects the world in which I live. We’re tall, we’re short; we’re young, we’re elders; we’re Buddhists, we’re non-Buddhists; we’re dark-skinned, we’re light-skinned; we’re straight, we’re queer. We are so many things. This is the world I see. Other sanghas I have attended are not this way. Every sangha is diverse, yes, because each person can uniquely contribute to a community. But there’s an inherent richness in an inclusive sangha—one which truly represents, and invites difference. (Please keep in mind that I appreciated the new members’ inquiry for this reason but I was hurt by the way they brought forth and pursued the inquiry.) A room consisting of people who look the same, talk the same, dress the same, and think the same—especially when you’re not the same—is false. When I attend a majority sangha, no matter how hard I try to bring an open heart, I feel like I’m underwater.
This feeling builds into my second insight that majority sanghas tend not to be inclusive. I believe that these sanghas possess a real earnestness to invite people of color and others, but they so often lack the skillful means (compassion, openness, deep listening) necessary to care and nurture diversity within their sangha. They simply do not know how, and in my experience many resist the notion when there’s an offer to teach them. This is an incredibly hard and painful experience for a person of color. Moreover, it feels like a betrayal to experience this kind of spiritual violence every day, and repeat it again and again with practicing brothers and sisters.
When I board a bus, I sometimes wonder how others see me. Am I another young professional rushing to the office? Or am I an out-of-place city kid who is venturing into a new part of town? Am I an aloof young person who prefers the back of the bus to ignore people? Or am I a polite rider who moves around to make room for families and elders? Am I pretentious hipster preparing the waste the day in my head? Or am I a pragmatic working person brooding over the day’s demands? So many stories; I am probably all of these things. People perceive me many ways because I do not appear to be any single way. I’m afraid that stories develop around me within a majority sangha. I stand out for whichever reason, so that if well-intentioned people reach out to me they load a set of expectations on me that is too heavy for any one person. I feel the heaviness, and I’m made even more uncomfortable.
An inclusive sangha, one that nurtures one of the six paramitas, does not feel this way—it feels light—inviting me to feel free to touch my Buddha within. People of color cannot realize their buddahood if they are contained. A David Whyte poem I recently discovered concludes, “Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive, is too small for you.” Most majority sanghas are too small for me. The danger, the poet has publically warns, is that our vision can, too, become too small so that we cannot see all the goodness that embodies a particular thing. I have tried, and tried again to do this with majority sanghas. At this time I do not believe that I’m making a mistake. I am too small within these sanghas because they make me small. So I go elsewhere.
I witness absolute truth every day. Home has become many places for me. I have always been sort of a chameleon. In fact, this week I was able to take part in a Baha’i devotional, organized by a law school friend. Truth comes in many forms, and I will not deny any of them.
Am I a less enlightened person for preferring a people of color sangha? No. The POC sangha just happens to be the truest sangha I have come across; it brings me closer to the Universe. I do not live in a colorblind world, but instead, I live in a colorful one for which I can see myself, and the world can see me.
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