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Yearly Archives: 2010

Oscar Grant, Audre Lorde, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the Question of Loving Our Enemies (guest post)

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Maia

It’s summer, and that means it’s the season for guest posts to give me a little time off from writing. Here’s a post from one of my favorite bloggers, Katie Loncke. Her blog, Kloncke, is dedicated to “social and spiritual liberation.” She’s a great writer and a beautiful soul.

An update to this post: the verdict came down yesterday in this case. Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Oscar Grant.

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Oscar Grant, Audre Lorde, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the Question of Loving Our Enemies

by Katie Kloncke

July 6, 2010

Cross-posted at Feministe. As the verdict approaches, I find myself thinking more and more about the relationships between state violence and intimate violence. In what ways our focus on state violence, and mechanisms for resisting it, jive and don’t jive with methods for dealing with intimate violence. Aaron Tanaka made a wonderful comment on the original post — as always, Aaron, I’m truly grateful for your insights and questions, and their organic connection to the great work you do.

Just yesterday, only 20 minutes after a conversation about police alternatives, as my friend Noa was dropping me off at home, we found ourselves in an impromptu cop watch. Four officers were arresting three men on my block — two of whom I recognized as regulars on the corner, and one with whom I’ve tossed a football across Hyde Street traffic. When I saw the cops lining the men up against the fence, I just stepped out of Noa’s car onto the sidewalk and inserted myself. After one of the officers attempted to intimidate Noa by calling in her plate number (we’d been stopped and talking in the car inside a red parking zone), she drove around the block, parked, came back and joined me for the next half hour as we watched these three men get yelled at, cuffed, and loaded into a police van.

I’ll maybe write up a full summary tomorrow, because the effect of our intervention on the cops’ behavior was pretty interesting, as well as the conversation we struck up with two male officers. For now, here’s my Feministe piece from Sunday.

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[Trigger Warning: discussions of sexual assault and deadly State force.]

Love your enemies.

For feminists, is there any phrase more terrifyingly reactionary?

Love your enemies. Even the one who assaults you in private and reaps accolades as a brilliant community organizer in public. (One of my mom’s former boyfriends.)

Love your enemies. Even the ones who throw cherry bombs at you in the school bathrooms. (My dad’s fellow students at Yale, in the 1950s.)

Love your enemies. Even the one who tells you women should be seamstresses, not lawyers. (Opa — my mom’s dad.)

Love your enemies. Even the one who tells you, as a child, to bit down on your lower lip so it won’t grow too big. (Grandma — my dad’s mom.)

Love your enemies. Even the white police officer who shot and killed you while you were lying helpless, face-down on the ground with another officer’s knee on your neck. (Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Black man killed Jan 1, 2009 in an Oakland subway station.)

Jury deliberations began yesterday for Johannes Mehserle, the Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer who fatally shot Oscar Grant. All of Oakland awaits the verdict. Both police and non-profits are making preparations to quell the “violence” anticipated after this “deadly lightning rod” of a trial.

Deadly? Violence? According to CNN’s coverage, not one single person was seriously injured in the 2009 protests following Grant’s death. Nobody injured, let alone killed. Windows were broken; dumpsters set afire. Is this violence? Sounds more like property destruction to me.

Whatever happens, whether riots flare up or not, things will once again settle, and the ordinary state violence will resume as usual. After all, there’s only one individual on trial — not an entire racist police force armed with deadly weapons. Not an entire patriarchal, militaristic, anti-immigrant, plutocratic (ruled by wealth) law enforcement system. Not California, the US state running “the largest prison system in the Western world.” That won’t be standing trial anytime soon. So what are we supposed to do?

Love your enemies.

What an injunction, huh? Just how are we supposed to achieve this? And why?

The “how” I’ll leave aside for now. Let’s focus on the why.

Why should we love our enemies? Why not hate them? Or at least get angry?

Audre Lorde, one of my all-time favorite feminists, has one answer. With hatred we harm ourselves, and anger only takes us halfway to where we need to go. From “Eye To Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger”:

Read the rest of this entry →

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The Two-Thirds World (guest post)

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Maia

I’m happy to share a guest post today by Jap Hastings from his blog Zenducation. Jap is a writer, poet, songwriter, and Zen practitioner living in Pittsburgh, PA.

The Two-Thirds World

by Jap Hastings

The terms “Third World” and “developing country” are ripe with notions of inferiority. They imply that every country with a low gross domestic product (GDP) wishes to adopt Western models of economic development, which simply isn’t the case. For instance, Cuba has chosen not to adopt Western economics, and despite being labeled “a developing country” due to a low gross national income, has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. Another example is Bhutan, which despite having the lowest per capita household income in the world has the eighth highest gross national happiness (GNH). The United States ranks twenty-third. Bhutan’s leaders achieve such high levels of citizen happiness not by focusing their policies on achieving GDP, but by following “the four pillars of GNH: promotion of equitable and sustainable socioeconomic development; preservation and promotion of cultural values; conservation of the natural environment; and establishment of good governance.”

Because so-called “developing countries” are often rich in local knowledge, systems of compassionate justice, cultural diversity, and preservation of the natural world—practices which are vital for sustainability—I propose using Madhu Prakash and Gustavo Esteva’s non-ethnocentric terminology of these countries as The Two-Thirds World. These countries, after all, compose the majority of the world’s population. We must rid ourselves of notions of superiority and realize that we have more to learn from many of these cultures than we have to teach them. It is for this reason that Prakash and Esteva argue for an initiative of:

creating solidarities with communities and groups suffering the most marked and vicious discrimination of our times—imposed by the educated as professional assistance, aid, or help upon the three contemporary [lower] castes: the miseducated, the undereducated or the noneducated, who constitute the majority of people on earth, the Two-Thirds World.

They argue in their book Escaping Education: Living as Learning within Grassroots Cultures that Western education and promises of professionalism destroy communities and local knowledge. This occurs by imposing the employment, high mobility, and economic growth of Western life. These pro-education Westerners, despite often having good intentions, neglect the fact that if everyone on the planet lived like an American, we would need five earths to sustain us.

Furthermore, Prakash and Esteva assert that human rights activists, supporting “the universal human right to health, employment, modern medicine, sewage, roads, and other social services” impose unneeded Western values on a people deemed inferior due to their non-modern lifestyles. Protect Tribal People by Contributing to Survival International Those who are well-informed about the twin crises of global warming and peak oil know that our modern life as we now know it is coming to an end. As we look to our post-carbon future—what some call our ancient future—the lessons we have to learn from The Two-Thirds World are infinite. Unfortunately, our industrial society is not only trying to convert The Two-Thirds World to our way of life, we are destroying the last surviving indigenous cultures. Driven by blind desire for natural resources, industrial multinational corporations are consuming what remains of the natural world and the people who inhabit it.

Luckily there are activist groups, such as Survival International, working to save Indigenous cultures by educating Westerners about the relevance and need for their cultures, notifying struggling tribes of the survival tactics of other tribes, and campaigning to governments, banks, and corporations to protect indigenous homelands. The importance of tribal cultures will become more evident to the masses as the effects of global warming and peak oil are apparent in the collective consciousness, but it will take the foresight of ecologically-concerned Westerners to support tribal people while we still can.

[Please watch Survival International’s “The Real Avatar: Mine – Story of a Sacred Mountain” and support Survival International by acting now.]

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A Declaration of Interdependence

Posted on July 3, 2010 by Maia

Photo: Paul Davis

As the Fourth of July approaches, I’d like to offer an alternative way to think about and celebrate the day. How about a day of remembering how interdependent we all are?

The essay below was originally written in 2004 by Alan Senauke of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and presented to delegates of the Republican and Democractic conventions that year. A number of people contributed to subsequent drafts, including: Robert Aitken Roshi, Hilda Ryumon Gutiérrez Baldoquín, Diane Gregorio, Ken Kraft, Santikaro Larsen, Diana Lion, David Loy, Bob Lyons, Susan Moon, Cliff Reiss, Craig Richards, Donald Rothberg, Cedar Spring, Diana Winston, and myself.

The essay was updated in 2006 and the questions at the bottom were added at that time.

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A Declaration of Interdependence:
A Call to Transform the Three Poisons for the Sake of All Sentient Beings

January 2006

As concerned global citizens and as members of a diverse Buddhist community, we want to contemplate and question the role of government in creating a civil and compassionate society. From the standpoint of interconnectedness, those of us living in the United States have a special responsibility to the whole world to explore this question. We know our government is in a position to effect great social change all across this world—change that can be both positive and negative.

Like most people, we are concerned about the war in Iraq, terrorism, deteriorating public schools, low-paying jobs, racism, and vanishing civil liberties. We are concerned that politics as usual— whether Democratic or Republican—offers little or no meaningful change of direction. Yet we refuse to succumb to apathy, cynicism, or anger. We seek a politics rooted in compassion and generosity born in each of us. Compassion means, literally, to suffer with, to recognize our human connection across all lines of race, culture, nationality, and identity. Generosity means to give freely of what we have, because giving to others is the natural expression of seeing others as ourselves.

Buddhist practice and ethical precepts call forth a range of beneficial views that apply as much to society as to individuals. Twenty-five hundred years ago, when Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened under the Bodhi Tree, he said, “Now I am awakened together with all sentient beings.” Every person on the planet has the full capacity to wake up from the mistaken notion that we are separate from each other. Each of us is connected interdependently with all others, including those who disagree with us. This understanding leads to a reverence for the preciousness of all sentient life.

There are barriers, however, that make people and nations believe that they are separate. From a Buddhist perspective, the “three poisons” of greed, hatred, and delusion cloud our minds and skew our actions:

• Greed is the driving force in a consumer society that supports undemocratic corporations that sell us things we don’t need. Greed is also at the root of a system in which people, including government officials, are corrupted by the seemingly insatiable appetite for money and power. Looking deeply, we see that nothing can be hoarded, accumulated, or held on to. We understand, too, that those things we take from others that are not freely given—resources, labor, wealth, votes, and more—are the birthright of all people. All people have the right to decide how these resources are used.

• Hatred gives birth to war, prejudice, and repression. Those forces tend to perpetuate themselves in a ceaseless cycle of violence and militarism. As Buddhism and other faith traditions affirm, “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love.” Hatred is rooted in separateness; compassion is rooted in connection. Which way would we wish to turn?

• Delusion, or ignorance, stems from our tendency not to see reality just as it is. We are schooled in delusion by systems of indoctrination and mass media that condition us from early childhood to buy into the false promises of consumerism and American exceptionalism. Delusion is the driving force evident in our ever-more centralized media.

And finally, we do not have government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Rather, government has become a holding company for corporate control. When we fail to point out the unraveling of our democratic system, and—as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina made clear— the way in which so many citizens lack even the necessities for a life of self-respect, we have fallen prey to the delusion of separateness, and we disempower ourselves and others.

The current political and economic system is tainted by these poisons, which necessarily reinforce each other. When we spend many billions of dollars on a foreign war premised on lies and distortions, we have no money to buy food, medicine, and first-class education for the poor at home…or for displaced peoples in need around the world. So a spiral of anger, resentment, need and confusion spins on and on.

And yet we are called to participate in this very system, even with all its injustices and inequalities. The task before us requires presence of mind, awareness, patience, and perseverance. We wish to be part of a polity that is genuinely representative and fully participatory.

All of us—whatever our faith, political affiliation, cultural background, or economic status—have the same wish for safety and well-being. We may agree or disagree with each other. We may approve or disapprove of a given candidate or representative’s positions. But in these decisive times, when so much is at stake, we must act with courage.

Traditional Buddhist teachings invite us to consider the well-being of the generations to come, seeing the future of parents, children, and loved ones. How will our loved ones be impacted if we fail to take care of the present? This kind of care calls for transformation: personal, political, economic, social, and cultural. Transformation is difficult work. We are often afraid to exchange a familiar situation—even one that causes us suffering—for a future that is unknown. Our challenge is to step into the unknown and not fear change or discomfort. Our challenge is to understand that principled conflict is often the midwife of transformation.

With these principles in mind, we offer three areas of transformation to apply when designing policies that will shape lives around the world. As students of the Buddha’s way of wisdom and compassion, we vow to practice these principles in our own lives, and to bring this understanding into our work in the social and political realms:

• Transform greed into generosity.

• Transform hatred into love and compassion.

• Transform ignorance into clarity and attention.

The Declaration of Independence of the United States says, “All men [and women] are created equal.” In Buddhism, the corollary teaching is that within each of us there is innate goodness and wholeness. Actualization of these ideals is only possible in a life-affirming society. Therefore, it is our responsibility to create the social conditions and political structures that enable people to live with dignity, honor, safety, and sufficient resources.

Only by working together can we renew our world. Only by working together can we insure that the U.S. will fulfill its promise of liberty and justice for all. In our hearts we long to see this vision born anew. As engaged Buddhists and spiritual activists, we commit ourselves to this path.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. How do the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion manifest in my own life as a global citizen? For example, what are my consumption patterns around food, oil, and other limited resources?

2. What is one way in which I can work to transform my personal relationship to greed, hatred, or delusion? How can my dharma practice support this process of transformation?

3. How do the three poisons manifest in the social and political structures in my local region? For example, how does ignorance take form in our school/educational system?

4. What is one local issue that I would like to engage with, and what are some ways that I can support the cultivation of generosity, compassion, and clarity in this area?

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Symposium for Engaged Buddhism Coming Soon!

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Maia

In just a little more than a month, the good folks at the Zen Peacemaker Community will be hosting a fantastic Symposium for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism up in the pastoral beauty of Montague, MA.

The dates are August 9 – 14, and speakers include Roshi Joan Halifax, Roshi Bernie Glassman, Hozan Alan Senauke, Sarah Weintraub, Daniel Goleman, and Paula Green… there are many more great people on the schedule.

Here’s an invitation: I’m not able to be at the symposium, but if any readers of the Jizo Chronicles are going and would like to write some dispatches from the event, I’d be happy to publish them here. Please contact me at maia [at] gmail [dot] com to let me know if you’re interested in serving as our reporter.

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Quote of the Week: Rev James Myoun Ford

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Maia

Given that our focus lately has been on SB1070, the anti-immigrant bill in Arizona (covered in the Jizo Chronicles here and here), this week’s quote comes from Rev. James Myoun Ford, who traveled from his home in Rhode Island to Phoenix in May to take part in a day of solidarity with those affected by this bill.

Rev. Ford has the distinction of being both an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister as well as a Zen teacher (he is the successor to John Tarrant Roshi). He began studying Zen in 1966 with Mel Sojun Weitsman, then later received dharma transmission from Roshi Jiyu Kennett. Ford is the author of In This Very Moment: A Simple Guide to Zen Buddhism and Zen Master Who? A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen. You can also find his writings on his blog, Monkey Mind.

Danny Fisher interviewed Rev. Ford earlier in June–you can read the full interview here. This quote is from that interview:

In Arizona I saw my task as bearing witness. I wore a clerical shirt and marched with other ministers and priests. It was important to show that people of faith, of many different faiths saw this law as cruel. It was meant to underscore as we move into a national dialogue that while it is absolutely necessary to address the issues of undocumented immigration, we need to engage this conversation with a sense of decency and care, and avoid scapegoating and even worse things….

As a Buddhist I feel compelled to bear witness to our radical interdependence. As a citizen I feel compelled to bear witness to our being a country of compassion and justice. As a human being I feel compelled to bear witness to the humanity of these people who have come to this country seeking nothing more than hope.

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Where is the Love? (aka: Meet Me in Arizona)

Posted on June 26, 2010 by Maia

Phoenix, May 2010, photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/standonthesideoflove

To my knowledge (which is limited), the word “love” doesn’t show up very often in Buddhist suttas and teachings, at least not in the way you see it over and over again in the teachings of Jesus. Which may be why people get the impression that Buddhism is primarily a cerebral exercise. The prevalent use of the word “mindfulness” just reinforces that notion. I was recently at a meeting where someone suggested that a better word might be “heartful-ness” – because what’s really happening if we practice deeply is that our heart awakens and we respond to the world from that place.

(A semantic note: Part of the problem here is a cultural/linguistic one. Western modes of thought and language tend to reify dualism. As you may know, the Chinese word shin [xin] means “heart-mind.” There’s a wonderful article by Shohaku Okumura on this word and its Japanese parallel kokoro here on the Buddhadharma website.)

Which brings me to Arizona.

Arizona needs a lot of love right now. Over the past few months, the state has passed a couple of bills that make it pretty difficult to be a Latino/a living in that state and not feel that you are despised and unwanted. First came SB 1070. Less than a month later, the governor signed another bill that limited the teaching of ethnic studies classes in public schools. And on top of that, the state’s education department started to mandate re-assignments of teachers who it was deemed didn’t speak English well enough or who had an accent. (See how some Stanford University professors responded to this.)

A number of people are responding by organizing a Summer of Human Rights in Arizona. One of my favorites is the “Standing on the Side of Love” campaign from the Unitarian Universalists. One of those UUs is also a Zen priest – James Ishmael Ford. Danny Fisher did a great interview with Ford which you can read here.

So how about it, dharma sisters and brothers – who would like to join me in a Summer of Love in Arizona? Let’s practice the dharma in a big-hearted way. Since I’m in New Mexico and Arizona is my neighbor, I’m thinking of going to Phoenix on July 29 for a Day of Non-Compliance (the day SB 1070 goes into effect). Perhaps we can get a Buddhist Love Delegation organized, similar to what a number of us did in Washington D.C. in 2005 and 2007 (see photos here and this past Jizo Chronicles post).

We’ve got one month. Anybody else interested? Let me know and let’s see what we can cook up.

And by the way – I’m also following up to find out more about the potential Buddhist group that’s going to the Gulf states to respond to the oil spill. I’ll be writing again soon with details on that.

love,
Maia

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Kindness

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Maia

My dharma friend Mitchell Ratner took this photo on his recent pilgrimage to Tibet and Mt. Kailash. I share it with you here because I love this quote. His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a knack for getting to the heart of the matter.

(taken at Kopan Monastery by Mitchell Ratner)

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Quote of the Week: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Maia

A correction from my entry the other day — June 19th was Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s 65th birthday.

In her honor, this week’s quote is from her (with thanks to Danny Fisher for finding it):

…People often ask me how it feels to have been imprisoned in my home… How could I stand the separation from family and friends? It is ironic, I say, that in an authoritarian state it is only the prisoner of conscience who is genuinely free. Yes, we have given up our right to a normal life. But we have stayed true to that most precious part of our humanity — our conscience.”

(from Parade Magazine, March 9, 2003)

Please see Danny’s blog for other important stories concerning Burma, as well as suggestions for actions that you can take to support Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of that country.

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