In honor of Rohatsu, the day we celebrate the Buddha’s Enlightenment:
In gratitude we offer this incense to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time.
May it be as fragrant as Earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness and the fruit of understanding slowly ripening.
May we and all being be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home.
–from Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh
The recent tragedies in the nation have brought the issues of racism, violence, and systemic bias to the forefront of much public discussion. These are thorny issues fraught with problems on both sides.
My online friend Maia Duerr, a socially engaged Buddhist, Zen chaplain, and writer for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, has written a wonderful piece that takes a very balanced but compelling approach.
The Buddhist perspective helps in understanding that we can, indeed must, “take sides” yet be able to see clearly and have compassion for both sides. Maia works thru the delicate nuances of this challenging mass of issues in very cogent and convincing ways.
You can read her essay at The Jizo Chronicles.
What are the real threats to the health and safety of our world?
Charles Eisenstein, author of The More Beautiful World… and other perceptive books analyzing the current state of the world from a very enlightened philosophical point of view, has turned his gaze on the media hysteria over Ebola Zaire, or whatever strain of the virus it is that has had the temerity to invade our sacred shores.
Though he does not dismiss the threat, he clearly sees its place on the spectrum. The hysteria over Ebola, he says, is just another instance of looking for things we can control. And he points out the source of the things that pose serious threats to the health and safety of the world as mostly of our own making.
…the real threats to our well-being are by and large of a different nature. They are, in fact, the result of the us-versus-them mentality, and cannot be solved from that mentality. First among these is the ecological crisis, which is showing us undeniability that what we have done to nature, we have done to ourselves.
You can read the entire article on his site, The New and Ancient Story.
This paper is so wonderful and deeply insightful, and it seems few have noticed it, so I’m posting it again with better tags!
….
A Reclamation of the Divine Feminine:
Developing an International Spiritual Ecology Center for Women
Written by Nicole S. Barrett for a graduate degree from Portland State University, the paper lays out Nicole’s vision for an educational center to help women discover their connection with their own powerful intuition and with the natural world – which are essentially the same thing – and provides a beautifully presented case for the recovery in our society of a central leadership role for women — and men –who are strongly grounded in the feminine and bring to their leadership the deep intuitive wisdom, the “ability to trust one’s internal voice,” that includes. (Most of our women leaders today are simply women who have learned to ‘get along’ in the patriarchy.)
Nicole was also a student and a teacher at the Buddhist Education for Social Transformation training, and was killed in an accident in Thailand. My friend Maia Duerr, who conducts the BEST school, has started a scholarship fund in honor of Nicole to help other women carry on her work. The Indiegogo link above gives more details on Nicole and the fund.The paper is a wonderful statement of the connections among ecological awareness, spirituality, feminism, social activism, and peace building. It also articulates very well several critical points about what’s going on in our world today. It is well worth reading. Following are a few excerpts from Nicole’s paper, which I hope will inspire you to read the whole thing:
“…all life has value, and not only is all life valuable, but it is also interconnected and interdependent. Western culture is relentless in its pursuit to colonize our minds, convincing us that we should bow down to the holy idea that “independence” equals freedom and “dependence” equals weakness. These oppressive social constructs, which our capitalist society depend on, violate all principles of social sustainability.
Attitudinal norms imposed by colonialism and modern industrialization not only encourage human behaviors which are unsustainable and devoid of spiritual concern, but they also compel us to create great suffering for ourselves and other beings of the world.
To generate ecological and spiritual healing, it is imperative that all people, not just women, bring the feminine and the masculine back into balance both personally and collectively. Although there are drawbacks to using the seemingly dichotomous terms of “masculine” and “feminine,” for the sake of clarity in this paper it is useful to do so (see Appendix A for a chart describing these terms). Rather than view them as opposing forces, they can be understood as complementary aspects of a whole.
Ecofeminism unites ecology and feminism, exploring the interconnections between male domination over women and domination of nature
Women’s intuition is linked to nature, and because women have been taught that intimacy with nature is morally suspect, they are often suspicious of themselves (Reeves, 1999; Starhawk, 2004; Gomes & Kanner, 1995). This ability to trust one’s internal voice is, (Baxter Magolda,2008) arguably, the single most important factor in being an authentic leader.
As Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (2013) plainly states, “A spiritual revolution is needed if we’re going to confront the environmental challenges that face us” (p. 28). The burgeoning field of spiritual ecology “acknowledges the critical need to recognize and address the spiritual dynamics at the root of environmental degradation,” (“About Spiritual Ecology,” 2013) and promotes the idea that creation is sacred and should be honored (Macy, 2007). Martinez (2008) agrees, arguing that, “The greatest healing that needs to be done is the healing of the European idea of the separation of people from nature” (p. 107). Sustainability leadership models (Burns, 2011; Wheatley, 2006; Ferdig, 2007) counter mainstream pedagogies by offering collaborative, reflective strategies for those interested in sharing spiritual ecology values. Non-formal learning organizations can offer conducive spaces for workshops or other experiential learning activities aimed at women who want to begin or deepen their practice as eco-spiritual leaders.
In the Portland, Oregon metro area, there are numerous businesses and nonprofits that offer yoga or other spiritual practice, but they tend to focus solely on inner healing while disregarding social activism or engagement with their community. Conversely, the city is also home to many activist organizations who may dedicate themselves to social justice or sustainability causes, but whom lack spiritual practice or tools for self-care. In order to empower women to rise up as global eco-spiritual leaders, there must be non-formal educational opportunities for them to experience personal transformation and healing while developing practical skills they can use as active change agents in their communities. I propose the creation of an International Spiritual Ecology Center for Women in the Portland area. The center will incorporate a transformative and holistic educational “model in which participants use head, heart, hands, and —this will be a space where women (and their allies) from across the globe can gather to reconnect with their body’s intuitive wisdom, deepen their spiritual practice, and collaboratively cultivate tools for non-violent activism.
The work of The International Spiritual Ecology Center for Women is grounded in four core values: spiritual ecology, feminism, social activism, and spiritual practice. … We embody our guiding principles and values through the use of methodologies that reflect power sharing, respect for diversity, non-violent conflict resolution, unlearning internalized patriarchy, holistic, experiential learning, simplicity, and the combination of personal practice with social transformation
In most pre-industrial communities, female spiritual leaders in the forms of herbalists, midwives, and traditional healers were commonplace, and through embodied learning, these women seamlessly knew how to weave the sacredness of nature into their practices of medicine and magic (Reeves; Starhawk, 1999). Reeves notes that these leaders were, “out of necessity, steeped in an intimate knowledge of the Earth, of herbs, the mysteries of childbirth, and the ecological cycles of renewal” (p. 7). Nature, spirituality, and intuition were deeply intertwined. You could say that women were fully connected to the powerful Divine Feminine. spirit (intellectual, emotional, kinesthetic, and spiritual modalities) in the learning process” (IWP, 2013)
“[Its] Gaia consciousness.”
Many eco-spiritual leaders believe we are on the brink of a spiritual paradigm shift, sometimes called “The Great Turning,” (Macy,1998) which will lead our world back into a state of equilibrium. A collective surrender to the elements found in the archetype of the Divine Feminine is what may lead us on this healing path. These elements include silence, mercy, empathy, collaboration, creativity, diversity, and receptivity, “the set of qualities that are systematically devalued in patriarchy” (Gomes & Kanner, p. 119).
In essence, the Divine Feminine is our intuition. “Intuition has been described as the capacity to sense messages from our internal store of emotional memory – our own reservoir of wisdom and judgment” Despite the many claims emphasizing the importance of intuition in effective leadership … there is very little to no help on how to nurture this way of knowing.
…the Witch Persecutions, their essential body-held wisdom and animate worldview now held under contempt — Black midwives and healers used their knowledge of plant medicine and magic to treat ailments in their communities, sometimes as a form of resistance against slave owners (Fett, 2002). Many white male doctors were threatened by the midwives’ high rates of success,…
Mainstream educational environments are largely unfit for this kind of healing work as it requires flexible time for emotional reconciliation, deep spiritual reflection, and practice.
Kumar (2004): “Pure rationalism is in itself violence of the mind. Rationalism by its nature cuts through, separates, divides, isolates. This is not to say that rationality has no place in our lives. It has. But it should be kept in its place, and not given an exaggerated status in our society. Rationality tempered with feelings and intuitions of the heart, in yin-yang balance, can create a culture of non-violence, wholeness and compassion…”‘
From a wonderful article on the experience of Rosh Hashanah by my friend Gareth:
“…I got a glimpse of how much my worldview has been shaped by the dangerous flight to judgment of our culture, and the extent to which we are on a precipice fueled by ignorance and intolerance.”
It’s at: http://garethjyoung.com/the-way-of-silence/#comment-334
This paper is so wonderful and deeply insightful, and it seems few have noticed it, so I’m posting it again with better tags!
….
A Reclamation of the Divine Feminine:
Developing an International Spiritual Ecology Center for Women
Written by Nicole S. Barrett for a graduate degree from Portland State University, the paper lays out Nicole’s vision for an educational center to help women discover their connection with their own powerful intuition and with the natural world – which are essentially the same thing – and provides a beautifully presented case for the recovery in our society of a central leadership role for women — and men –who are strongly grounded in the feminine and bring to their leadership the deep intuitive wisdom, the “ability to trust one’s internal voice,” that includes. (Most of our women leaders today are simply women who have learned to ‘get along’ in the patriarchy.)
Nicole was also a student and a teacher at the Buddhist Education for Social Transformation training, and was killed in an accident in Thailand. My friend Maia Duerr, who conducts the BEST school, has started a scholarship fund in honor of Nicole to help other women carry on her work. The Indiegogo link above gives more details on Nicole and the fund.The paper is a wonderful statement of the connections among ecological awareness, spirituality, feminism, social activism, and peace building. It also articulates very well several critical points about what’s going on in our world today. It is well worth reading. Following are a few excerpts from Nicole’s paper, which I hope will inspire you to read the whole thing:
“…all life has value, and not only is all life valuable, but it is also interconnected and interdependent. Western culture is relentless in its pursuit to colonize our minds, convincing us that we should bow down to the holy idea that “independence” equals freedom and “dependence” equals weakness. These oppressive social constructs, which our capitalist society depend on, violate all principles of social sustainability.
Attitudinal norms imposed by colonialism and modern industrialization not only encourage human behaviors which are unsustainable and devoid of spiritual concern, but they also compel us to create great suffering for ourselves and other beings of the world.
To generate ecological and spiritual healing, it is imperative that all people, not just women, bring the feminine and the masculine back into balance both personally and collectively. Although there are drawbacks to using the seemingly dichotomous terms of “masculine” and “feminine,” for the sake of clarity in this paper it is useful to do so (see Appendix A for a chart describing these terms). Rather than view them as opposing forces, they can be understood as complementary aspects of a whole.
Ecofeminism unites ecology and feminism, exploring the interconnections between male domination over women and domination of nature
Women’s intuition is linked to nature, and because women have been taught that intimacy with nature is morally suspect, they are often suspicious of themselves (Reeves, 1999; Starhawk, 2004; Gomes & Kanner, 1995). This ability to trust one’s internal voice is, (Baxter Magolda,2008) arguably, the single most important factor in being an authentic leader.
As Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (2013) plainly states, “A spiritual revolution is needed if we’re going to confront the environmental challenges that face us” (p. 28). The burgeoning field of spiritual ecology “acknowledges the critical need to recognize and address the spiritual dynamics at the root of environmental degradation,” (“About Spiritual Ecology,” 2013) and promotes the idea that creation is sacred and should be honored (Macy, 2007). Martinez (2008) agrees, arguing that, “The greatest healing that needs to be done is the healing of the European idea of the separation of people from nature” (p. 107). Sustainability leadership models (Burns, 2011; Wheatley, 2006; Ferdig, 2007) counter mainstream pedagogies by offering collaborative, reflective strategies for those interested in sharing spiritual ecology values. Non-formal learning organizations can offer conducive spaces for workshops or other experiential learning activities aimed at women who want to begin or deepen their practice as eco-spiritual leaders.
In the Portland, Oregon metro area, there are numerous businesses and nonprofits that offer yoga or other spiritual practice, but they tend to focus solely on inner healing while disregarding social activism or engagement with their community. Conversely, the city is also home to many activist organizations who may dedicate themselves to social justice or sustainability causes, but whom lack spiritual practice or tools for self-care. In order to empower women to rise up as global eco-spiritual leaders, there must be non-formal educational opportunities for them to experience personal transformation and healing while developing practical skills they can use as active change agents in their communities. I propose the creation of an International Spiritual Ecology Center for Women in the Portland area. The center will incorporate a transformative and holistic educational “model in which participants use head, heart, hands, and —this will be a space where women (and their allies) from across the globe can gather to reconnect with their body’s intuitive wisdom, deepen their spiritual practice, and collaboratively cultivate tools for non-violent activism.
The work of The International Spiritual Ecology Center for Women is grounded in four core values: spiritual ecology, feminism, social activism, and spiritual practice. … We embody our guiding principles and values through the use of methodologies that reflect power sharing, respect for diversity, non-violent conflict resolution, unlearning internalized patriarchy, holistic, experiential learning, simplicity, and the combination of personal practice with social transformation
In most pre-industrial communities, female spiritual leaders in the forms of herbalists, midwives, and traditional healers were commonplace, and through embodied learning, these women seamlessly knew how to weave the sacredness of nature into their practices of medicine and magic (Reeves; Starhawk, 1999). Reeves notes that these leaders were, “out of necessity, steeped in an intimate knowledge of the Earth, of herbs, the mysteries of childbirth, and the ecological cycles of renewal” (p. 7). Nature, spirituality, and intuition were deeply intertwined. You could say that women were fully connected to the powerful Divine Feminine. spirit (intellectual, emotional, kinesthetic, and spiritual modalities) in the learning process” (IWP, 2013)
“[Its] Gaia consciousness.”
Many eco-spiritual leaders believe we are on the brink of a spiritual paradigm shift, sometimes called “The Great Turning,” (Macy,1998) which will lead our world back into a state of equilibrium. A collective surrender to the elements found in the archetype of the Divine Feminine is what may lead us on this healing path. These elements include silence, mercy, empathy, collaboration, creativity, diversity, and receptivity, “the set of qualities that are systematically devalued in patriarchy” (Gomes & Kanner, p. 119).
In essence, the Divine Feminine is our intuition. “Intuition has been described as the capacity to sense messages from our internal store of emotional memory – our own reservoir of wisdom and judgment” Despite the many claims emphasizing the importance of intuition in effective leadership … there is very little to no help on how to nurture this way of knowing.
…the Witch Persecutions, their essential body-held wisdom and animate worldview now held under contempt — Black midwives and healers used their knowledge of plant medicine and magic to treat ailments in their communities, sometimes as a form of resistance against slave owners (Fett, 2002). Many white male doctors were threatened by the midwives’ high rates of success,…
Mainstream educational environments are largely unfit for this kind of healing work as it requires flexible time for emotional reconciliation, deep spiritual reflection, and practice.
Kumar (2004): “Pure rationalism is in itself violence of the mind. Rationalism by its nature cuts through, separates, divides, isolates. This is not to say that rationality has no place in our lives. It has. But it should be kept in its place, and not given an exaggerated status in our society. Rationality tempered with feelings and intuitions of the heart, in yin-yang balance, can create a culture of non-violence, wholeness and compassion…”‘
Ferguson has brought racism off the back burner in the US. A recent article on Killing the Buddha (an online magazine presenting various irreverent religious perspectives on social issues) is probably the best thing I’ve read on the subject lately. Maybe ever. It blows right by the tired old discussions of “let’s just all get along,” sifts through recent lists of “what can we do” and finds them wanting.
White people are going to have to suffer if we’re going to get this issue solved, and most of us are not too eager to step up take our share of the suffering. We want, like the Village Voice columnist of a few weeks ago, to think that we can all just rest in our well-meaning liberalism, avoid confrontation at all costs, and let good will work through the system and everything will be fine.
Briallen Hopper, a professor at Yale University, put things in perspective early on: “… as a white American I do know this: It is a privilege to experience political differences as differences of opinion rather than differences of power. It is a privilege to be able to view all political issues in indistinguishable shades of gray.”
She brings the insight of a 50-year-old documentary film, “A Time for Burning,” to bear on the current discussion about race in our country. She quotes famous black nationalist barber (and member of the Nebraska legislature) Ernie Chambers from the film:
I can’t solve the problem. You guys pull the strings that close schools. You guys drop the bombs that keep our kids restricted to the ghetto. You guys write up the restricted covenants that keep us out of houses. So it’s up to you to talk to your brothers and your sisters and persuade them that they have a responsibility. We’ve assumed ours for over four hundred years and we’re tired of this kind of stuff now. We’re not going to suffer patiently anymore. No more turning the other cheek. No more blessing our enemies. No more praying for those who despitefully use us. …
You’re treaty-breakers, you’re liars, you’re thieves, you rape entire continents and races of people. Then you wonder why these very people don’t have any confidence and trust in you. Your religion means nothing, your law is a farce and we see it everyday. You demonstrated it in Alabama. And I can say “you” because you’re part of the whole system. You profit from it. In fact you make your living from it. … As far as we’re concerned, your Jesus is contaminated, just like everything else you’ve tried to force upon us is contaminated. So you can have him. … I think the problem is so bad that we can have no understanding at all. … You talk about justice and it means something to you, we talk about it and it means something else to us. And it will always be that way.
In 2014, these problems and the truths Mr. Chambers presents here are magnified beyond all reason, and all our good intentions have not made one whit of difference. The power structure is still every bit as racist as it was in 1960 and the impacts are as unjust and destructive as ever.
“What’s truly necessary is for white people to have hard conversations about injustice with other white people, not gratuitous arguments but challenges that count,” Hopper says.
She goes further. She makes sort of a list of her own:
I want to be willing to bear some of the cost of racism, a cost that is so unevenly distributed and that is visible in rates of incarceration, unemployment, hypertension, diabetes, debt, infant mortality, stop and frisk, and death by guns. I want to bear my share of the cost not just in social discomfort but in tedium and tiredness, in my time and my bank account and my body. I love social media and t-shirts with slogans, and I think marches are energizing and photogenic, but I believe the battle is also being fought in the meetings that no one has time to go to: in school board and city elections, in voter registration drives, in budget debates and hiring decisions and referendums on the minimum wage.
This calls us all to task: there are battles on everyone’s doorstep that need to be fought every day. If we are willing, as she says, to live in the struggle, those opportunities will come to us. Then we have a choice: speak up or keep the peace.
http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/damnation/white-people-problems/
Just finished reading Micahel Ondaatje’s 1982 work Running in the Family… what an experience!
Had not heard of it, discovered it by accident while looking for his new book The Cat’s Table, which I’ve been meaning to read for some time, having read about five of his books and loved them… and am just speechless with wonder at the magic he does. This book, which I read over the weekend, has reached into nearly every part of my own heart and opened it up for better or worse, and now I’m feeling washed over. Burned clean. Nothing I can say can approach what this book opens up.
It really catches up the whole great thing of family… all the beauty and pain of it wrapped into one account. And so much more…
It’s also an intense look into the personal aspects of 20th Century colonial life, all the beauty and pain of that! It was like a vast flood that raised several generations of people up in this fantasy of aspirations and accomplishments and then just smashed them down into the rocks of reality. He has this wonderful, probably mostly allegorical, story of his grandmother’s death that depicts that so beautifully.
I found the book – and another couple of his older books I haven’t read – on Abe Books, the independent bookstore site. Highly recommended!
In the Buddha’s teachings there is the notion that anything we observe is best understood by looking beneath the surface, beyond the appearances to see what is usually called “the causes and conditions” for the event or the behavior. Following this advice has always proved very helpful for me both in having compassion for individual actions and in understanding much of the social breakdown and chaos in the world.
The essay “All the Troubled People” gives probably the best short explanation I’ve seen of how that works. Though not from a Buddhist point of view, but rather from a scientific, psychological or behavioral science perspective, this essay reveals the underlying causes for so much of the pain, violence, degradation and suffering in our society.
Tony Biglan, author of the essay, says:
…children are unlikely to develop the ability to regulate their emotions or suppress impulsive reactions if they are constantly stressed. Abuse, neglect, and even criticism can rewire a child’s brain so that they are chronically aroused and unable to calm themselves. Chronic stress makes people have a “hair trigger.” They see threats where others don’t. They are more likely to react with fear or aggression to things that other people don’t find threatening. They do this for understandable evolutionary reasons. In a dangerous world, having your physiology “set” on high alert makes it a little more likely you will survive.
Unfortunately, despite some budding efforts to take a different approach, the dominant way of dealing with behavior we don’t like is to punish it. So very often people who have failed to develop the emotional and self-regulatory skills that they need simply get more stressful punishment from others.
Tony’s blog, “Nurturing Environments” presents the case for this approach in very convincing terms. [Full disclosure: his son Mike is married to my son’s cousin Jenny, which may explain how I found it!] He’s connected to the Oregon Research Institute and published a paper in “American Psychologist” in 2012 “The Critical Role of Nurturing Environments for Promoting Human Well-Being“, which I haven’t read but am working on reading now.
Charles Eisenstein, my recently favorite author, articulates what is essentially, tho not explicitly, a Buddhist approach to the conflicts going on in the world today.
Eisenstein speaks of “interbeing” – a term most prominently used by Thich Nhat Hanh – and the general notion of interconnectedness as understandings that bring us to a new approach to dealing with all the issues that face us. He says:
…people who do evil things are not doing them because they are evil people; that therefore, tactics based on demonizing them are grounded in delusion and may be counterproductive; finally, that such an approach is an expression of the very same mentality of conquest and control that lies at the foundation of our civilization’s depredations.
… Deeply conditioned to view the world in terms of good versus evil, we seek to understand complicated social problems through the simplistic lens of perpetrators and victims. Who is the bad guy? Who can we fight?
He articulates this fully and in a very clear and easily comprehended form in his recent essay “The End of War.”
It challenges me to more fully understand how to bring the Buddhist principles I profess to bear on my own life.
Shunyata's Apprentice 