How the Spiritual Path Supports Showing Up as an Activist
Before diving into the Dharma talk, I’d like to begin with a little more on my identity location from which I’ll be speaking tonight. Thank you to other teachers for setting this precedent in recent Dharma talks, as it feels important to acknowledge how identity location defines views and perspectives. So as I said, my name is Emily, I use she/her or they/them pronouns, I identify as a white, queer, privileged, educated but low-income Buddhist trauma survivor. These are the identity locations from which I will speak tonight.
So, “How the Spiritual Path Supports Showing Up as an Activist”. As I was preparing to offer this talk, I knew I needed to speak about the intersection of spirituality and activism. Our country is in the midst of what is hopefully a mass transformation, a reckoning with race, the next round of civil rights activism, the Movement for Black Lives.
Since the brutal murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer, our nation has erupted in uprisings. Many major cities have had protests, actions, and marches every night since the murder on May 25th, nearly 2 months ago. Activist groups have been organizing around demands for justice for the countless black folks who have been murdered by US police officers, many of whom have never been charged for their crimes. We’ve been demanding legislation that promotes accountability and prioritizes defunding the police, in other words re-allocating a portion of police funds to other resources like mental health and social work services, or on the more radical end of things, abolishing the police altogether and re-allocating all of their funds.
“Of course racism is not new to this country and this work is disgustingly long overdue. And at the same time, it is important to tune into when energetic shifts are happening and ESPECIALLY calling on everyone to show up and join in the fight for justice. And now is one of those times.”
Basically, to the greatest extent that I’ve experienced in my life, folks, specifically white folx, are being called to action. To show up to these protests, to write and call congress people, to organize around voting, to donate to POC-led organizations, to educate oneself, to join Racial Affinity Groups, sign petitions, support POC-owned businesses, occupy police departments or governors’ mansions and demand anti-racist legislation. We are being called to show up every day to fight racism.
Of course racism is not new to this country and this work is disgustingly long overdue. And at the same time, it is important to tune into when energetic shifts are happening and ESPECIALLY calling on everyone to show up and join in the fight for justice. And now is one of those times. The power behind the current movement is STRONG - minds are being changed, legislation is being changed (to some extent), and we’ve been able to sustain actions in the streets and coverage by the media for weeks.
So as I’ve been sitting with the current call to action, I’ve asked myself the question how can this need to show up be examined from and supported by a spiritual lens? Why do Buddhists, one of my identity locations and many of my communities, specifically need to show up and ENGAGE right now? And to take it a step further, how could I actually utilize aspects of the spiritual path TO show up and engage, effectively braiding together my spiritual practice and activist work as a single path to collective liberation? I landed on 5 unique gold nuggets or sort of mini-teachings that have been coming through. I’ll get to those shortly. But first, the initial question - Why is all this necessary? Why do we need to show up?
Radical Dharma, by Rev. angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah offers immense insight on this question.
Rev. angel Kyodo Williams writes:
“Much of what is being taught [in Western Dharma communities] is the acceptance of a ‘kinder, gentler suffering’ that does not question the unwholesome roots of systemic suffering and the structures that hold it in place. What is required is a new Dharma, a radical Dharma that deconstructs rather than amplifies the systems of suffering...one that insists we investigate not only the unsatisfactoriness of our own minds but also prepares us for the discomfort of confronting the obscurations of the society we are individual expressions of....Will we express the promise of and commitment to liberation for ALL BEINGS, or will we instead continue a hyper-individualized salvation model - the myth of meritocracy - that is the foundation of this country’s untruth?”
What I get from this passage is that I cannot only look inward to find liberation. Taking care of just myself and my own spiritual practice, with no outer work to dismantle the systems of oppression all around me, is choosing delusion over the truth of how these systems perpetuate violence, thus making me complicit in that violence.
And that realization - that my silence is violence - actually led me to an observation about many Buddhist communities I’ve experienced and received conditioning from. I seek to communicate this observation in a way that I hope calls folks in - into the fight for justice - rather than calling folks out in a way that shames people. I pray it is received that way. What I’ve observed is a subtle association between passivity and wisdom. And what do I mean by passivity? I mean often staying quiet, observing, refraining from anything that might be unskillful; analyzing every move and only choosing to take action or speak when one feels 100% sure that the action or speech can be totally skillful and not cause any harm. Maybe this sounds familiar to some folks?
“Conditioning that encourages silence as the default, even under the guise of contemplation, runs the risk of upholding power structures and systems of harm.”
I think on the surface this seems like a good thing, right? I mean we all want to be thoughtful or mindful of our actions and speech. We all want to minimize harm. And we don’t want to potentiate negative karma. So yeah, I do see this as having some truth, some of the time.
But I’ve also realized that this association is dangerous. Firstly it is a form of obedience training that is intrinsic to white supremacy culture. Conditioning that encourages silence as the default, even under the guise of contemplation, runs the risk of upholding power structures and systems of harm. It discourages the empowerment of individuals, specifically folks belonging to non-dominant groups such as POC and people conditioned as female in our culture, to speak up and enact change that might challenge the status quo. Because with this association - that passivity or quietness indicates wisdom - also comes its opposite. That speaking up or taking action that appears radical or even reckless on the surface, is ignorant, undesirable, and not well-thought-out. An indicator of immaturity at best, and violent tendencies at worst. This trend keeps those who have power, in power, and that’s usually white men, and white people in general.
Howard Zinn, author of A Peoples’ History of the United States said in an address at Johns Hopkins in 1970:
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience…. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
I hope that this talk can contribute to dismantling this association of passivity with wisdom and empower more folx to speak and act on what is arising for them, even if it shakes things up a bit. Actually especially if it shakes things up.
One last thought on this association specifically in Buddhist communities: As I previously mentioned, I think this trend is often accompanied by good intentions, but perhaps with a root of fear. So, a desire to practice skillful speech and skillful actions, or perhaps fear of unskillful speech and unskillful actions. A desire to minimize harm, or fear of potentiating harm. Is it possible that these seemingly wholesome intentions are actually self-oriented fears around being perceived as unskillful or harmful?
“We are trapped in the cycle of suffering, of Dukkha. We are going to cause harm one way or another until we awaken. We might as well do so while attempting and learning how to better dismantle systems of oppression“
Well unfortunately for our fears, it’s become clear at this historic moment in America, that doing nothing, as in doing nothing to dismantle oppression, actually potentiates more harm, by setting a precedent of passivity that enables systems of oppression and violence to continue.
And hey, a little Buddhist reminder, we’re in Samsara. It is defined by our inability to not cause and experience harm! Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes, “The fundamental reason for our suffering is that we are in samsara, and we are in samsara because we continually create the deluded, self-centered actions that perpetuate the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth. Samsara is the experience of a self-centered mind...By causing us to see life as a constant struggle to serve and protect our own I, these two minds [self-cherishing and self-grasping] impel us to perform innumerably destructive actions that keep us imprisoned in the nightmare of samsara. Until we destroy these two minds we will never know true freedom or happiness...” (not a fan of the word ‘destroy’ but you get the idea)
“And let’s not lose track of the larger goal - we need this, we need to do this, so that everyone, EVERY being, has equal access to the resources needed to practice towards freedom in the ultimate reality - Enlightenment.“
We are trapped in the cycle of suffering, of Dukkha. We are going to cause harm one way or another until we awaken. We might as well do so while attempting and learning how to better dismantle systems of oppression and fight for justice and freedom for people here in our relative reality, as Ruth King would say. And let’s not lose track of the larger goal - we need this, we need to do this, so that everyone, EVERY being, has equal access to the resources needed to practice towards freedom in the ultimate reality - Enlightenment. Or awakening, or heaven, or fusion with God or Goddess, or self-actualization, or any other divine sense of Attainment and Freedom.
As I’m sure many of you have heard from Australian Aboriginal Elder Lilla Watson:
“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
I’m now going to briefly run through the 5 teachings on the path that I am finding supportive, even integral, to my ability to show up as an activist fighting racism right now.
Humility
The first is humility. The dictionary defines it as “freedom from pride or arrogance; the quality or state of being humble.” I think of humility as recognizing that I don’t have the answers, and that some questions actually won’t have answers at all. In Mindful of Race Ruth King says with regards to working with race, “It’s messy because there are no clear answers that are lasting or satisfying. We discover through mindfulness practice that some questions are not meant to be answered but rather to apprentice us- they teach us to know the question more intimately, instead of driving us toward resolution...we ripen our capacity to humbly experience the nature of complexity, chaos, and uncertainty…”
In the times when I’ve showed up thinking I already know everything or I’m actually here to grace others with my wisdom and expertise, not only is it not appreciated by others, but also I learn nothing. From a place of humility I’ve found that I am more ready to listen and grow, similar to the concept of Shoshin or Beginner’s Mind in Zen Buddhism - being open and eager to learn. So in this case, learning from BIPOC and oppressed people for how they need me to show up, and learning from the Divine or Buddhanature to discern the best course of action or practice, or as Ruth King says, to know the question and the chaos more intimately.
2. Choosing to be action-oriented and make mistakes
The second teaching that’s been coming through is choosing to be action-oriented and make mistakes; I think it can also be considered letting go of perfectionism, a value of white supremacy culture. This to me is the other side of the same coin that is decoupling passivity from wisdom. In Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly she quotes and expands upon a speech by Theodore Roosevelt; I’ve adjusted the quote here to use female pronouns:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the woman who points out how the strong woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst if she fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”
When we choose to act and speak out in new ways, we will obviously be unskillful in the beginning and make mistakes. This teaching to me is about making a conscious decision to be action-oriented anyway, to show up in that arena rather than observe from the sidelines. And knowing that it’s going to get tense, it’s going to get messy, and I’m going to mess up. A lot.
Another quote from Ruth King in Mindful Race:
“It’s messy because as much as we try, we won’t be mindful all the time. We will make mistakes, and we will cause harm and be harmed. It is a delusion to believe that our hearts won’t be broken again and again in this awakening practice and that we won’t find ourselves often in the throes of fear, righteousness, and ill will. But we can slow down, tune in, and acknowledge these contractions, forgive ourselves, and when centered, if appropriate, apologize and forgive others.”
As I’ve been trying to show up recently, I’ve made some huge mistakes. I’ve let delusions commandeer attempts at calling out injustice, I’ve caused harm to others. And that hurts; it doesn’t feel good; shame accompanies it, feeling not good enough, like a failure, and like not a good ally. In those times all I can do is own it, apologize if appropriate, trust that I had good intentions, and most importantly know that each of these times is a deep learning opportunity, so the next time I can do better. I also recall that, I may have caused some small ripples of harm, and those ripples matter and should be minimized, AND they are also the means for learning how to dismantle much much larger ripples of harm - systems of oppression. Theoretical or intellectual engagement alone won’t work. We cannot learn how to dismantle racism and systems of oppression without actually practicing doing it.
3. Tuning into how “resourced” I am
The third teaching is perhaps less directly related to Buddhism but nonetheless feels extremely spiritually relevant to me; it is one of self-care. It is tuning into how “resourced” I am at any given moment. “Resourced” here means exactly how it sounds: having access to firstly all the basic necessities - food, shelter, safety, economic security - and then also the needs that are higher up on the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs - supportive relationships, emotional security, community, a sense of belonging and meaning or purpose, as well as self-worth, strength and motivation. So for me, checking in on how resourced I am has become absolutely essential to gauge appropriate action for showing up at any given time. Because racism isn’t going to be resolved during this one movement - this is clearly generations’ worth of work ahead. So it’s important that I find a way of working and practicing that is sustainable. And that means tuning into my needs and resources.
I’ll also just mention that for me recently this has also included consciously regulating my nervous system. This means tuning into when there is tension or stress building up in my body and practicing self-soothing such as movement, sound, and touch to help deactivate or calm my system. As a trauma survivor there’s a lot of pain held in my body still and keeping my nervous system regulated and within a window of tolerance is important for my own personal safety. Especially when moving into high-energy spaces like protests and actions involving civil disobedience.
4. Non-identification: Letting go of attachment to my views and ego
The fourth teaching coming through is letting go of attachment to my views and ego. This might also be thought of as non-identification. I’ve observed that my ego gets defensive when I try to do things differently than I’ve done before. Because it feels like commentary and critique on how I’ve done things before. This aspect of ego tends to pop up for me every time I am practicing initiating changes to my M.O. Similarly my attachment to view throws a tantrum whenever I hear something that simultaneously resonates as truth AND challenges beliefs I currently hold. So this teaching is about practicing just letting go. Observing those tantrums, that clinging, and seeing if I can just take a little step back, just back up a bit and observe what’s happening without being IN it.
5. Playing with Guilt
Finally the fifth spiritual teaching for showing up as an activist right now is mostly geared to white folx; it is practicing playing with guilt. In a way I think this is not different from general Vipassana towards the experience of guilt - seeing clearly and being with what arises exactly as it is. But I like this concept of “play” specifically, especially working with racism which is a deep, brutal, tense wound in our nation and collective consciousness. “Play” is what we did as kids - it is regulating, it is light, it turns challenging obstacles into OBSTACLE COURSES - a game.
As we white folx are doing this work trying to show up, it is pretty likely that guilt is going to arise. We may realize we’ve been contributing to cycles of harm, or not doing enough, or simply feel the weight of our ancestors’ violence. In Mindful of Race Ruth King recommends we use the R.A.I.N. approach to manage guilt and other forms of racial distress. This means to recognize what is arising, allow it to be there, investigate where in the body it is living, and nurture oneself through it. I also challenge you to hop around in those RAINy puddles. Play with it! What are you feeling guilty about? What information is this emotion uncovering? What is it trying to share with me? What is the message, or what is asking of me? IT may be directing me to a way I can step up, NOW, now that I see importance. Regardless of what I did in the past.
And recall, that end of the day, guilt is actually just another form of self-cherishing or ego-grasping. Not to say we should feel guilt about our guilt, but for me I sometimes find it to be a helpful reminder when guilt arises that oh! This is once again, my ego arising in a different outfit, the guilt outfit, and if I get lost in the feeling rather than uncover its message by playing with it from a place of curiosity, I’ll be stuck wrapped around MYSELF again, rather than showing up in the outer world, which is what we need to do.
So a quick summary: It is an important time for anti-racist work, and every single person is needed right now. I feel that an integral part of this shift in Buddhist communities is the uncoupling of passivity with wisdom. In my personal efforts to practice this, the 5 teachings that have been coming through as supports are 1. Humility, 2. Choosing to be action-oriented and make mistakes, 3. Tuning into how resourced I am, 4. Non-identification or letting go of attachment to my views and ego, and 5. Playing with guilt.