No Compromise

No Compromise

Recently, in a meeting I had with a wonderful person who leads an equity and social justice team, we had a discussion about a ‘How?” This how was in regards to working within an institution and trying, frankly, to confront and combat the institution. In this case we were explicitly talking about structural racism. The answer that I got stuck with me, it was a bit of gristle, that took a few days of pretty intense contemplation (at least for me, not in a measure of real contemplation). Here is what I came to.

Let me start by saying the woman I was speaking to is a person I greatly admire. She is a wonderful, dedicated, and successful woman. The below is the exact email I sent her.

Thank you for all your help. I wanted to send you an email that was from me that tells you about the thoughts your facilitation brought to me.  It was in particular when you spoke to how we have to serve both the institution and the movement, in essence, at the same time. I could be wrong but I have been chewing on that for days.

Here is what I have been thinking in a different form. I think I can share it with you in this style-I hope it makes sense (I call it literary photography)

“The only way to know truth is to make the Other your Beloved”

And our greats have known this always

“There art Thou, Thee art Thou”

and all that this demands

To oppose the institution is a must

at all levels

not because of the willful act of it

But the unveiling of Truth that Love demands

Any system, any construct,

Demands “this” and a “that”

Love demands no separation

that my confrontation is because

You are my beloved and you will not love

That love can speak

to anyone and everyone

is True

That it speaks in that which

We can hear

Is also True

Thus the work is in honesty

are we speaking from love to power

or from power to love?

I will serve no master but that which

Comes from love

But I will speak to all

For only in Love is there Truth and thus Happiness

Love, like water, goes most obviously where it is not

Love in love, is like water in water

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I sent this after I got a response from her to my dear friend.

I wanted to share you this email I sent to a woman that is a director/lead level person in the City of_______. I wanted to say that you have kept pushing me to stay on point and task, which is so helpful. I know, typically, you are pointing me to 'education' but I know what I did education in the first place. It isn't, necessarily, education but was the most practical place to do what I thought was actual Reality. I am convinced of it now. the strength that it arises in me is that, now, that I have lived a awhile, have done some stuff that can be pointed to to show it works, I believe I can speak to power from this base. I had a long conversation with a group about how even methodologies of communication are biased and they are biased to dominant cultural norms. We can learn and practice these norms, those of us outside of it, but it is not 'natural' in the sense it is the Way we communicate. From a leadership standpoint it behooves the person in that position to be able to address this barrier to communication (which, I am told is the single largest complaint across the board from staff to leadership). It is a moral imperative...those in power have the moral obligation to change...that they do not leads to those out of power to be forced to aggregate into a power and then it usually is nasty because it becomes a struggle for power rather than, usually, the issue.

****************************************************************************************************

But here, let us speak of this more deeply.

When we think about the basic way that we exist in this world, it can be boiled down to a “this” and a “that”. Every Time that we posit a thing, anything, this screen in front of me, this table, it is appearing to do two things at once-it is defining the thing (everything within its border) and, by this, is defining everything that is not-thing (everything outside of the border).

In this Christian tradition this is the actual basis of Sin. The original Sin. When we, I, say this I am not talking about a historical positing, but, frankly I am not, not either-it was happening then too. But the very act of positing the Apple arose, simultaneously, desire/greed, and all the rest. In the Buddhist tradition this is called the 12 dependent links and is commented on extensively.

In a language that you do not hear of often, in systems, this is, at its most truthful conceptual level-the difference between Love and Hate. Some say that they are close together, and, quite frankly, they are if we are to base it symbolically on location. Because, at a conceptual level when I posit a this, there must be a that, like above it is the act of separation of the Thing and No-thing, the No-thing in this case is Hate.

I believe this is the reason why Frankl states that one can only know the Truth of a ‘person’ (I would put here anything that is posited) if they become beloved to us. The truest and deepest expression of Truth is the unfettering of our concepts, unbiased good will, action, service, all of it, toward the Other. The walls of separation have been placed and the issue is that we do not believe they are pragmatic tools of conversation. We believe that they are actual structures. These walls of clouds, illusions. But not to get too flowery, at a very basic level, this is the separation of Truth and Untruth, of Sin and Grace, of Love and Hate, of Awareness and Ignorance. The fall was not years ago but in every single moment we separate. We fall. We lose. We lose because we have given the Grace of the Unity of the Godhead up for the apple.  

This has a very fundamental basis to how we regard systems and how we are to combat those that have gone awry. First we must understand that they will inevitably go awry because they are based upon a false premise. The facade is up because we constantly, perpetually, acknowledge it and feed it with our assent.

yes, yes, yes, yes...” is how I imagine this going. That each moment, by the very nature of Nature, is different, it is dynamically, fundamentally, different by even out conceptual understanding (it no longer satisfies the definition of a moment ago). So it is a obsenity to Truth that we stand for anything other than an emanation of the Truth known as Love but is beyond thus.

This, to perpetuate our assent to a base other than Love, is the offering to Mamon, the truest sense of Idolatry. When we see systems, systems that are racist, etc. and we believe that we can’t do anything about it, is the way that it feels. To actively ignore it, or to revel in it, is the overt expression of Hate, of Separation, of finding revelry in the untruthful and the disunity that is against the fabric of Reality.

I think I must stop here and acknowledge that there is glee in this awfulness. There is. The Glee, I Imagine, that there would be this type in the 3rd of the Angels that fell from heaven. I think it speaks of this in a Mythological way (Myth, big M, is the closest to Truth in the conceptual language-it is not a fictional tale). I have felt it as a cruel child drunk on my physical dominance over insects and worms. Some may think it odd that such cruelties, the extent that I am hesitant to speak of, but did; firecrackers into their homes, burning them, exploding them in a microwave, all still deeply haunt me. The very fact of the seeming ease to enforce my will upon a being, a living being, for no other purpose than I could. Also, that my power did not lead me to anything kind or loving, or even an attempt at it, it was deeply hurtful and cruel and knew it when I practiced it. I can imagine, on a larger scale, this is what one feels when they consciously take on the Untruth as their mantle, as their guise...and yet, I cannot believe it is ever satisfactory. The Human seeks unity, but because it has only known seeking it believes that seeking is the natural state. But they do not know, that by the very nature of being able to seek it proves the premise of the dynamic Peace. One cannot seek if things are permanent, they must be dynamic, dynamism requires a duality that, when examined by the wise-stabilizes the view and arises peace. The dissatisfaction must bring about a horrible activity of mind, a burning, for it would always try to claw to certainty through means that cannot reach it. And even through its own flawed logic it defeats itself and so the reveler must accept their folly, their ignorance, which, for the actual unstained self (as all are) rebels against. A fire of desire, hate, anger, subsumed under a mountain of self imposed ignorance, sitting there like some churning volcano...what deep loneliness, this self imposed exile.

This feeling is the ‘lost’, it is the belittling of the very essence of what we are. The ineffable immeasurable, the unbounded Glory. We cannot ever actually take this away from ourselves, we cannot, it is the direct fundamental nature of reality-this perpetual dynamism and creation, it is not the truth to write it, or say it here, it must be experienced because by trying to impute it we are belittling it.

How much space between two points?

How many fractions do there belong?

Infinity is the only answer that suffices

and Infinity is immovable though conceptual

It is a finger that points to the Eternal

Only when we understand that because of its dynamic creation, like imputation, arises-and know this-does the conceptual become transformed, transcended, and true. What this looks like is a non-guilt, non-ironic-authentic life of responsibility toward this understanding, what it looks like in the case of ESJ is that there is a perpetual energy to get us closer to the Truth, to program off of it, and to eventually be the Truth, without putting it off to some distant future but to act off of the assumption it is going to happen right now, and have the strength to forever toil toward it. But the trick of the matter is not that we do not, “think” about it.

So, in regards to what this wonderful woman told me, if I was to take what is mostly meant by that statement-I would have had to disagree. I will not speak from power to Love, in this sense, I will not use the foundational premise that the institution has made (separation) and color it with language that was meant for Loving Language (Unity). I am in opposition to this mind set from every direction at every level, I will not compromise in my opposition to it...and yet, because of the dynamism of Truth, I can still speak to it in a language that it can understand. Whether it acts upon it or not is the bravery of those who inhabit the belly of the beast. The beast that, in Truth, is themselves, the mirror image that has swallowed itself.

I will not compromise with such evil. I will not. I will not collude with the debasing of existence. I will not side with untruth. You will be my beloved and I will speak to you in words of Love that will resonate with you because it is the Truth.  

The Political Buddha

I was sitting in the backyard of my home. A summer rainstorm had lasted 3 days of which, I believe, could only be experienced by a resident of the northwest. Cold, wet, and a constant drizzle that periodically escalates to a drumming rain. It was a respite between the gray and the rain (that is what we call summer here in the NW, the Respite). There were mini-pine cones littered all over my porch and upon the ridiculous amount of toys my children have; a pool, a slide, some human powered vehicles, and a shield that was laying crest side down and filled with a pine cone rain mixture. I sat in an orange chair and leaned back to watch the racing clouds across the blue expanse. What came to mind, I hate to admit, was a sort of confrontation I had with my neighbor.

When I first arrived in this neighborhood a neighbor of mine found out, how I do not know, that I was Tibetan. Maybe he had seen my handicapped father wheelchairing around the block and deciphered it from phrenology of something.  But he did find out. He approached me and said,

“I am a zen Buddhist. Buddhism is the thinking man’s religion.” I nodded my head,

“Yes, it does take thought.” and I thought that might be it. It was, for that time, but then, a few weeks later, he accused me of being, possibly, homophobic because I asked my neighbors, who unbeknownst to me were homosexual, were participating in a loud gathering late into the night on a thursday. Well, late is relative, it was 11pm. It was Thursday however. Their affinity for early Michael Jackson was not to be abhorred but their affection for having their bass up to an obnoxious level that should have been satiated in our early twenties-was to be abhorred. I walked over to their home, knocked on the door in my pajamas, and requested, in what, I know, could be understood as a surly vein, for them to turn it down.

I found out later that they had spoken to the neighbors, this man specifically, and told them that they were offended that that was our first interaction. I wanted to say that I would have liked that not to be our second interaction (which was awkward) as our first (I found offensive), through a proxy, the aforementioned Michael Jackson. I didn’t say this. I just became furious when the Other Neighbor asked,

“Is it because they are gay?”

Now, I will leave this illustration here with this-I spoke to the couple, of whom I was not aware of being gay, that I wanted to have a better relationship with them. That I was tired because I woke up at 5 to take care of my dad, worked all day, came home and watched children, took care of my dad, tried to practice my religion, then, if possible, eat somewhere in there, defecate, maybe, and then sleep. Thats my day. I was tired.

After I was asked if I was homophobic or just a dick, by this man, he went into a long diatribe on how he is the lone liberal (meaning politically) in the neighborhood and that he felt was wrongly shifted to the right (meaning politically-not literally, which would be weird). He proudly displayed his Obama 12 bumper sticker, the blue B bumper sticker to show his solidarity with a group of people. He even revealed that his daughter was gay and that the neighbor, who once was directly opposed to all things gay, turned out to have a gay daughter. He said, “then he changed his way, funny how that happens.”

I have reread the above and I think it comes across as glib, in parts, but I think that, that was on purpose. The glibness of politics on the larger scale, at least now, is prevalent and perhaps all pervasive. I wanted to lay the ground in order to juxtapose it with the idea of religion and politics. For, this started out with this Zen practitioner, as a meeting of (at least from his side, I think) of similar faithed people. But where we differed, I think, is that he thought of it as a team, of a us and them, and that the ‘thinking’ folks or at least ‘men’. It has become this way with the many different paths. It is the enlightened against the unenlightened in some mighty grudge match.

I have seen this, in its most blatant form, in the monotheistic religions but I believe it is prevalent in all of them. It is very prevalent in the American form of them. The dark glee that I see when Hell is discussed and the oceans of eternally tormented souls is disturbing, what makes me even more disturbed is the flaccid compassion that is shown on their faces. Oh, wouldn’t it be great if they had converted-so the statement goes. This flaccid compassion though, is not inert, it is a raging impotence where they rise inquisitions and crusades, if, in most, only in their hopeful hearts of revelations.

But what makes the Buddha’s way different? Is not every human system subject to the eventual intertwining of the mundane and the supramundane? We see this pathway that the Catholic church took and wonder if it is not an inevitability of any organization? That it would rear its head in the form of Zen in America is a foregone conclusion, right?

Perhaps.

When we look at the Buddha’s methodology to this we see a very shrewd maneuvering. I use this term, shrewd, purely as my interpretation of it. I do not believe the Buddha was trying to be as an ends, political, and that his means were for the Enlightenment of beings, but also he taught beings within a system. This system, like most systems, is filled with inertia toward change because, like humans, systems want to survive and meet resistance with resistance. What made the Buddha’s methodology so successful in his time is the development of the Sangha.

All mundane systems, governing so to say, in the material realm use a form of material exchange as a scorecard. This exchange can be, in various levels, considered also the amount of power a particular individual or system within the system has. For example, the ear of the president, in our system, is, frankly, paid for. This does not mean that he is taking bribes etc. but that by the very nature of proximity to him it requires wealth. As a human being we are most influenced, usually, by those peoples thoughts nearest and longest to us. Thus wealth even if by proxy, has the bulk of power.

However, this also makes the system, the more it becomes this way, more vulnerable. We see this with technological gains, where there is an increase in efficiency there is a loss in self agency. If we use the idea of technological efficiencies gained through a global conveyor belt system like Dell does in order to reduce inventory we see, in real world examples, its dangers. A typhoon in Taiwan brought the entire process to a standstill for weeks because a critical part of the computer was shorebound with ships. Dell could not ship anything for weeks. We see this, with even a technology that we may not think of as a technology, food production. We are further and further from our food. We can get strawberries in October but, a few years ago, when flood waters covered I-5 we weren’t able to get any new produce/even local, for a week. It is this vulnerability that the Buddha exploited with his Sangha and, by exploiting it, was able to influence the politics of the time without a violent confrontation or purge.

The monks vows are rooted, or could be said to be rooted, in renunciation.

"Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking & pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with renunciation, abandoning thinking imbued with sensuality, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with renunciation. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with non-ill will, abandoning thinking imbued with ill will, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with non-ill will. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with harmlessness, abandoning thinking imbued with harmfulness, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with harmlessness."[3]

In this we can understand that, to put it coarsely, the monk or nun wants nothing of the mundane world. He or she lives within the world and has worldly needs, lets say food, but the worldly drive is not theirs. They renounce this drive for a higher drive and in this renunciation are able to remove their threat to the mundane systems. This is exemplified in the Buddha’s time and in some Pali tradition communities, act of begging for your food. The Buddha lived under ‘rocks’ and ledges, in the forest, and saw that this was the best way to be, without attachments. He told his followers that this was the best way because of its discordance with the world and its ability to be able to accord with the drive toward the mind of enlightenment. This higher drive, so to say, is not impeded by the drive of the world which, the Buddhist believes, leads to a cyclical and bounded existence .

By being in ‘poverty’ and not threatening the powers that be, they were able to subvert the systems desire to confront similar drives. They were able to live together as separate systems because their drive was different. By this, the Sangha was able to become a leveraged resource for advice by the kings and princes.

I see the difficulty of the other path to this. To subsume a transcendent drive within the systemic drive. I don’t believe they would put it this way but I believe it is an arguable position. For example, Reinhold Neibur, a christian philosopher who, apparently, is greatly admired by our current president, is a very good illustration of this.

Neibur’s christian pragmatism in what I have read is boiled down to the drive to love and the drive to justice. He believes that they are not compatible within the world. The Drive to Love is the love of Christ, or the blood of Christ, that is infinitely forgiving and the drive to Justice is the prohibitive consequence to an action against the ‘norms’ of a society. He hopes, in his writing, the the individual transcendent drive to Love imbues the drive to justice with the proper lens but he does separate the two. He believes it is the duty of the Christian to do both; one on the individual transcendent level and the other in the political sphere.

While this, on my first reading, did not seem to be too far from a belief of mine I had to after reflecting on some of the bases of Buddhist thought found it to be in error. The Buddha calls for a renunciation of these drives, or at least the call to justice. He finds that this, for those that are are ready, a pathway to inequity. A systemic approach to the transcendent, to intertwine them, in a calling for the faithful is arising a knotty issue. For, as the Buddha says, with the arising of ‘this’ comes ‘that’ in the teaching on Karma. Karma is meant to be gotten over and not continued. At the lower levels it must be cultivated in order to gain the proper foothold of fortunate birth to be able to attempt and accomplish the pathway to cessation. Cessation is not possible with the imputation of ‘that’ in either mind or action for it will always produce further-like a pillow that is punched.

What makes this even more impractical is that those within a system, a temporal order, in our nation a quasi secular governance, is then in direct confrontation with this newer power, especially if it states a paradigm that is in opposition to its own goals. In our nation it has, to this point, only been in specific areas and to, frankly, to a large degree, this is because of the lack of diversity of faith within the governance and to a large degree the people of the nation. But what happens with this type of governance to a nation that was as religiously diverse as India at the time of the Buddha? Temporal government then would come into direct confrontation with the religious order if it was to take upon itself worldly issues. The Buddha’s methodology dismantled this confrontation at its base of existence which was material gain.

I write this to keep this part in my mind. I may not dabble in the politics of the age and mix them as so many have. Politics are, in my definition, the middling ground of practical governance; as food is to the body. A necessity and sometimes a pleasant necessity and other not so much. However, the drive of my life is not to be seen through the lens of this necessity. It is a means to the purpose of life-transcendence-as is this body, a body like a boat, to take me to the farthest shore. I must take care of the body but I must not mistake the body for the distant shore-for if I do, then I will not steer, I will not guide, etc. I will have thought I arrived. And the deep, dissatisfaction with that imputation will not have any reference to alleviate it and therefore I will only have the tools at hand to work with. I will mistake the tools as ends and delve deeper and deeper into the error, more complex, dependently constructed, and yet, wholly illusory.

I see why the Buddha told us to renounce. Transcendence and its drive should not be advertised by mundane means and this includes a bumper sticker.

Be well
G