Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 18

Something’s been simmering under the surface and has finally popped out. An emergent, imperfect offering. A confession of sorts, and a resolve.

In my imagination I’ve been slowly letting go of all the little comforts of this middle-class life. It’s likely that as time goes by in this strange new world, more and more of these things will no longer be available. It could even be that eventually I lose what I rely on most for safety, health and happiness. Work, food, shelter, an inhabitable environment. I may even lose people I love.

I know how privileged I am and how much I’ve taken that for granted. My privilege has been laid bare alongside the deep flaws in our capitalist system. I wonder how much I am willing to give up in order to allow another, more equitable world to emerge.

In childhood my privilege slowly dawned on me over the space of a few years, ending in an adolescent crisis of faith. It started when I was nine. We took a trip to visit family in Chile. I’ll never forget the first time I saw the shantytowns and witnessed children begging on the streets of Santiago.

No matter how many questions I asked or how hard I tried to communicate my dismay, the answers of the adults just did not satisfy. How could they let this go on? Where was the outrage and the demand for justice?

After that I started to ask questions about Thanksgiving, then the Fourth of July. These holidays that idealized the birth of a nation, but at the expense of what and who? Although I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it then, something in me sensed there was more to the story then what I’d been taught in school.

In my adolescence I became deeply aware that my privilege relied on the oppression of others. It was clear that economic disparity was not random nor unrelated to other societal ills like racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, xenophobia, etc.

It was deeply uncomfortable to see all the ways in which I had benefited from an unjust and unequal system. I became frustrated at what felt like an impossible situation – how to live with this truth. I decided I couldn’t undo the past, but I could try to live into a more just future.

I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know about slavery or the holocaust. At some point I became obsessed with both of these human atrocities. How could free people live with themselves knowing others, living so close, were not free? How could people let their neighbors be rounded up, imprisoned and eventually murdered on masse?  

How could white people have allowed slavery to go on for so long, centuries, a whole country built on the backs of Black people? Thinking about the immeasurable suffering, generation after generation overwhelmed me. Unnecessary suffering caused by the ignorance, greed and hatred of others.

As a young woman full of rage I was an inconvenience to others and often ineffective in my attempts to raise the alarm, be the change, save the world.

Then I discovered the dharma, started practicing, started teaching. I told myself this is the way to end suffering. Now I’ll do this.

So I decided to walk the path of non-violence. I turned inward, because I saw clearly that to meet the suffering in the world, first I had to be willing to meet my own.

I now fear that in doing so I also gave up the courage of my convictions.

We are all so deeply weaved into the system that is now collapsing before our very eyes. How we respond and what we do next is crucial. Daily, I’m asking myself what I’m ready to give up in order for a new world to be born.

Meanwhile I continue to grieve. And every time I try to imagine a different future I get overwhelmed and my mind goes blank. It’s so much easier to imagine things going back to “normal”, even though for years I raged against the norm while simultaneously benefiting from it.

I used to swear I would never give in to middle-aged complacency. But looking at my life now I realise that as middle-age approaches, I have slowly and in mostly undetectable ways submitted to the way things are, as imperfect and unsatisfying and unjust as they are.

Passive resignation snuck up on me when I was busy doing other things, like trying to teach the dharma.

I’ve been thinking a lot about non-violence. What it means to live a truly non-violent life. What it means to be a safe person to be around.

For years I’ve worked hard on being less harsh, less critical, less angry, less aggressive, less dominating, less fearful, less scary, less defended. I’ve done my best to be more forgiving, more loving, more accepting, more empathic, more open, more soft, more compassionate, more free.

Yet often, I am painfully aware of how I continue to act from places steeped in an ideology of dominance, pride, aggression, self-centeredness, fear, apathy. These forces seep out, unconsciously, causing me and others suffering.

I want to live from a place of non-violence, not just as a principle, but as moment by moment embodied experience and expression, rooted in awareness and love. In moments of grace, non-violence is somatic in its softness, grounded in its permissiveness, spacious in its acceptance. It is also powerful in its purpose, energetically equanimous, and fiercely compassionate.

In order to keep living into this embodiment, I know I need to delve deeper still, but not while leaving the world behind. I know there is more of my story, my conditioning and how I show up in the world that requires close examination. I know I must meet these parts of myself with great love and forgiveness.

The world hates an angry woman and will do everything it can to silence her. So what I’m also learning to do is turn the energy of that anger into my very own superpower. I’m learning how feel and communicate my anger, without becoming an angry person, share my frustrations without being frustrated, and support the manifestation of justice from a place of clarity and strength.

Now a window of opportunity opens. It invites me to look out and beyond my still too narrow, self-centered existence. Now I am called to investigate myself, my life, the conditions that have led me here, the very fabric of this life intimately weaved into this imperfect world.

Now I am called to carefully pull at the threads, letting the whole thing unravel and begin to weave my way into a different story of us.