Human revolution is a revolution in our actions and behavior. Human revolution means to purposefully engage in behavior that is grounded in compassion, in actions that break free from the cycle of the six paths and bring us to the worlds of Bodhisattva and Buddhahood. – Daisaku Ikeda

One of the core tenets of Buddhism is that our practice can emancipate us from delusion and guide us toward acting wisely and bravely to positively transform ourselves and our world. Indeed, the actualization of our enlightenment lies in this effort, this human revolution. 

The history and residuals of the enslavement of African heritage people throughout the Americas and globally have left us with a legacy of delusions: delusions about our interdependence; delusions of white supremacy (which we have all internalized); delusions about the value of Black lives; and delusions about our own power to emancipate ourselves and our world from these delusions. 

In my Juneteenth talk on Dharma & Emancipation, I offer practices you can engage with before, during, and after Juneteenth to release the delusions of white supremacy that linger in your mind and life. I invite you to consider how Black liberation relates to your personal sense of freedom. 

In this article, I offer a framework to launch your exploration in hopes that it helps you to use the celebration of Juneteenth as an opportunity to advance your own emancipation, specifically attending to how it is inextricably bound with the emancipation of Black people. 

First, let me say what Juneteenth really is. It is a celebration launched by Black Americans to acknowledge our liberation and the culmination of our ancestors’ (and their allies’) centuries-long determination that we would not live in bondage forever. 

Black people ended the enslavement of Black people. They did so through countless acts of daily resistance, from putting herbs in enslavers’ food to make them too tired to rape or beat us, to the millions of heroic escape efforts we will never know of. One of the delusions of white supremacy is that white people ended slavery: that Abraham Lincoln was swayed by white abolitionists and together they freed the helpless Black people. This is absurd, because abolitionists themselves were guided and inspired by the works of Black people to end slavery: from Nat Turner’s resistance, we see the root of John Brown’s rebellion. Frederick Douglass’s eloquent rage moved and continues to move countless minds and hearts beyond the delusion that Black subjugation is anything other than brutal cowardice. Sojourner Truth led the way for all women to see their power and preceded the suffragist movement in America—even though Black women did not have the right to vote or any other rights until almost half a century after white women won that right. For context, my mother and grandmother never had these rights until the year of my birth—1965—and even then, trying to exercise their rights was often life-threatening because of white supremacist terrorism in the form of the Klan and violent police and government interference.  

I invite you to notice that Black leaders who resisted and ended enslavement are as much your personal liberators, whether or not you are Black, as they are liberators of their Black descendants. As Time reporter Janell Ross, herself a descendant of a child freed on Juneteenth, points out:

If you ask Black people born and raised on the island, Juneteenth marks the day Black soldiers in blue uniforms came with their guns to Galveston. That is the story they have told for generations, about the moment some of their ancestors knew freedom had finally arrived in Texas, the westernmost Confederate breakaway state. That’s the truth as it’s widely understood by Black people in Galveston, even if the common story of that day often focuses on a single white man: General Gordon Granger, who led Union troops to the harbor there on June 17, 1865. Two days later, records in the National Archives tell us, he issued what’s known as General Order No. 3.

Granger had no evident commitment to Black people being liberated from slavery himself, and there is no record of his ever having spoken of his role in the emancipation of the 250,000 people who were still enslaved in Texas. However, we do know that approximately 200,000 Black men worked to end slavery as soldiers in the Union Army despite deplorable treatment. This effort is but one of the many ways Black people emancipated the nation from the psychopathy of chattel slavery. 

Let’s try a practice together. I invite you to close your eyes for a moment and cast your mind to envision what the world would look like now if Black people had not resisted and ceaselessly worked to end slavery. 

What would your mind perceive as you walk past auction blocks and whipping posts? How would you explain your acceptance of these circumstances to yourself? To your children?

What would it make you feel? 

How would you act on what you thought and felt?

What can you notice in your life and community that reflects the modern-day oppression of Black people? 

What are you called to do about the oppression of Black people that you notice?

Whatever envisioning the present-day oppression of Black people moves you to feel and do now is an indication of what you might have felt and done in the historical past. Rather than wallowing in apathy, shame, or guilt, you can use your practice to consider what you can do now to move out of delusions of powerlessness and create a more just, enlightened world. When you hear of murderous policing of Black people and learn that capture and subjugation of Black people via “slave patrols” is precisely the origin of modern-day policing; when you notice that Black people are disproportionately imprisoned and on death row; or that Black children are regularly attacked, beaten, or even shot by white people of all ages, what does your most enlightened mind prompt you to do? 

Reflecting on these facts of our contemporary existence allows you to consider the quality of your own emancipation from delusions of impotence or separation from these realities. Black people have been saying for centuries that white supremacists’ violence is our greatest domestic threat. Indeed, even institutions that have been complicit with white supremacy such as the FBI (which, for example, extensively targeted Dr. Martin Luther King) and the Department of Homeland Security (which has issued statements acknowledging its racism) have long recognized this. However, even after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, many still believe that white supremacy threatens only Black people. This reflects a fundamental delusion about our interdependence—a delusion we can free ourselves from through our practice. 

By considering our privilege, we gain the self-awareness and capacity to use that privilege to improve our inner life and the world around us. Juneteenth provides an opportunity for Black people, for Native Americans, for immigrants from all regions of the world, and, of course, for white racialized people to consider: 

How am I personally privileged by residuals of enslavement that codified white supremacy? 

Am I benefiting from white or light skin, which was valued more by enslavers? 

Am I benefiting from economic privilege built on the tortuous enslavement of Black people? 

Am I benefiting from a sense of being safe from attack by those who devalue Black life? 

How do I benefit from historical and contemporary Black resistance? 

Black resistance, of course, created a paradigm for the women’s movement, LGBTQ movement, disability rights movement, immigrant rights, and countless other human and civil rights movements domestically and internationally. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 outlawed racial quotas in the United States immigration system, and that was inspired by the African American civil rights movement. Contemplating our relationship to Black liberation is a practical way to deepen our sense of connection and freedom. 

Consider these queries to further your contemplation. 

What Black resistance leaders am I actively learning from and supporting toward our collective liberation?

What aspects of my interdependence are alive in allyship that is enacted—and not just thought about?

What are my next steps in this?

Contemplating these questions allows you to practice with Juneteenth to emancipate yourself and honor the Black people who have previously—and continue to—emancipate you and the world around you.

When my mother, Lailah Majied, introduced me to Buddhism, she clarified for me that enlightenment—the purpose of Buddhist practice—meant manifesting my inner resolve for freedom, wisdom, and the courage to nurture those qualities in everyone and everything around me. Her prayer was that I would do my human revolution and overcome fear, grief, and delusion to ceaselessly emancipate myself and others. On Juneteenth, I offer you her benediction, which in fact reflects the benediction from all of our Black ancestors. May you be free. May you awaken to and act on your resolve to see all beings be free. 

⧫

Watch a conversation with Dr. Kamilah Majied on “Dharma & Emancipation: Reflections on Juneteenth” here.

The post Buddhism and Our Ongoing Emancipation appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

On Court Street in Brooklyn, underneath the scaffolding of my psychotherapy office, a homeless man waits most days under the awning with a bruised paper coffee cup, asking for money. Everyone ignores him, myself included. It is easy to see why. The rancid odor of urine emanates everywhere. His lined face scowls as he shakes his cup. He says nothing but stares at all who pass. 

I have consciously avoided him, making little eye contact with him, and with good reason: I am an Asian American living in New York City where hate crimes are spiking. Many of the attacks have been carried out by either homeless or mentally ill people. When the hate crimes began to rise, I became increasingly anxious, so I began taking precautions. For the first time ever, I considered carrying pepper spray. I started to cross the sidewalk whenever I saw a homeless person who seemed dangerous. I found safety in wearing a mask and sunglasses–the anonymity was my armor. No one could see me, so no one would want to hurt me. 

But living with this protective, anxious armor began to take a toll. Fight or flight became my only way of viewing the world, perceiving experience as threatening and unwelcoming. 

Last month at lunchtime, I ran into the homeless man in front of my office again. Something about him called to me. Perhaps it was guilt or shame for turning away from suffering. Perhaps it was because I see him often, and his face is stuck in my memory. Perhaps, like the Buddha on his first trip outside of his palace, the man’s mien reminded me of what awaits us all: old age, sickness, and death. 

This man’s fragility was a reminder of my Buddhist practice, particularly the notion of bodhicitta. I’ve heard bodhicitta translated many ways, including as “awakened mind,” but I’ve always liked the translation, “open heart.” For me, this means being in touch with the most tender, scared, and vulnerable part of ourselves—the part that feels like an open wound, the part that wants to love and be loved without judgment. I realized then that my heart had hardened because of fear—that I had shut out the suffering of the world, including that of this man, and that by shutting out suffering, I had shut out my open heart. 

This is not to say that I need to stop in front of every homeless person, give them money and food, and speak to them for 30 minutes about their mental and physical health, directing them to resources they might need. It does mean, however, that I shouldn’t shut down from others who are suffering, especially the homeless and mentally ill. It means an opportunity to open my heart further in the face of my fear. It means a chance to challenge the illusion of “myself” and “others,” to remember the interconnectedness of all sentient beings. For me, it means practicing one of my favorite meditations: tonglen. When I see suffering, when I see the homeless man outside my office, I breathe in all his suffering, including all the karmic bonds that have brought him to this place. Then, I breathe out with a bodhicitta mind, breathing out feelings of compassion and love toward him. With this practice, I connect to this soft, achy part of myself—my vulnerable, open heart. 

Bodhicitta informs my psychotherapy practice, too, and has been particularly helpful for something all therapists suffer from on occasion: compassion fatigue, when daily confrontation with trauma and suffering makes empathy harder to feel. 

Over the last 16 months, I’ve been all too familiar with compassion fatigue. It happened so quietly that at first, I didn’t even notice it. The stress of illness, death, politics, my work, and my personal life had completely overwhelmed me. As the pandemic continued, Asian hate crimes started to increase, and I followed this news with heightened awareness, but also rage. As more and more Asian people were attacked, I imagined my elderly mother being attacked and felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness. How was I supposed to help my patients when I could barely keep it together myself? When I felt constant anxiety not only for myself but for all my family members?

Because of the state of the world, however, there was no time to rest. Almost everyone was suffering, including most of my patients, and I felt a duty to be there for them, despite my own mental state. 

But because of my compassion fatigue, I sank into old, mindless habits, and even stopped meditating. Then, one day, a patient asked if I was all right during a Zoom session. “What do you mean?” I asked defensively. They said they could tell I had a lot on my mind. First, a wave of shame came over me. I was a fraud and finally had been found out, I thought. Then, I almost burst into tears in the middle of the session. It was a wake-up call. I had not been present to what was going inside of me. 

So I began to meditate again and instead of trying to hold it all together, I let myself fall apart. 

Tonglen practice became particularly instrumental for my recovery. Every morning I would breathe in the suffering of all sentient beings and breathe out compassion in return. I began to practice tonglen during my video sessions too. When I felt disconnected or closed off from my work, I returned to tonglen, breathing in the pain of my patients and breathing out compassion toward them. Because of COVID, I had retreated into survival mode and had closed myself off from the rawness of my open heart. But as I let myself fall apart, my practice became connected to bodhicitta once more. Once I let in all the raw vulnerability, I felt lighter. I was in pain, but it was fine. I didn’t have to hold it together. Bodhicitta had freed me from having to pretend to be OK. 

This newfound mindset has softened my relationship with my patients. During sessions, I do my best to exude a therapeutic presence that represents bodhicitta—mainly an open, vulnerable heart that is connected to all my patients’ pain. This approach, I hope, helps my clients feel heard, loved, and accepted. 

As I’ve worked with more and more patients over the years, I’ve realized how fragile people really are. Even the most confident and successful of my patients are just one or two missteps from losing themselves into despair, anxiety, or depression. Yet many lack awareness and are terrified of opening up to any hint of this fragility. So with a spirit of bodhicitta, I give my patients permission to fall apart. 

One of my jobs as a therapist is to help my patients realize that their depression, anxiety, and trauma are nothing to be ashamed of, but are rational reactions to the pains of the last year and a half, and also to existence itself. It is fine to be raw and vulnerable, and that when they are connected to that part of themselves, they are connected to the best, most compassionate part. When they can connect to the spirit of bodhicitta, remarkable transformations can happen. 

So, in the spirit of bodhicitta, the same spirit I hope to bring to therapy, I walk through my city trying to be just a bit braver, trying to be just a little more open to the suffering around me. I don’t have any good answers about what to do about Asian hate crimes. I am not a politician or a community leader. I can’t pass laws or train people in self-defense to protect themselves. As I type, I think about a video I watched earlier of an Asian woman being sucker-punched in Chinatown, and I feel rage at first and then fear for the safety of Asian people, especially the elderly, like my mom. I know those feelings are all rational and normal. I can accept those feelings with an open heart.

But as a way to live, so I can be a better therapist, husband, and friend, I practice tonglen once again this morning, breathing in all my rage and fear, and breathing out compassion to the Asian woman who was hurt, but also to the perpetrator, wishing them both freedom from their suffering. And when I see the homeless man outside of my office later today, the one I’ve avoided eye contact with, I will do the same, looking him in the eye and wishing him all the compassion I can muster.

The post Bodhicitta in the Time of Asian Hate appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

On April 21, 2021, a jury deemed that former police officer Derek Chauvin is a murderer. Despite police officers having the legal right to kill under certain circumstances, regarding the death of George Floyd, lethal force was determined to be unreasonable and unjustified. So, though Chauvin was charged to protect and serve, the jury concluded that his actions caused George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020.

While many breathed a sigh of relief and rejoiced at the reading of the verdict, others braced themselves for the trial of the three officers charged with aiding and abetting Chauvin, now scheduled for March 2022. (The state charges are being delayed to allow a federal case to proceed first.) Many asked the question, “Now what?”

The April verdict addresses Chauvin’s culpability in the death of George Floyd. The verdict does nothing to address the multitude of harms committed through the US criminal justice system.  This was epitomized by the police killing of Daunte Wright during a traffic stop just days before Chauvin’s verdict.

As described by Buddhist teacher Larry Ward, America’s history establishes a racialized karma, particularly in the criminal justice system, that may seem impossible to overcome. Given the world’s response to the death of George Floyd and Chauvin’s guilty verdict, we have a powerful opportunity to move towards a societal and systemic rebirth.

We are in the midst of a karmic bardo of becoming, a liminal period of possibilities between death and rebirth. We have the tools to aid us in a higher-level rebirth if we choose to use them for that purpose.

Karma of the Criminal Justice System

Collectively, Americans have crafted and allowed for a criminal justice system that operates under the guise of public safety without the proportional public good. Our actions and fears have led to seemingly intractable harm.

While we spend nearly $300 billion annually to police, prosecute, and imprison, police agencies have no legal duty to protect persons not in their custody. Police primarily exist, contrary to the common motto “to protect and to serve,” to protect business property first, then residential property.

While we train police to be “warrior cops,” we call on them to act as social workers, conflict mediators, traffic directors, mental health counselors, neighborhood patrollers, and enforcers of low-level, petty crimes. Only a small fraction of policing hours are spent responding to violent crime.

While we espouse a motto of “justice for all,” the majority of all criminal cases are against indigent persons. Most people in the criminal justice system—roughly 90 percent—are represented by court-appointed attorneys who are often stretched thin by the sheer amount of clients they represent in an underfunded system. Additionally, the people prosecuted by the criminal justice system are disproportionately people of color.

While we presume “color blindness” in our systems, data related to police stops and searches show a persistent racial bias for police engagement with individuals without finding contraband or proof of crimes to support the rates of stops and searches.

We are all stakeholders in the American criminal justice system that in its current form leads to premature death. In 2020, there were 1,100 fatal police shootings, 27 percent of those were Black people. Black males are 21 times more likely to be killed by police officers than white males. Laws allowing the use of “justifiable” deadly force have been applied in a manner that is rooted in the belief, through actions and words, that most Black males are criminals. A literal example of the ultimate cause of death being life itself—a slow death caused by living while Black in America.

The death of George Floyd has always been entangled with two questions: the singular question about justice for Floyd and the more universal question about the US justice system’s perpetually punitive impact on poor, Black and brown persons. His death has brought us into a state like the bardo of becoming, ripe with the potential for transformation. What should be done to allow the death of George Floyd, an individual, to act as a catalyst for a collective rebirth?

After Death—the Bardo

The karmic bardo of becoming, in Tibetan Buddhism, is a state of existence between two lives, a period of time after death, until the moment of rebirth. According to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, bardos are periods when life is uncertain. They occur continuously throughout both life and death because the whole of life and death are together a series of constantly changing transitional realities. All bardos are moments when the possibilities of liberation and transformation are heightened because they are charged with potential; whatever you do during these times has crucial and far-reaching effects. In the bardo of becoming, one who is spiritually capable may reduce the impact of the karma of past lives on the level of rebirth to come, or they may even attain liberation.

The key is for each of us to recognize the opportunities for liberation and make the fullest possible use of them.

In understanding karma as the natural law of cause and effect, we begin to understand how all of our actions, no matter how small, have consequences. Even when our actions seem inconsequential, the interdependence of all things bear out a different reality. These truths might seem overwhelming at first, but upon deeper investigation and reflection, we can come to learn the extreme power that karma allows us to create change. We can choose how we act and we can choose to accept the impermanence, fluidity, and interdependence of all things.

We can overcome our long history of racialized karma by choosing our actions, no matter how small, with the appropriate intent. We could choose to continue endorsing false narratives or quietly allowing our tax dollars to support harmful systems. Or, we could choose more compassionate, intentional actions, and be more aware of our interdependence. To develop the appropriate intent, we must first take responsibility for past actions or inactions. Acceptance of responsibility indicates that we understand the full implications or our actions, words and thoughts. What amazing change is possible if the 23.2 million people who were concerned enough to watch the verdict took just that one action! 

♦

The authors would like to thank Jake Nagasawa, PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, for his insights and guidance.

The post Cause of Death Part Two: Now What? appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

What does “justice” mean to us legally as Americans, in a country with a history rooted in white supremacy? What does it mean to us spiritually as Buddhists, in a country where the majority holds monotheistic beliefs? And how do we navigate our relationship to justice as Buddhist Americans, in the midst of the struggle against police killings of African American people? 

As Buddhist Insight Meditation teachers, our sanghas have called on us to address these kinds of questions. As a former prosecutor and former criminal defense attorney, both women of color, one African American and one mixed race South Asian and white, we came together across our similarities and our differences, to explore how our dharma practices lead us to respond.

People often think of justice as impartial, fair, and equitable responses to harm, and as being done either in individual cases or being inherent in a system. Systemically, criminal justice in America is rooted in the English common law and in a social contract in which power is given to the government, with the expectation the government will fairly resolve culpability for harming acts against society. This social contract manifests as laws born out of a representative government of the people; law enforcement that has the requirement “to protect and serve” as its foundation; and a court system that is expected to give ordinary citizens the benefit of the doubt, legal representation, and the opportunity to be fairly judged by one’s own peers. 

Built upon the principle of innocent until proven guilty, the system puts the responsibility of establishing criminal behavior on the government, rather than on the individual. The government must establish both criminal intent and criminal action. The standard for proving criminal behavior, beyond a reasonable doubt, is one of the highest, strictest standards in our entire legal system. 

While these standards and laws define the idea of criminal justice in the United States, the administration of that system is another matter. The American writer and activist James Baldwin wrote: “If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most!—and listens to their testimony.” For African Americans in particular, not only is there no trusted social contract for criminal justice, but anyone wanting to understand racism need only look at the criminal justice system. It provides the clearest view for seeing the truth and anguish of racism. There is a felt contradiction in what constitutes “criminal” and “justice” in the United States, because, based on race, different Americans experience the “criminal justice” system so differently.  

The framework of the American criminal justice system is often considered to be one of the best in the world. And for ordinary white Americans, the system often works fine, mostly because ordinary white Americans can rely on the presumption that they are innocent until proven guilty. For ordinary African Americans, the system, at its core, is rotten, with white supremacy undermining every aspect. As many viral videos demonstrate, racism allows criminal intent to be inferred in ordinary interactions. It is assumed that if an African American is present, criminal conduct will follow. It is assumed when African Americans enter any neighborhood, public park, store, or event where white people don’t think they should be, that they are a threat and should be surveilled. And most notably, it is assumed African Americans are carrying or doing something illegal when driving. This assumption entitles all white people to treat African Americans as dangerous unless they can, in a noticeably short amount of time, alleviate any fear. 

White supremacy creates narratives about all non-white people. It is a cloak that shrouds the law’s protections of African Americans, denying them the benefit of the presumption of innocence, fairness, justice, and equality. But more importantly, racism denies African Americans permission to protect themselves from white people. They are trapped in a system where they can only obtain justice by putting their faith in the same system that has no faith in them.

As Buddhists, with faith in the buddhadharma, our practice involves cutting through delusion to open to the truth. There are at least three dharmic truths relevant to our natural human response to seek justice in response to harm or cruelty. One truth, the law of karma, points to the overarching moral universe in which all of our volitional actions have consequences. For Buddhist practitioners, this can be a refuge and source of equanimity in the midst of our witnessing police killings and an inequitable criminal justice system. We understand that the law of karma is beyond comparison to conventional ideas of justice, as the truth of dukkha, or unsatisfactoriness, means that any legal system within this samsaric realm will never be fully satisfactory. Another truth, the immeasurable benefits that spring from harmlessness and ethical conduct, can inspire action that diminishes cruelty, even when it is not easy to see how our actions are creating benefit.

Viewed through a dharmic lens, no court could reach a more astute assessment than the law of karma about a police officer’s responsibility for killing or abusing someone. Such officers must experience the karmic consequences of their volitional actions, whether their motivations were simple anger, an express intent to kill, a desire to guard their power and its material benefits, or an explicitly racist intent. 

In the Ancinita Sutta, the Buddha said the precise workings of the law of karma are imponderable. It is not for us to know how any person’s karma will play out, and all perpetrators of violence also have the capacity to awaken. At the same time, the law of karma does not mean that the dharma leaves out all notions of justice. As Bhikkhu Bodhi has asserted, one of the many nuances of the word dharma itself means justice, in the sense of a belief that “all people possess intrinsic value, that all are endowed with inherent dignity and therefore should be helped to realize this dignity.” 

Nor does the dharma point us towards non-action. The teachings on non-cruelty call on us first to develop our own hearts and minds. The second factor of the noble eightfold path, wise intention, directs us to cultivate the intention of harmlessness, which counters cruelty in our own minds. The more we cultivate harmlessness, the more our minds will incline toward non-cruelty. Considered together with another core truth, that the mind is the forerunner of all things, our thoughts of harmlessness will engender our beneficial, compassionate actions. 

In a separate teaching, the Buddha made the striking statement that our non-harming conduct, particularly in following the five ethical training precepts of non-killing, non-stealing, abstaining from sexual misconduct, abstaining from false speech, and refraining from intoxicants, “gives to an immeasurable number of beings freedom from fear, enmity, and affliction” and that this is a “gift, primal, of long standing, traditional, ancient, and unadulterated.” 

So, just as the workings of karma are imponderable, our actions grounded in harmlessness create the causes and conditions, in ways we cannot measure, for others to experience greater freedom from affliction. This means we can trust the power of goodness to have real, though perhaps wholly unseen, fruits. Trust in this kind of immeasurable benefit and in justice rooted in the dignity of all beings could be a potent force to dismantle white supremacy, as it supports persevering even when we do not immediately see shifts towards greater justice. 

The post Buddhist Justice Versus American Justice appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When George Floyd’s murderer, former police officer Derek Chauvin, was found guilty on all charges on April 21, 2021, the world breathed a sigh of fleeting relief. I sighed too, but the breath was not my own. The emanation was an ancestral exhale for accountability, and it rattled my foundation in a mixture of grief and frustration. There was no joy. There was no rest. There was no peace.  

Four days before the prosecution rested in the Chauvin case, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot by a Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer who mistook her own gun for a taser. Just over a week later, Andrew Brown, Jr., 42, would be shot in the back of the head while driving away from police in North Carolina.  Between these killings, Adam Toledo, 13, was shot to death by an officer in Chicago, and Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, was fatally shot by an officer in Ohio. For many Black, indigenous, and other people of color, every shooting is retraumatizing.

Police brutality, combined with historical trauma’s cumulative effects, structural racism, health disparities, disadvantage, and poverty, all negatively impact African Americans. We are affected on a deeply cellular level, and our suffering is a bitter seduction. Untreated, pain feeds despair, an idol to our suffering—but there is a path forward. We can find our way by embracing and exploring African Americans who were bodhisattvas, and as such, provide pathways to heal our collective, historical trauma.  

A bodhisattva is someone who aspires to be a buddha but delays reaching nirvana in order to help others reach enlightenment. By extension, we might consider the Black Bodhisattvas to be those of African and African American descent who, by example, lead us toward a path of liberation, provide inspiration, direction, and healing. 

The Black Bodhisattva and first African American woman to speak publicly about women’s rights was Maria W. Stewart [1803-1879], who urged us to “possess the spirit of independence” and “sue for your rights.” Stewart wrote these words in 1831, in a pamphlet that was distributed before her public speaking engagements. She spoke to mixed crowds of both Blacks and whites, men and women, which was uncommon at the time. Stewart’s call to legal action is an example of the preparation and tools to confront white supremacy. This struggle will throw innumerable challenges as long as white supremacy is allowed to inflict its dangerous, oppressive destruction on Black and brown bodies and livelihood. Every stage of the struggle for justice will be met with a counterattack designed to preserve the status quo. The challenge is to be increasingly more skillful at managing emotional pain and equipping ourselves with the instruments to address inequality without succumbing to violence.

As a Black, queer woman who grew up in the predominately white communities of Northern Minnesota, I have spent a lifetime searching for Black Bodhisattvas to nurture, guide, lead me toward liberation. I was born exactly 58 years to the day after Harriet Tubman’s death. Tubman [1822-1913] is my kindred spirit, and her example would become the guidepost for my activism, artistry, and work as an academic in the service of my people. If the role of the bodhisattva as an enlightened being is to delay nirvana to assist others in finding liberation compassionately, then Tubman’s life and legacy align with that experience. In approximately 10 years and 13 trips, she led over 70 enslaved people to freedom and advised at least 70 more to make the journey. During the Civil War, she was recruited by the Union Army to assist fugitive slaves, and headed espionage and scouting missions that garnered crucial intelligence. For Tubman, there was no greater purpose than the freedom of her people. 

But what does it mean to march on toward freedom? Awakening? In Buddhism, awakening means to be liberated from perpetual suffering. For African Americans, awakening in one sense means overcoming the clutches of white supremacy culture as a community, as a nation. “Nations, like plants and human beings, grow. And if the development is thwarted, they are dwarfed and overshadowed,” wrote the Black Bodhisattva Claude McKay [1889-1948]. McKay was a poet and novelist of the Harlem Renaissance whose poetry and prose were and continue to be a source of liberation. He reminds us that individuals, communities, and governments all can change, grow, evolve, or revolutionize.

From McKay’s instructions, a galvanized response to oppression means the nation’s integrity will no longer be thwarted. We may march on toward freedom but not be seduced by the divisive tools of white supremacy culture. Black liberator, activist, and author Audre Lorde [1934-1992] proclaimed, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house!” The struggle cannot be won with the same dehumanizing beliefs, policies, procedures, and laws that got us here in the first place. When violence erupts, when despair knocks on the door of the heart, seek silence and stillness within because the right direction emerges in the sanctity of that which cannot be moved. In this way, we resist. 

The Black Bodhisattva assures us that the path to end suffering is consistent with the teachings, the dharma, the way. We do not have to reinvent the wheel.

In the words of the nineteenth-century author, lecturer, and anti-enslavement activist Frances Harper [1825-1911], “My hands were weak, but I reached them out to feebler ones than mine, and over the shadow of my life Stole the light of a peace divine.” Fostering community allows us to resist despair as we ease attachments to our suffering by cultivating loving-kindness, empathetic joy, compassion, and equanimity. We might come to recognize that it is possible love and rage can occupy the same place at the same time. In equanimity, we are neither passionate nor dispassionate about any of it.  Emotions are simply messages that we are experiencing something favorable or unfavorable. What is good or unfavorable at the moment may have extraordinarily little to do with the ultimate goal, which is a just and equitable society. It is the same as saying, “keep your eyes on the prize.” So, restraint becomes an offering of the wise and loving-kindness, empathetic joy, and compassion, a healing balm on exposed wounds.

The Black Bodhisattva assures us that the path to end suffering is consistent with the teachings, the dharma, the way. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. Fundamentally, this work is not meant to be conducted alone. The sangha, initially understood as a community of Buddhist monastics in study and practice together; today implies something slightly different (at least in Western lay communities). Here, the sangha is a community of healers, activists, mobilizers, poets, prophets, truth-tellers, and fellow Buddhists in whom we gain assistance. Seek them out and wear their support like an invincible shield.

The historical Black Bodhisattvas were not practicing Buddhists. However, they embodied many principles of Buddhism and community. We draw from their examples in these contemporary times as we form circles of support that promote liberation.

May we make ourselves students of loving-kindness. May we learn to delight in the joy of another wherever it may be found. May we sponsor a heart that seeks to end the suffering of others. May we recognize that these principles of Buddhism are the true north. In the end, the Black Bodhisattva guides the path. May we all find our way.

The post Finding Your Way appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Last June, 60 percent of respondents in a USA TODAY poll characterized George Floyd’s death as murder. As of March 2, that number has since dropped to 36 percent. The poll also found that 4 percent of respondents in June were unable to describe his death; now, 17 percent are undecided.

I did not expect this. Yet I carry within me a deep knowing of this country and its history, so I cannot hold surprise.

Instead, I feel the burden of awareness. In Buddhist teachings, this awareness leads to liberation from suffering—it has been that for me as well—and yet it is also a burden because it connects me to the pain of my lineage and my present existence. This awareness allows me the space to reach into my heart, but what I find there is a burning question: Why is our society so certain about Black guilt, so certain that Black people have done something?

Emmett Till did something, Eric Garner did something, Tamir Rice did something, Breonna Taylor did something. It is this presumed something that allows our murder—that Black something. This something invites the questions that destroy clarity. It involves the convenient use of language that emphasizes the “complexity” of an “unfortunate” situation, allowing the inquirer to keep their hands clean and avoid accusations of any ill intent. I was pleased to learn as a student about the term sophistry, which is defined as using language to deceive. When the sole intention of our language is to reduce discomfort, we are deceiving not only other people but ourselves as well. Such words are merely another tool to support willful confusion. Pontius Pilate could relate to that kind of judicial thinking. 

Thirty-six percent of people no longer believed that George Floyd was murdered as the trial of his killer approached. After the police officer was convicted of murder, another poll found that 71 percent of respondents agreed with the verdict, while 13 percent thought he was not guilty and 15 percent said they don’t know.  

As a little girl, I heard the Bible story of King Solomon, who was called on to settle a dispute between two women who both claimed to be the mother of an infant. Solomon suggests that the baby be cut in half. One of the women agrees with him. I can hear her, “Yes, cut it in half!” Listening to this story as a child, I was so happy that the real mother was revealed. But now I wonder: What do we make of the other woman? 

A similar query arises in the Zen story of “Nansen Kills the Cat,” in which the Zen master Nansen (c. 749–c. 835 CE) comes across two monks arguing about a cat. Nansen grabs the cat and says, “You monks! If one of you can say a word, I will spare the cat. If you can’t say anything, I will put it to the sword.” When neither monk is able to answer, Nansen cuts the cat in half. (Later Nansen tells this tale to the Zen master Joshu, who responds by putting his sandals on his head and leaves, an act that Nansen said “would have saved the cat.” The meaning of this perplexing exchange is left for each individual Zen student to ponder.)

I bring the freedom of curiosity to both the woman who would “solve” the problem by cutting the baby in half and to the monks who couldn’t save the cat. I see myself in the woman’s rage and the monks’ silence.

My Buddhist lineage and my ancestry allow me to see in ways that both ground me and astound me. But I often feel frustrated that my lineage, my practice, and my heart will not allow me the delusion of making the false mother a monster. I am unable to “other” her. She is a human being, and as such experiences joy and pain. Still, she is willing to cut the baby in half. And the monks, like the woman, cannot be dismissed as caricatures of Zen practice. Even they, like me, can be frozen in their “knowledge” or choked by the awareness of their ridiculousness. 

I am blessed to have the ability to sit on my cushion and walk on trails to engage in finding peace and joy, even as I am living in a country with people who can explain away the killing of my people and other people of color by an institution that they see as their protectors. In this country, the protectors cannot be held culpable. To find them culpable would invite questions that do not support white supremacy. To question white supremacy would mean change, and perhaps a loss of some measure of social and economic supremacy.

There are, of course, political steps that I can support, both at the local, state, and national level, and those measures may cause change at the margins but will not impact the turning away or the willful rejection of what is. So, as always, I return to my practice. I return to the biblical story and bring my focus to the mother who was willing to lose her baby rather than see her killed. I am her, in that I am willing to forego the joy of annihilating the woman who would choose to kill the baby. 

Calling upon the lineage of my ancestors—upon their spiritual genius and courage to embrace the practice of love to the best of their ability and circumstances—I, too, choose love. Calling upon the teachings of Jodo Shinshu, teachings that arose as a practice for peasants, I chant and know that all of us deserve the sea of compassion. Calling upon the philosophy of interbeing, I know I am connected even to those who would deny my humanity. 

I will focus on breath, on the birds, and on the love and care of my family and community. I will hum, sing, and dance. I will put on my tutus that would make any sensible ballerina proud and go on “tutu walks.” I listen to my ancestors as they tell me, “Trouble don’t last always.” I will stay present to my heartbreak and flexible in my practice, bringing full awareness to joy and a deep awareness of danger.

The post The Burden of Awareness  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

I am an older Black Buddhist practitioner. Throughout the three-week trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, I watched and experienced holding tension between the past and desire. During this time, I engaged in a practice I call “shock protection”—noticing that the fact our conditioning may not have prepared us to receive what is to come while trying to remain neutral as a way to lessen the pain of another unjust outcome.  

Buddhism is founded on shock protection if we take into consideration that the Buddha was conditioned to not see human frailty while he remained in his wealthy province preparing to inherit his father’s powerful position. Some of us have been conditioned in this way—we have been beneficiaries of the rule of law, but many others of us have not. Shock protection is another way of practicing equanimity, but an equanimity fueled with decades of disappointment for the hundreds of millions of black people killed in the US over 400 years of slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, white supremacist-crafted criminal justice systems, and mass incarceration. It would have been foolish of me to cast this history aside while watching the trial, as the defense “retried” the case during closing arguments using the playbook other attorneys have used to defend white police officers who killed unarmed Black men. This playbook has included repeatedly reminding jurors of the deceased’s character imperfections, past criminal behaviors irrelevant to the case at hand, imperviousness to pain, underlying medical conditions and the police’s perceptions of the deceased as innately dangerous due to appearance (including inferences to the deceased being Black), along with a host of other strategies to dehumanize someone who is already dead. To counter this playbook, the prosecution needed to resort to reminding the jurors that George Floyd had parents who brought them into the world, using Floyd’s birth certificate as proof! Keeping this history in mind, I wasn’t angry, or in shock. I was reminded that this is how it has been, and it has worked in the past to convince jurors that they did not see what they saw. I’m very familiar with the cognitive impact of being invited to doubt my beliefs.

As a Buddhist practitioner, I’ve been taught and trained to question my perceptions. This is useful for lessening the suffering that comes from clinging to views that become narrower the more I cling. Some Buddhists refer to this as a wholesome form of doubt. But when the defense in the Chauvin case said in their closing arguments that jurors should doubt the evidence presented by the state about the causes of Floyd’s death, was that the same as training jurors in cultivating Buddha mind? I don’t think so, largely because so much was riding on their doubt—namely, the maintenance of and justification for the deadly use of police force remaining situated in police discretion alone. In Buddhism, our trainings and teachings in doubt are about expanding our awareness. On the other hand, the defense was arguing for the very same thing—broadening the jurors’ awareness.

Those of us who saw the viral videos saw Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for what we initially thought was 8 minutes and 46 seconds, but what turned out to actually be 9 minutes and 29 seconds. What does this mean? Collectively, we were wrong. There was nearly another minute of factual information from the police officers’ vantage points; it means that we missed facts by only having access to the viral videos taken by witnesses. This was part of the defense’s argument. The other part of their argument was that the jury had to make a decision about what a “reasonable police officer” in that particular situation would do. Contrary to what the Minneapolis police officers testified to regarding their practices not being consistent with Chauvin’s actions, the defense argued, with supporting evidence, that police have a multitude of decisions to make and each action of the arrestee is cause for a new set of decisions. The defense also said that the police officer is not required to believe anything the arrestee is saying about how they feel. In defense attorney Eric Nelson’s view, it didn’t matter that Floyd said he was claustrophobic. It didn’t matter that he said the handcuffs hurt (in fact Floyd’s wrists were bleeding), it didn’t matter that Floyd said he couldn’t breathe, it didn’t matter that Floyd was lying face down in the prone position (because he was able to talk), and it didn’t matter that Floyd became unconscious because each of these factors (according to the defense) were changeable. 

Buddhists have also been taught about changeability. We call it impermanence. The impermanence we are taught about has to do with not clinging to things that have no permanence—even ourselves—so that we do not become deluded and then distraught when we must inevitably part from everything we love as we are reminded in the five remembrances (through death and natural processes of loss that are part of any human life). The defense’s “impermanence” argument was different altogether. The defense argued that even when Floyd was not resisting, he could resist again, thereby justifying the length of time Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck. We may not agree with the defense, but we know from our own teachings in doubt and impermanence that if these teachings are not grounded in the ethics of non-harm, compassion, selflessness, and truth, they can be twisted toward supporting injustice. Many Buddhists have supported injustice with indifference by not coming together as one entity, focusing on anti-Black racism. It is a political choice. What is a Buddhist to do now that Chauvin has been found guilty and the three other arresting police officers are scheduled for trial in August?

Though cities across the US, including Minneapolis, prepared for a violent response if Chauvin was acquitted, Buddhists were not prepared to stem the energetic flow of possible violent responses because we haven’t been able to harness the power we have to effectuate structural change. Still, it is not too late to find our collective voice in areas of racial justice. As we contemplate this historic guilty verdict, we can also endeavor to engage police departments across this nation on this question: How can we support you to trust that those you arrest are in pain when they say they are? We say we are students of the Four Noble Truths, and we dedicate the merit to all sentient beings, but do we, as American Buddhists, take the time to understand the suffering that is caused by the school-to-prison pipeline that includes miseducation, policing, the court systems, and mass incarceration, and seek to collectively transform this situation? Do we take that understanding to those who cause suffering, and proclaim the third noble truth—that things can change? What within the noble eightfold path can we apply to the transformation of modern-day lynchings and slavery? Let’s examine what right action means in this context.

Maybe we’ve been too immersed in our doubt and teachings in impermanence to be moved off our proverbial cushions to be the agents of change we chant in our bodhisattva vows. I think we’re more prone to magical thinking than we want to admit. Meditation, learning, and chanting alone will not stem the tide of racism, murder, and imprisonment. Nor will they stem the tide of an ever-increasing militarized police force. I often hear Buddhist practitioners say, “I don’t know what to do.” Do our practices actually serve to disempower us? Do they cloud our perceptions when we say we are expanding our awareness? We need to take a deep look at what we’re learning and practicing, otherwise we unwittingly run the risk of solidifying being agents of white supremacy.

With the new reality that a white police officer can be found guilty of murdering an unarmed Black man, how will we interpret this reality for what our lives mean and can mean? How do predominantly white sanghas make room for Black and Brown people living with an existential situation that hasn’t changed just yet? By practicing deeply with racial and cultural humility. But that’s not all. Even if Chauvin had been acquitted, sanghas need to come together, harness our power, and deploy the positive power of our practices in compassion, directing that power to the policing of our neighbors and fellow citizens. We can begin with just one goal, restoring the humanity of arrestees who cry out that they are in pain, so that police officers will also care for those they are arresting.

The post Prepared for Acquittals, Relieved by the Verdict, Preparing for Transformation appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In Buddhist thought, the ultimate cause of death is life itself. All things are impermanent, and Buddhist practice involves extending compassion for the suffering that inevitably arises. The dharma also prohibits killing: to have clear minds and hearts, we must cultivate and encourage life. Yet in the name of public safety; for the sake of law and order; and to protect and enhance private property, Americans often justify the use of force and normalize the taking of human life. 

The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has put complex and sophisticated cause-of-death arguments on display. The daily push and pull between the prosecution and the defense has made for a wrenching and riveting spectacle. It is tempting to look away and to tell ourselves that we are not part of this picture because we don’t think this way or that way about the situation. But Buddhist justice-making involves doing our best to stay in the present moment, to gaze without flinching, and to connect self and other. No matter which way this trial goes, we aspire to a deeper understanding of the causes of George Floyd’s death and how compassionate action can eventually lead to justice.

Five manners of death

Prone, handcuffed, and face down on the street in broad daylight. Nearly 100 pounds of pressure applied downward against his neck. For 9 minutes and 29 seconds. All of it witnessed first-hand and recorded by a group of bystanders, among them an expert martial artist who knows what unarmed combat techniques can do and a certified emergency medical technician who can tell when someone is medically dead.  Proving that Chauvin killed Floyd in the courtroom requires working with an intricate legal system that ultimately favors and rarely prosecutes the police. 

Medical examiners use five classifications when determining the manner of death, or how a person died: natural, accidental, suicide, homicide, or undetermined. The crux of the trial is on whether Chauvin committed homicide, which is defined as one person killing another person. Floyd did not die naturally of old age, and he did not kill himself. The charges—second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter—do not require the prosecution to prove whether or not Chauvin was trying to kill Floyd; to convict Chauvin, however, a unanimous jury must be persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that the former officer’s actions, regardless of intent, caused Floyd’s death. In addition, because Chauvin was an on-duty officer, the jurors must agree that the killing was not justified. 

Over and over again, the twelve jurors have been shown what happened that day at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis. Collected from police body cameras, street surveillance cameras, and cell phones of concerned bystanders, the footage reveals: Floyd’s car and the drugs found inside it; his entrance into the Cup Foods corner store; his demeanor while inside the store; and his payment with a $20 bill. Suspecting the bill to be fake, a teenage store clerk considers replacing the fake with a real one from his own pocket. Thinking twice, he calls the police. 

Two core strategies have driven Chauvin’s defense. 

One: Encourage a doubtful mind with regard to homicide. Evidence of controlled substances and the COVID-19 virus in Floyd’s bloodstream, as shown in the autopsy report, may help sow the seeds of doubt. Since the decision of guilt or innocence must be agreed upon by all twelve jurors, if even one juror believes that Floyd died by any other manner than direct pressure from Chauvin’s knee, Judge Peter Cahill will call a mistrial. In other words: no murder or manslaughter conviction. 

Two: Argue that the use of force is justifiable under the law. To convince the jury, Chauvin’s team is painting the bystanders as an “angry and violent mob” and Floyd himself as a “large and dangerous” man so difficult to subdue that handcuffs and a single police officer were not sufficient. According to the defense, the situation escalated not because Chauvin used excessive or extreme measures but because as he applied the techniques he had been professionally trained to use, both Floyd and the crowd became increasingly more incensed and uncontrollable. From the defense’s point of view, Floyd died because the police officers themselves were at risk as they attempted to deal with a dangerous Black man and mounting threats of mob violence.

But lethal force should never be allowable on an unarmed person. The single use of a counterfeit bill is a misdemeanor that should have been ticketed, similar to a parking violation. Instead, Floyd was pinned to the ground with four armed officers using war zone killing tactics while desperate bystanders risked their own lives trying to stop them. But it’s too late to turn the clock back. The only way forward is through a justice system based on the motto “presumed innocent until proven guilty” in which even the most depraved criminal gets a fair trial.

Justifiable force as compassion and skillful means

Although the dharma prohibits killing, it is possible in extreme situations to interpret killing as an act of compassion and skillful means. A classic example in the Upayakausalya (“Skill in Means”) Sutra describes when the Buddha was a ship’s captain in a previous life, and out of wisdom and compassion—and with the rare insight of clairvoyance—he makes the difficult choice to kill a marauding pirate in order to save everyone else on the ship. While he violated the precepts, the Buddha’s mindset was clear and pure and he did not take a lower birth. 

Before May 2020, many more people would have probably accepted the story that despite the “bad optics” of Floyd’s murder, Chauvin did what police are entrusted to do: protect the public, viewed analogously to the actions of the Buddha as the ship’s captain. Is this narrative indicative of a pure and clear mindset? What would it take to foster a rare sense of clairvoyance in those who we entrust with the task of “public safety?” 

The fact is that on-duty police officers have shot and killed more than 5,000 people across the United States since 2015. A disproportionate number of those killed have been Black and Brown men. Over the past 15 years, only 35 officers have been convicted of murder or manslaughter. 

Here in the Twin Cities, it’s too soon to tell how things will turn out. The prosecution has offered meticulous evidence and precisely calibrated arguments. However, the defense has planted the seeds of a familiar morality tale in which Black people are natural criminals and police use justifiable violence to protect a mostly white public. What will State v. Chauvin reveal about America’s understanding of racism and social justice? In our next essay, we’ll discuss how we can engage our bodhisattva vows and push for justice through the courts, keeping in mind that the system is predicated on racism and wealth. 

The post Cause of Death: The Theories Behind State v. Chauvin appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

While mourning the life of Daunte Wright, yet another Black man killed by a Minnesota police officer, people in the Twin Cities are now waiting for a verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd sparked massive, multigenerational peaceful protests, the burning and destruction of cities and neighborhoods, and citizen-led attacks against police and governmental structures, banks, and local businesses in and around the Twin Cities, helping to initiate a long-overdue 21st-century reckoning with the ugly and death-dealing reality of race and anti-Blackness in the United States. Without a doubt, hundreds of millions of people rightfully demand justice. 

But what if justice is not a solution? What if instead of placing all of our eggs in the basket of the American criminal justice system, we instead lean into the deep uncertainty and groundlessness of this moment in history, energized by a society that is moving toward a fuller, more comprehensive awareness of what needs to change? Ironically, I’m finding some peace that this perpetual state of unease is impermanent and, like all things, the result of infinite causes and conditions. Buddhism offers us this insight while things are, as Pema Chӧdrӧn might say, falling apart. This, considering the long and brutal history of injustice against Black people in the United States, is a good thing.

There are three potential outcomes to Derek Chauvin’s trial. The first is that Chauvin is found not guilty, either of second-degree unintentional murder or the lesser charges of third-degree murder or second-degree manslaughter. After deliberating, the jury might find that Chauvin was well within his rights to exercise deadly force in subduing Floyd while handcuffed and in a prone position with Chauvin’s knee on his back and neck for more than nine minutes. This outcome is the most likely outcome, and one that will allow Chauvin to go on about his life. Chauvin will no doubt be hated and reviled by many, but he will be able to travel, work, and commune with people of like mind, culture, and values. 

Those hurt and outraged by a not-guilty verdict will protest, organizing acts of civil unrest until their rage dissipates. People will continue to shout and chant and post slogans like Black Lives Matter! We will live life trauma-ghosted, carrying a deep and terrifying sense that another killing of an unarmed Black person can happen at any day and time. People hoping for justice will stand at the ready, like soldiers on a battlefield, waiting to be called back into the streets to protest another police killing. 

Sadly, such an outcome for Chauvin aligns with the outcomes of several police officers who have killed Black men in Minnesota, including Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who killed Philando Castile, a 28-year-old St. Paul native who was my first cousin’s first cousin. Or Jamar Clark, who at 24 was shot and killed by Minneapolis Police Officer Dustin Schwarze. No charges were filed against Schwarze nor another responding officer, Mark Ringgenberg, with Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman deciding against filing charges against the officers, even though bystanders say Clark was shot in the head while handcuffed. No charges in spite of the thousands of protestors, including me, my children, and neighbors occupying the 4th Precinct in North Minneapolis for several weeks demanding justice.

A second potential outcome is a “hung jury”—which means the jury will not be able to reach a verdict. In this situation, Chauvin will be released and able to resume his life; millions will organize and pressure for a retrial, which may or may not occur, and the nation will be left with a deep and pervading sense of unfinished business. We will hold our breath and clench our jaws and often live our lives tight with repressed rage. Underlying this vicarious sense of incompleteness, feelings of resentment and deep mistrust will simmer just below the boiling point until these emotions explode with yet another police shooting, and police officers will retain their right to use deadly force. 

The third outcome is that Chauvin is found guilty, and be sentenced to up to 40 years in state prison if he’s convicted of the maximum charge against him (second-degree murder). And, like other police officers who have killed Black people, he’s likely to be released early.   

In this case, George Floyd’s family and friends may experience a bit of peace commingled with grief, and perhaps some small, yet well-earned sense of relief. Protesters and organizers will feel vindicated that their protests and their convictions were meaningful and worthwhile, finding a renewed sense of faith in the legal system and continuing to struggle for what they believe is right. Communities, businesses, and neighborhoods will rebuild and many will feel the economic hardship and devastation was worth it. A horrifying page in history can now be turned. Many will believe that justice has been served and progress made. 

But in this last scenario—the best of all of the possible scenarios—the racial status quo will still be upheld. Police officers will still reserve the right to use deadly force to arrest, detain, or retaliate against those suspected of any crime—which means just about anyone and especially people who have dark skin. Black people like me.

It is for this reason that I experience a deep sense of hopelessness when it comes to the trials of police officers who have used lethal force against unarmed Black people. These laws that govern police behavior emerge from a society that makes it permissible for armed men to take the lives of Black people who make them feel threatened.

But even more specifically, they run against the first precept of Buddhism: “I undertake the training to refrain from harming any living being.” Until we as a society begin to deeply embrace and practice the spirit of non-harming and non-killing, Black people like Daunte Wright, Jamar Clark, George Floyd, and many others who are killed in and across this country will continue to die needlessly. People march for charges and convictions and rights. People march for Black life. But who marches for the principle of non-harming and non-killing? 

I have no hope and truly no significant emotional, political, or spiritual investment in the outcome of Chauvin’s trial. Only when there are laws passed with more, dare I say, peace-full and nonviolent sensibilities that make it unlawful for a police officer or anyone else, for that matter, kill another living being, will things change. (What if our law enforcement officers dispensed with “policing” humans and were encouraged instead to study and practice Thich Nhat Hanh’s elaboration on the first precept in his commentary on the Five Mindfulness Trainings of the Buddha: “I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life.”) In other words, there needs to be an all-encompassing cultural shift that is reflected in our laws and culture that makes it inexcusable for a human being to take the life of another human being. Only then will we see a dramatic decline in the killing of Black people, and specifically Black men. Collectively coming to such a determination, however, will take a very long time.

This moment provides a challenge for all of us who aspire toward a deeper sense of justice than the outcome of any individual trial. I understand that may not happen in my lifetime or my children’s lifetimes. Still, my faith in the impermanence of this moment gives me the confidence that an era of peace and nonviolence will surely one day be upon us. This insight gives me great peace.

The post Hopelessness and the Continued Use of Deadly Force appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

After a police officer killed George Floyd last summer, large-scale protests and riots erupted through the city of Minneapolis, and violence, which was often instigated by white supremacists, spread throughout our neighborhoods. More than 1,300 properties were destroyed in the mayhem, and 100 buildings were burned to the ground entirely (including the police department’s third precinct station house). The total cost of the damage was estimated at $350 million. 

In the months that followed, community activists put together plans (such as The People’s Budget) to prevent such destruction from happening again, and many more took part in protests and other forms of direct action to make sure that the people with the power to enact change could not ignore these proposals. Yet, as the murder trial of former officer Derek Chauvin began, the City of Minneapolis, rather than investing in the community and addressing the cause of the problem, was spending public funds—with a projected price tag of more than $1 million—on fortifying government buildings and bringing in thousands of additional law enforcement officers. This plan does not protect the residents of Minneapolis; it protects the city officials who were widely criticized for their slow and ineffective response to the destruction at the time and now are seeking to avoid a similar situation during the trials. 

Those of us invested in community activism can become angry and impatient when we contemplate how much money and resources city leaders are funneling into property protections and police. We can lash out in our thoughts and actions because, despite numerous community conversations, those in positions of power still don’t seem to “get it.” But this reactive energy will not help us. Our rage keeps us focused on what could have been rather than on building the capacity to be wise, kind, and tenacious— all mind states that this work requires.

It’s not easy to let go of these afflictive emotions and move onto the next challenge. But we can begin by recognizing that our frustration is not entirely the fault of the city officials who ignored us. They bear full responsibility for the pain that they have caused and will continue to cause the community by refusing to listen to its needs. But they are only partly to blame for our frustration, which is fed by our attachments to the outcome that we had imagined. 

The Buddha taught us that attachment fuels samsara, an endless cycle of suffering. He also taught that lessening those attachments—letting go of our need to cling to things that make us feel good or push away the things that make us feel bad—allows us to develop equanimity and act skillfully to bring an end to suffering in an ever-changing world. 

You have to believe in what you are doing because of your conviction that it is the right thing to do, not because you are attached to any tangible result in the world.

We can see that getting attached to the dream of the City of Minneapolis investing in a more holistic, humane, and sustainable approach to community anger about Floyd’s death is neither a wise nor effective course of action. City leaders have known that this moment would come, that the trials would take place here and stir up trauma for Black Minnesotans and everyone else. Stakeholders have had multiple chances to pursue other courses of action besides protecting property and increasing police presence. Holding onto our hopes that city officials will take proper action when all evidence suggests otherwise only sets us up for further disappointment and frustration. But facing reality about our current situation does not mean giving up on our future. It means putting aside this particular version of what the future can be in order to begin to imagine countless other possibilities. 

We don’t have to be upset or disappointed by the City’s relentless commitment to upholding the racial and economic status quo. We just have to keep working to envision and create a more equitable—and therefore beautiful—world, while at the same time leaving room to acknowledge and honor our completely valid sadness and rage. We have to keep pressing for equity, both within and outside the courts, knowing full well that we may never get it. You have to believe in what you are doing because of your conviction that it is the right thing to do, not because you are attached to any tangible result in the world. That might sound delusional, but it is more grounded than the alternative of ignoring how the world really works or giving up hope that things can change—despite the fact that, for better or worse, things will always change.

I would argue that this is, in essence, what the Buddha taught: That by getting intimate with the way things are, by facing the truth of our existence, we can actually be more present with the vagaries of present moment experience without getting confused or attached to them. 

Any student of social movements knows that the victories are small and infrequent, the losses large and everyday. To keep going, we have to be resilient, and we have to be nimble enough to change course when the situation demands it. In this context, attachment—holding onto what could or should have been—becomes just another impediment to doing the work of social change. We see this when we can’t step away from our organizing work to relax. We may be tempted to power through, clinging to our idea of what we should be doing, but a burned-out activist is less effective than a healthy one. We also see this when we allow our egos to lead when strategizing with friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and let our attachments to what we think should happen blind us to new possibilities. 

Likewise, when we become so frustrated by the endless cycle of investing in police rather than community, we believe we have no other choice but to react in anger and violence. These are the aftereffects of an attachment that leads to more suffering, not less—an unfortunate characteristic that is endemic in activist and community circles. 

We know what we have to do, but following through is a separate challenge. How do we care deeply about something without getting caught up in it? How do we show up to fight for George Floyd and all the other Black and Brown citizens murdered by police without becoming overwrought, burned out, or bitter? And how do we begin to take responsibility for our own actions, and our own minds and hearts that have led us to them? 

The Buddha didn’t just teach about the cause of suffering (that is, attachments). He also taught us how to reduce and bring an end to that suffering—through a regular dharma practice that helps us to stop clinging to our thoughts and feelings. By locating feelings in the body, we can lessen our attachments and find equanimity. This teaching and practice can help us navigate the trials, as well as the responses to them from police and city officials. And we can also keep it in mind when it comes to positive change, too. 

The Buddha said that everything we need to guide us on this path to being fuller, more compassionate human beings is right here in the body. Right now. The tightness of the shoulder blades. The clench of the jaw. The eagerness of the fingers. The intelligence of the ears. There is so much we can learn from just being with the body in the present moment, but most of the time we are too distracted by our thoughts, stories, and obsessions to notice. 

We can begin to train ourselves to get interested in the body, our first and best teacher, by establishing a mindfulness practice. Sitting or walking meditation, for example, can help us see the loop of thoughts running through our minds that often stop us from experiencing everything the moment has to offer: the banality, the awe, the pain, and yes, the joy. These practices show us the futility and, ultimately, the pain of attachment. They also show us a way through and around suffering: letting go. Surrendering to what our senses are showing us now, in order to learn, be and do better for all beings. Even as the buildings are burning down the street, the white nationalists are terrorizing your neighborhood, and city leaders are calling for more barbed wire, I have discovered that one can still be whole, moment to moment. We can hold it all: anger, fear, doubt, anxiety—letting it move through us rather than move us. We can breathe in, breathe out, wherever we are, sensing the freedom of a gathered mind and heart. A heart held up, fortified not by soldiers or fences but an expansive commitment to justice.

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