Interbeing, Thich Nhat Hahn’s phrase, is invitingly good. The idea that my enlightenment/liberation is connected to yours is a cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy. And yet. We are mostly deaf to how privilege masks our inhumanity. What will move us toward the deep and thoroughgoing empathy to come to the aid of others? This question was posed by Isabel Wilkerson in her conversation with Krista Tippet (in front a live audience 2016, North Carolina, I think). At a minimum this is a sociological question about bystander apathy, inequality, and BLM. It is not simply about caring and affect but a fundamental query about being human and recognizing the humanity of others. Thus, it is an urgent question for all spiritual traditions.
Study on and off the cushion.
I am fairly certain that every response—long or short—involves more history. Not the bullet point history of emancipation, Brown v. Topeka, immigration, and exclusion. We need the social histories that tell of macro changes that help us understand, no, feel each others’ individual lives. And vice versa. We could benefit from seeing our individual lives and the suffering as part of a macro social pathology (and not individual pathology).
Wilkerson, is the author of The Warmth of Other Suns (2011), a forthcoming new book, Caste (2020), and a recent NYT op-ed (that I’ve linked in a previous post). She has been thinking a lot about caste systems… as a vehicle for understanding the stubborn and durable parts that sustain our lack of empathy toward the other. Caste systems are, in theory, should be at odds with liberalism. But those are liberalism’s words, not hers.
As a zen student, I have sometimes heard teachers claim the Buddha rejected the caste system in India, and hence, Buddhism is sometimes heralded as a liberation faith that is, in theory, an equality based faith. Rather than debate the particulars, I wonder here if our claims about equality of all being ring hollow given the current moment?
Wilkerson, in her discussion with Krista Tippet, says, “the heart is the last frontier” and “we are in a spiritual crisis.” More on this in another post.
I have jumped around in these posts. Forgive me for not being linear in presentation.
HBO’s The Watchmen (2019), is an award winning series, a tale roughly based on the DC comic of same name. The show is a re-telling of the Tulsa Massacre from a future that is unexpected, and, that future asks us to enlarge/remake how think about policing, lynching, fear, racial violence, and history/time. The show demands our thinking/feeling body to understand history, terror, and heroes.