Ferguson

It’s so easy to limit the definition of mindfulness to an avenue towards finding inner peace and well-being. While that’s true, it doesn’t end there.

The requirement of true mindfulness does not afford us the luxury of camping out within the gated privacy of our own hearts and minds. It requires us to include what’s happening outside of ourselves, and little-by-little, that means everything.

So today I am writing about the difficult and painful, about a different kind of climate disruption. Think of Michael Brown, James Foley and Trayvon Martin, that so many marginalized people only have access to the worst food, the dirtiest water, substandard education and healthcare, run-down homes (if they have homes at all), that our prisons are bursting with unprecedented numbers of young African American men, the militarization of our police, that racial profiling is real, and I cannot leave out the polar bears, butterflies and bees.

When I think about the myriad causes and conditions that were present for Michael Brown to have been killed in Ferguson, I can imagine the fear, pain, distrust, anger and resentment that created a big gaping wound of profound suffering. As I’ve watched the footage of the protests, the wound is obvious and palpable. No imagination is necessary. When we see this kind of pain, really take it in, we cannot unsee it. How it got there is probably ancient and not such ancient history; traceable and untraceable, knowable and unknowable.

In light of these terrifying and deeply disturbing events, I want to talk about morality from the Buddhist perspective. This perspective gives me hope and it gives me something I can do. It helps to transform my sense of helplessness and restores my balance. I’m not giving you a lecture in morality, I promise.

In Buddhist practice there are lists for everything. The Paramis, translated as the Perfections of the Heart is one such list. Generosity is the first and Morality is next. Morality is also addressed directly through Wise Action in the Eightfold Path, another foundational list. The bottom line is that we’re asked to live a life of non-harming, but how we define non-harming is different from one person to the next, from one community to the next, and from country to the next.

Here are the five guidelines the Buddha taught for lay practitioners like us that define non-harming, and set the intention for living a moral life.

1.       Protect life by not killing anything that breathes

2.     Be generous with our resources and do not taking anything that hasn’t been freely or directly given

3.     Respect our bodies by not using sexuality in a way that harms or exploits ourselves or others

4.     Take care in how we speak to others, guiding our language to be kind, truthful, useful and appropriate. Having good timing may be the most crucial of all. How many times have we said something truthful, useful and kind, but our timing was so off that what we said had nowhere to land or caused unintended consequences?

5.     Maintaining a clear mind by not using substances to the extent that it causes heedlessness

What I appreciate about these guidelines is that they’re offered as a practice. Perfection is not required. The Buddha also points out through these guidelines that by protecting myself, I protect others and by protecting others, I protect myself. This, too, is a practice that’s worth thinking about.

I am under no illusion that by trying to live a moral life that violence, racism, and poverty will end. But if I end it in me, and you end it in you, we’ll have a little more peace.

Rules of the Game

Nearly 20 years ago my nieces Zoe and Marlee came to visit us in rural northern California from their home in suburban Chicago. At the time they were little girls, ages 5 and 3, and our kids were 6 and 7, so it was a full house of fun little kids. One night as we sat down for dinner I asked everyone to put their napkins in their laps. I’ll never forget the look on Zoe’s face, age 5, when she looked me square in the eye and stated clearly and emphatically “We don’t put napkins in laps in my neighborhood!”

* * * * * * *

Last week I played a new card game with 34 other mindfulness teachers and facilitators. We split into seven groups of five. At the outset each group was given the rules of the game, which included playing in silence, though gestures and drawing pictures were allowed. After each round of five hands, those who’d won and lost the most hands moved onto other predetermined groups, and play resumed with the newly assembled groups.

It wasn’t long before big waves of gesturing and lots of looks of confusion and annoyance filled the room. And then the muffled laughter began to ripple out as we all realized that each of the original groups had been given varying sets of rules. The collective knowledge was unnerving, confusing, frustrating, challenging, intriguing and because it was a game, comical. One person even stood up in the middle of her group, incredulous, hands on her hips and said “They changed the f*#%@^g rules!”

We all know that everything changes, that life is challenging for everyone, and on some level we understand that everything depends on everything else. But until we’re forced, we don’t really know it in our bones. A sudden or serious illness, the death of someone we love, an unexpected loss of a job, or the fires burning northern California this summer, these get our attention and we begin to get it. Hardship brings it close, much closer than when things are going well.

The card game brought us all to the edge of our comfort. Issues of fairness, equality, communication, competition and culture were right there, palpable and sticky. Who was right? Was anyone wrong? How do we proceed when there is no level playing field?

We think we know the rules, the social and emotional norms of our families, communities, and those of the wider culture.  Imagine being the only person of your skin color, heritage or gender in a crowded room with others who not only look nothing like you, but know the world from entirely different sets of guidelines. What is that like? We cannot possibly know what it’s really like for anyone else. And what about varying rules around language, money and education?

If it were only as simple as what to do with our napkins.

Five Dollar Bills

Six or seven years ago I heard a story on the radio about a woman who saved all of the $5 bills she received in tips from her waitressing job. At the end of each shift, she dutifully put the bills in a special place for safe keeping. In the beginning, her intention was to simply save enough money to buy a CD and earn some interest in a safe and predictable way. It didn’t take her too long to buy her first one, and she realized she enjoyed the self-imposed savings challenge and that it would actually pay off. So she kept it up.

When the first CD matured, instead of cashing it in and enjoying the added bonus of the interest it earned, she reinvested it all into a new one. And, she continued to buy new CD’s as her stash of $5 bills grew. She kept up this savings plan for a five years, and at the end had saved $12,000.

I was so inspired by this story that I decided to take up the challenge and start saving all of my $5 bills, too. But I’m not a waitress and don’t receive cash as part of my regular compensation, so I knew my savings would be a lot smaller. When I began this savings plan, I found a special secret place in my house to keep the bills, did not tell my husband where it was, and much sooner than I expected, I had $100. 

I will admit that over my own five years of savings, I did not invest in CD’s and turn the original $100 into $12,000. I used the money for special things like my now beloved red reading chair, airplane tickets to visit my kids, and spending money for travel.

And then I heard the story about a woman who on her way to Berkeley from the East Coast was given a fat sealed envelope by a friend just before she left. The envelope was stuffed with $20 bills. The friend asked the woman to give the money away to the homeless people she passed on the street.

I started to imagine what it must have been like to give those bills away, the look on people’s faces, the feeling in the hearts of both the giver and the receiver at the precise moment the money was given, whether or not they could look into each other’s eyes in recognition of their shared humanity.  And I started to think about my $5 bill stash and whether or not I could give it away.

The Buddha gave some very pithy instructions about generosity, instructions that have really sunk into my thinking. He said generosity brings happiness in three ways: 1^st, in the initial thought to be generous, 2^nd, in the actual giving, and 3^rd in remembering our generous acts.

As I thought about whether or not to give the $5 bills away, I decided not to think about it for too long. My initial impulse to give the money away just felt right, and over the next couple of months I gave the bills to people on the street. While some moments were a little uncomfortable, I found it one of the more directly satisfying ways of expressing generosity. 

My stash is gone now and I have not yet replenished it, but when I think about the experience of handing an unsuspecting person a five, it does make me happy.