My meditation practice and study of the Dharma help me
approach pain in a way that I find useful. Humans have aversion to pain and so
we scramble to avoid it using every trick in the book! These include
self-delusion, justification, projection, blame and evasion. Sadly, these
strategies for avoiding our pain often just add layers of pain and obscure
reality.
This dynamic is especially evident when white people are
confronted with the depth and breadth of the impact of racism on People of
Color and when we begin to understand that we are complicit in the system that
perpetuates it. I think somewhere we know that if we let that understanding
motivate us, we will have to stand up and fight against it – and risk our own
safety.
Meditation practice teaches a way to sit with pain
(including fear) without the narrative or “story line” attached. That helps to
override the urge to escape the pain and helps me to learn from it instead. Over
time this helps me uncover the “truth beneath the pain.”
In response to the group work mentioned above, I am still
sitting with the feelings that got stirred up – but some things are starting to
emerge:
The People of Color in that room are all people that I have
long admired and really care about. Not only did I see how deeply racism hurts
them on a daily basis (something that is different as an intellectual
understanding than it is when you are looking at the pain in the eyes of a
friend), I also realized on a new level that I am an unwilling, unwitting
delivery system for some of that pain, even though I have been working hard to
be an ally for almost 30 years! I don’t want to hurt my friends, yet I do and I
will. This is a heart-breaking realization.
During the Circle one Black man said he would like to ask
white people, “When did you learn that if you try to interfere with the racist
system, you will be killed?” This question really resonated with me, too. I think that I grew up knowing that on some
level.
I am also seeing some unaware assumptions that I had start
to crumble. For one thing, I realize that I had assumed that my advocacy and
commitment to learning about and fighting racism could somehow provide a sense
of hope for my friends and colleagues of Color. After the recent Circle, this
seems self-aggrandizing and not relevant to a struggle for human rights. Yet I
still wish that somehow I could lessen the pain I saw in their eyes.
I've heard it said that the language of race is broken. It sure feels
like that whenever I try to talk about it. But it needs to be talked about anyway
– which means there will be pain. Or rather, it means that the pain that exists
will be uncovered and, I hope, used to discover wise action.
I know what I get out of being involved in Talking Circles.
It’s not comfortable, but it is extremely useful. I wonder what People of Color
get out of them? Why should POC have to hear white people deconstruct their own
racism – isn’t this adding to the hurt that POC already carry?
There is so much more work for me to do to unpack and
process all that has been uncovered. I am aware of wanting to go into my
intellect and design solutions or evaluate and figure things out. Lately, the
most authentic discoveries I have made have been out of a very vulnerable, open
place where I just sit with and breathe into the pain until I discover the
truth that lives there. Then more authentic action can follow.
