“Buddhism as a Path of Trauma Resilience for Anti-Racism Activists” - Yetunde
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“Buddhism as a Path of Trauma Resilience for Anti-Racism Activists” – Yetunde
Introduction -
Central to the many ways Buddhism is understood is the achievement of emotional, mental, and psychological wellness. -
African Americans are at perpetual risk of psychological imbalance and trauma due to the
social realities of racism in the United States. o
What could Buddhism offer African Americans who want to be emotionally resilient in a context they cannot singlehandedly change?
-
Many African Americans who grew up learning little about Buddhism (and perhaps mostly associated it with Asians or with white Americans) may find it surprising to think of Buddhism as pertinent to their lives and struggles
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Buddhism emerged from a caste-oriented culture in which a powerful man of color renounced his power, woke up to his delusions, grew in compassion, and committed himself to teaching a way of life for all to awaken
o
In other words, Buddhism is a path to de-caste or decolonize one’s mind while simultaneously helping oneself build resilience against trauma.
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More than twenty-five hundred years ago, near what is now the border of India and Nepal, a system of mental wellness was being developed to support oppressed people’s desire to live with more freedom, happiness, and balance. o
The system is now called the Noble Eightfold Path -
To understand the path, it helps to understand the four conclusions the economically and politically privileged Siddhartha Gautama (the historical man of color who became known as the Buddha, “the awakened one”) came to after years of undertaking ascetic practices to try to avoid human frailty:
o
1. Suffering is real and shared throughout humanity.
o
2. There are discernable causes for this suffering.
o
3. These causes can be transformed and terminated.
o
4. The way to transform and terminate the causes is through the path.”
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This fourfold formula is known in Buddhism as the Four Noble Truths, referred to as Truths hereafter. o
The last Truth is divided into an eight-part system: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration
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In this introduction, we describe what each aspect of the Eightfold Path means, and can mean, for African Americans as they engage in anti-racist work and in the necessary struggle to maintain their own well-being.
What does it mean to be noble and right?
-
Siddhartha Gautama (also referred to as Shakyamuni Buddha in some Buddhist traditions
—there are many) was born into a ruling caste and family. To be of a ruling caste means you are, conventionally speaking, considered “noble
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The formerly noble Buddha proclaimed that nobility is not about caste but is about how one lives one’s life to awaken from ignorance, hatred, and greed.
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Nobility, in the Buddhist sense, means releasing ourselves from the social constructs that blind us to the truth, positioning ourselves to receive the truth, accept the truth, and learn
to live equanimously with the truth. But what is “Right” about this for African American activists engaged in anti-racism work?
o
Africans that were kidnapped, tortured, enslaved, and extracted from their families, neighbors, territories, countries, and continent had countless lies violently imposed on them for four hundred years. o
What were those lies? o
The lies included: Africans are not human beings; Africans are on Earth to serve Europeans; African slaves are three-fifths of a person; Africans can endure the pain and suffering of slavery; African women and men do not suffer dehumanization from being raped and abused by European men; Africans pollute Europeans; Europeans are more intelligent than Africans; and so on.
o
African American nobility, as informed by a Buddhist perspective, means releasing ourselves from the racist social constructs that blind us to the truth of our humanity, positioning ourselves to receive the truth of our humanity, accept our humanity, and learn to live equanimously with the truth of our humanity in a society that still questions it.
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Understanding the Noble Eightfold Path often begins with understanding Right View. o
Right View is concerned with how we understand phenomena.
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Having experienced meditation and having grown up in the United States, a Western country that celebrates dualism (the separation of things into parts), we understand Right View can only be achieved through “the mind of meditation. o
This meditated mind is less divided, experiences interconnection with phenomena, is not engaged in hardening ego constructions, experiences the impermanence of perspectives and frames of perception, and is not clinging to or craving anything.
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Right Intention means cultivating the mind in such a way that when negative intentions arise, we note them through mindfulness of the mind. o
We then use compassion meditation practices in Right Action such as lovingkindness and tonglen (Tibetan for “sending and receiving”) to reverse the impulse to inflict harm.
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Clinging to negative intentions (even if we intend not to act on them) inflicts pain and suffering onto our consciousness.
o
Therefore, African American Buddhist practitioners work to release ourselves from negative intentions. o
In the US context, we must ask ourselves if we have unconsciously identified with
the negative ideas, images, and associations white society has projected onto us. -
We must check if we harbor generational rage against white people for centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, police brutality, injustice, and mass incarceration. -
Why does our society find it necessary to imprison and disenfranchise as many African Americans as possible? o
Is it the case that, driven by the massive scale of unconscious white fear, white folks believe that we, the ancestors of slaves, are planning a long-overdue revolt?
o
We can choose, with justification, to be constantly enraged, but isn’t that just another form of imprisonment? o
Why give oppression the satisfaction of enslaving our minds to the grip of suffering?
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Anti-racism activists need to speak the truth of our experiences without adding to our suffering. o
Practicing Right Speech helps.
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Right Speech is a concept we are already familiar with; we all know the power words hold to either cause harm to people or to uplift them.
o
These insults, from people who are positioned to nurture us, adhere to our evolving sense of self and become part of the self-effacing narratives that we unconsciously and consciously carry into other relationships.
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Right Speech, from a Buddhist perspective, not only includes refraining from speech intended to harm oneself and others but also includes cultivating skills of speech that are nurturing, supportive, and inspiring.
o
In fact, Right Speech informs how to address injustice with the Right View of nondualism and the Right Intention of nonharming. -
Right Speech is also supported by wisdom, knowing there is a time and place for saying what needs to be said and to whom it needs to be said. o
Right Speech can be understood more broadly as Right Communication, which includes communicating compassionately, honestly, in a timely manner, with no intention to harm—be it through mail, email, text, social media, emojis, or body language.
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What we say, what we do, what we don’t say, and what we don’t do all have consequences, be they positive, negative, mixed, or neutral. o
Since Buddhism is the path of nonharming, it encourages the use of mindfulness to bring present-time awareness to our environment -
When we locate an impulse to cause harm, we refrain from intentionally harming by cultivating Right Intention.
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Furthermore, Right View helps us grow in wisdom so we can better predict how our actions might affect others and ourselves. -
Right Action, for activists, can mean the difference between life and death. o
When we are confronted by a police officer, we know that virtually any movement can result in the officer shooting us dead. o
We’ve been taught to be extra careful about our actions so as not to provoke the police to act violently.
o
This is our heartbreaking reality, but it is not a reality we have to lose our minds and hearts over. o
Practicing meditation helps us to increase our awareness, slow down our aggression, hasten our empathy, and promote our creativity and civility in the midst of being threatened—even in the midst of our activism.
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A question Black Buddhists ponder is o
“What is Right Action when confronted by a violent racist?” o
Our actions are not just about our own self-preservation but also about the well-
being of those around us, including violent perpetrators.
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We know that hatred does not transform hatred, only love does that. o
Right Action, at its core, is love. -
We live in a capitalist society.
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o
Capitalism includes not only creativity and freedom but also exploitation, poverty,
classism, caste designations, racism, sexism (and other “isms” related to sex and gender)
o
Conversely, capitalism allows for lengthened lifespans for poor people when wealth is shared. -
Right Livelihood, another path element, means not making money in a way that harms others.
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How do we do this in a capitalist system and also survive as whole, spiritually integrated, nonexploitative, generous, and constructive human beings? o
We can begin by examining if and how greed operates in our lives. o
Capitalism can breed greed if we have the wrong view that possessing a multitude
of things, or having much more money than we need, brings real security and real joy. -
Studies have shown that in the United States, being rich does not make one happy and does not promote mental, emotional, or psychological security. -
Having been the objects of capitalism and exploited as property, Black people through the
generations, ironically, have created a collective psychological defense against the vulnerability of being seen as financially insecure. o
Some of us have come to value things that don’t bring lasting joy.
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Right Livelihood is not the pursuit of greed and has no interest in impressing others with material excess.
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Have you ever pursued the right thing, but went about it the wrong way? o
Maybe you were advocating for justice while also demonizing others? -
If you understand that you cannot control others’ perceptions and you stop trying to do so, then you are engaging in Right Effort.
o
What makes such an effort “Right” is the intention to do no harm.
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African Americans, especially those who have been driven to succeed in our capitalist society, have lived the maxim “Be twice as good as the next white person.”
o
How many of us have taken this maxim to heart, impacting the health of our hearts? o
Heart disease, trauma, and many other ailments are rampant in our community, not because we are Black but because we have tried to survive and thrive in a racist system that has required us to work harder—like in slavery, but as free people. -
Maybe the delusion that Buddhism addresses for Black people is that our collective consciousness remains enslaved. o
But enslaved to what, this time?
o
We are enslaved by habits of our unexamined minds.
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African Americans live the reality of racist oppression in a capitalist society wherein we compete against non-Black people for just about everything. o
Fortunately, for many, the competition is “friendly.” o
There is enough food and water, but there is not enough healthy, affordable food in most neighborhoods, and the water is cleaner in some neighborhoods and more polluted in others. ”
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Our “news” comes from a variety of sources, whether invited or intrusive, and is available on countless channels twenty-four hours a day, every day.
o
And so, amidst these realities of racism, competition, and constant stimulation, we
become enslaved to mental habits of distraction
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What do these external, social realities distract us from? o
They distract us from our own internal processes. -
Right Mindfulness, another Path element, is the choice to bring awareness to every aspect
of ourselves that we can bring our attention to. -
Why would we want to pay close attention to ourselves when we’ve grown up with so many messages telling us that we are not even worthy of others paying attention to us?
o
We exist. o
Our existence is a miracle. o
Miracles are worthy of being witnessed. -
In Right Mindfulness, we observe how our thoughts come and go, how we make meaning
of this life, how we get deluded, and also how we experience freedom from delusion.
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How do we turn our attention toward ourselves?
o
One way to start is to begin making more discerning choices about what we take in. o
When we hear something that we know is gossip, we can begin renouncing any interest in the subject matter.
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We may have to learn how to be displeasing when we tell others we are no longer engaging in what we used to engage in, but it is more important for us to have self-
knowledge than to have questionable information about people who probably have not consented to having their stories told to us.
o
Does it really help others to indulge in constant venting without sharing wisdom and skills on how to transform their suffering? o
When we’ve cleared some space for reflection and contemplation and when we’ve skillfully let our gossip and venting partners know we are limiting our intake to pay better attention to ourselves, then we can practice Right Mindfulness
regularly
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On the Path to reduce our suffering, African American activists doing anti-racism work may consider the twenty-first century as our Universal Renaissance in Black Self-
Knowledge.
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Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, and Right Mindfulness are powerful philosophies and practices that go far toward liberation from the delusion that we “are not fully human, or are unworthy of respect, or are criminally minded people. o
However, without Right Concentration, the last Path element, the transformation is not anchored in the base of consciousness and is thus at risk of being merely cognitive, not transformative at the embodied level, and hence behaviorally superficial.
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In Right Concentration: o
The first stage is when the meditator practices returning their attention to the object of meditation and has some “success” keeping their mind focused on that object, with pleasant feelings accompanying the sustained focus. o
The second stage is marked by the cessation of attempts to bring attention to the meditation object.
The effort is effortless.
As effort subsides, all that is felt is happiness or joy. o
The third stage is the effortless cessation of happiness and the arising of equanimity.
o
The fourth stage is the end of the awareness of equanimity, though equanimity remains, effortlessly
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In short, Right Concentration is being in a deepening meditative state. o
For the initiate, it can be terrifying because it requires the voluntary renunciation of habituated activities, people, places, customs, and comforts while embracing meditative immersion for hours, days, weeks, months, or years at a time.
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It is helpful when experiments in Right Concentration are supported by experienced meditation teachers and students and are hosted in places that have a long history of hosting meditation retreats.
o
Long meditation retreats evoke mental and emotional vulnerability because returning to one’s object of meditation over and over again can trigger traumas, known and unknown.
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In addition, mindfulness teachings should not be brought to people in psychotic states because such teachings are likely to exacerbate the psychosis.
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Why would an African American anti-racism activist want to experience Right Concentration? o
If we were willing to momentarily experience ourselves without traumatized history—without the constructs of race, ethnicity, gender, and religion and without preferences and desires, fears and terrors, anger and rage—imagine how much freedom there may be.
o
Put another way, Right Concentration may heal our wounded self-perception as being disconnected, segregated, Jim Crowed, and imprisoned.
What’s trauma got to do with it?
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There are many definitions for trauma, but one that stands out comes from Dr. Bessel van
der Kolk. o
He writes, “Trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.”
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This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human manages to survive.
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Based on this belief, we encourage ourselves and our clients, students, and fellow activists to dispense with the pretense of having to appear as if we have everything under control. o
Why? o
Right View reminds us of the truth: we all are vulnerable to trauma at any time.
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Trauma can be present in our day-to-day lives. o
The deaths of loved ones, job losses, divorces, and public disasters can all be experienced as traumatic. o
Trauma can also happen from an event in the past; sexual abuses, illnesses, and losses of close relatives can contribute to the trauma-induced cognitive imprint that impairs our functioning. -
And, as if our personal existences were not complicated enough, as Black folks, we can be traumatically affected by the experience of historical racism
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Being traumatized influences the way we react to the ordinary and unusual challenges in our lives. o
When we experience something unpleasant or uninvited, we can become angry, frustrated, and scared. We may worry about how to handle any number of situations
o
When we experience something unpleasant or uninvited, we are often actually responding to the memory of old traumas. o
But our response to the situation or circumstance at hand can be inappropriate, leaving us and others confused. -
Coupling van der Kolk’s definition of trauma with a Buddhist understanding of what it means to be human, we arrive at the proposition that when we are not effectively managing the traumas we experience, we are suffering
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Right Action includes self-care. -
The most obvious manifestation of the trauma of being alive is evident in the high levels of anxiety we see everywhere in society: homes, schools, colleges, workplaces, hospitals,
traffic, buses, grocery stores, and coffee shops.
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Dr. Joy DeGruy, the author of the groundbreaking book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, traces the history of Black trauma in America and how this trauma has been passed down from generation to generation. o
DeGruy believes Black people inherit intergenerational trauma and thus experience anxiety in every facet of their daily lives
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We all suffer from some form of cognitive imprints that leave us unable to see reality for what it is, and our resistance to understanding and accepting the trauma of being alive keeps us endlessly running like caged hamsters on a wheel. o
In Buddhism, we call this samsara—the endless cycle of suffering. o
From the perspective of Right Effort, running like hamsters in a wheel in a cage doesn’t produce enlightenment, just samsara. o
What are we to do to get off the wheel and out of the cage?
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More than twenty-five hundred years ago, the Buddha offered us a way off the wheel and out of the cage, breaking the samsaric cycle toward enlightenment. o
How? o
We return to the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. o
In the First Noble Truth, we are reminded that no matter what we do to avoid suffering, life involves suffering.
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Gautama’s (Buddha’s) trauma disoriented him and triggered a spiritual crisis in his own life. His life-altering experience led him away from wealth into the poverty of the forest to reflect on how to end suffering, which became the foundational experiences for developing the Four Noble Truths
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The cost of caring is high for caregivers. o
The terms “vicarious trauma” or “secondary trauma” refer to the emotional residue that caregivers experience when they listen to people’s stories and they bear witness to the pain, fear, and terror of others.
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If the suffering of trauma is our shared reality, how do we best live in this reality with resilience?
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She identified the consequences of trauma exposure for caregivers as follows: an inability
to empathize, addiction, an inflated sense of the importance of one’s work, feeling
helpless or hopeless, a sense that one can never do enough, hypervigilance, diminished creativity, an inability to embrace complexity, minimizing the painful and debilitating effects of chronic exhaustion or physical ailments, an inability to listen or deliberate avoidance, dissociative moments, and a sense of persecution, guilt, fear, anger, or cynicism.
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We have also seen the consequences of trauma exposure in African American anti-racism activists. -
How can resiliency be cultivated in this toxic mixture? o
Van Dernoot Lipsky designed the Five Directions, a navigational tool that engages
caregivers in various contexts in building our capacity for trauma stewardship. o
Each direction provides space for reflection about our intentions and is consistent with the Noble Eightfold Path.
Creating Space for Inquiry: focusing on the present and understanding our intention.
“How do I come to this work?”
“Remind yourself that you are making a choice.
Consider whether this choice is in the best interest of serving others.
This is Right Intention.
Choosing Our Focus: shifting our perspective to rediscover our inspiration
and passion.
“How am I affected by it?”
Think of a challenging work situation.
Commit to one day of paying attention to the thoughts that flow through your mind.
Notice whether those thoughts are positive, loving, or kind.
This is Right Mindfulness.
Building Compassion and Community: creating and connecting to an environment that sustains us.
“How do I make sense of and learn from my experience?”
Ask yourself how your ancestors or benefactors found healing.
Will some of their practices be useful for you?
Reflect on the unconditional love you receive from your ancestors or benefactors.
This is Right View.
Finding Balance: achieving balance and moving energy through reconnecting to inner strength, honoring, change, and impermanence.
“How do I manage my trauma exposure?”
Commit to using deep breathing to ground yourself.
Write a daily gratitude page in a journal.
This is Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.
Daily Practice of Centering Ourselves: shifting our practice of caregiving over time.
“What can I put down?”
Set an intention for the day.
Arguably, being centered daily is the whole of the Buddhist practice.”
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Activists and caregivers need a rigorous and consistent practice to create self-
compassion, openness, equanimity, and resiliency.
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We live in a culture that finds the trauma of being alive challenging. o
Television and social media provide ways to live in a fantasy with endless promises of beauty, success, money, health, power, food, and clothing. o
Nothing short of paradise.
o
But we must commit ourselves to living lives of resiliency. o
How?
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In brief, mindfulness is nonjudgmental awareness of one’s body, feelings, breath, and thoughts. o
In Vipassana meditation, the meditator focuses on an object of meditation that the meditator returns to repeatedly for long periods of time. o
No self (a concept with many definitions, some contradictory and controversial) means interdependency.
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It also means “no soul” according to how the ancient Vedic traditions understood the connection between certain human beings and their creator-God.
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Based on our clinical and personal Buddhist practice experiences, we’d like to think that no self does not mean no animating energy within the body. o
In other words, we believe energy is embodied. -
The soul that is grounded has a mixture of imagination for a better world, ethical commitments to the well-being of one’s self and others, courage, and a willingness to experience unpleasant sensations (trauma) in one’s body to bring about a new world. o
This grounded soul is in the body and is the body. -
According to the research referenced in this chapter, mindfulness, meditation, and no self,
as interdependent concepts, contribute to resiliency in our relationships—even with people unlike ourselves.”
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As you contemplate being in relationship with people you do not like and don’t like you, notice if there is any tension in your body. o
Breathe in and breathe out three times, noticing when you are breathing in and when you are breathing out. o
This is the simple practice of being mindful of the breath.”
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We have found that people are better able to be with people who are peaceful than those who are anxious. o
That probably comes as no surprise. o
A peaceful countenance nonverbally invites others to be themselves and in being one’s self in the presence of another, one learns who they are without the threat of being judged.”
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It is here you might ask, “How can I be myself when you say there is no Self?”
o
The definition of No Self, for purposes of this chapter, means soul and interdependence. o
We did not come into being by our own volition, we do not exist by our own volition, nor do we go out of existence by our own volition.
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o
In the cosmos, we are permeable transmuting infinitesimal, and vulnerable particles, and when we understand ourselves as such, we can begin to release delusions about each one of us being rugged, self-reliant individuals able to change the world all by ourselves.
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Our grounded soul is grounded in a connected collective—and that is what makes it boundless.
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Paradoxically, African American anti-racism activists who are in the fight for our lives, our dignity, and our world will have to stop fighting—for moments at a time, sometimes even for long moments. o
We will have to trust that when we are not fighting, someone else is. o
We don’t always know who the warriors are, what their tactics are, or how long they will fight, but we do know that if we don’t cultivate peace of mind in the midst of external strife, we will do the opponent’s job for them.
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There is a trauma of being alive and there is a trauma of being alive while Black. o
These traumas, when unmanaged, get tangled with the traumas in society and within the people we advocate and care for.
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Past unmanaged traumas leave imprints and distort Right View, leaving us and others confused about why we say and do what we do when what we say and what we do doesn’t match the situation at hand.