#8: on taking pains to care
Good morning,
It’s June. It’s hard to access the words I want to share today.
This past one has been a powerful week in America, one that has shown me that we can no longer distract ourselves from looking at life—and what we try to use to justify death or disrespect—squarely in the face. I think there is a way to make our positive impulses stronger than our negative, each day, step by step.
Brief thoughts from my journal:
So encouraged by the responsibility so many people in my life are taking to care for each other and take action, despite the pain of it. I’ve seen other things, too, and I understand why poison comes out of people’s lives, but I’m choosing to focus on what I can build on and learn at this time, starting by caring for the people in front of me.
Lots going on on social media. It’s remarkable what the differences in narrative, emotion, and action are, between that which is born from 48 hours of social media and that which is born from 48 hours of sustained dialogue with specific individuals. Incredibly grateful to be able to learn, process, dialogue and take care together with my Buddhist community at this time.
The solidarity at the heart of the protests in my city (New York) has been so encouraging. The violence being exploited around them and through them (hearing and seeing it each night through my windows) is gut-wrenching.
Many wonderful resources have been compiled and shared online this week specifically about race, justice, self-reflection and healing. I’ll share as I work through them. But in this moment, I’ve been focusing on dialoguing with the people in my life first, because they are people, not books.
Thinking about how pain is defined. Here are two definitions, and a small poem.
And here’s something that stood out to me most on social media from Andréa Ranae because it resonated with my wish for justice to be something we fight for all the time, and that fight needs to be built on a solid foundation, which is unique for each of us:
Whenever an event of violence toward black folks gets a lot of press and media attention, I get an influx of followers who have been sent my way due to the nature of my work. I can make an educated guess that a majority of those people immediately followed me without looking at any/much of my content to see if there’s resonance. Nothing’s wrong with that, but I just wanna give you a run down so you can make sure you’re in the right place.
I’m not interested in giving you answers to the questions that so many of us are asking right now. Your contribution, what you can do to make the world a better place, how you should show up in the world, figuring out what the right thing to do is, how to avoid doing harm, etc. I have thoughts, ideas, decisions I’ve made, observations and experiential and academic knowledge, but what I’m most interested in is supporting people who wish to change the world in finding their own unique way based on their integrity, power, social positioning, gifts/skills, community and vision.
I don’t believe there is a right way for you to be in the world, but I do know that every decision you (and I) make comes with consequences and we are responsible (able to respond) to those.
I don’t believe that you can shame and punish yourself and others into liberation. And I know that it’s all a practice.
Instead of taking in everything I post as absolute truth and then obligating or coercing yourself into self-inquiry and changing what you’re doing (cause I know some of y’all be doing that shit), I have a want that you put some space between input/output and just bring some attention to how you feel or what your reaction/response is before putting that energy into action. It’s no fun when y’all use my content to reenact the toxic, abusive and dehumanizing ideas/ways of being that much of work is meant to uproot, dismantle, heal and transform. Just a suggestion.
Jihii