Suddenly, hate speech, racism, and hateful, rage filled people dominate the nation’s attention. Truly, people who hate are strong evidence that what our thoughts dwell on is who we become.  If we fill our minds with hate, sooner or later we’ll act out of hate. Likewise, if we ignore the suffering that’s all around us, or if we blame the suffering for their condition, we become cognitively callow and our hearts grow callused. Yet we can vow to dwell on good intentions.  We can take action.

Seeing Hate and Suffering

Of course, there is nothing new about the blossoming, florid, white-supremacist hate that’s recently leaped fully formed into our everyday, white, middle-class consciousness. No, nothing new.  It’s simply been invisible to many us, if not to most of us.  But now, after a 45- year hiatus, American race-hate is once again rudely, and violently, and insistently visible to any one willing to see.

Of course, Black Americans and all people of color in our country are mostly not at all surprised by recent events.  After all, Black Americans  have known and feared and fought, this white- supremacist hate and violence up close and intimately for centuries.

The Long March of White-Supremacy

If one doubts the virulence or prevalence of white-supremacist hate in American culture and history,  please pursue the following link.  But be warned, along with excellent commentary about the photography, the attached link shows startlingly graphic depictions of lynchings replete with crowds of ordinary whites celebrating lynchings in photographs and in postcards that, not so very long ago, circulated about this country through the U.S. Mail.  withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

Historically, white skin has afforded the majority of Americans many privileges, not least of which is freedom from race-hate and the luxury of being able to turn a blind eye to ongoing oppression, even when it strikes people of color or the poor near-at-hand.  But people of color have not enjoyed the luxury and safety and freedom from hate that white skin generally affords.

What if we Refuse to See?

Remember Eric Garner?  The New York Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that Garner’s death was a homicide.  Daniel Pantaleo is the police officer who placed Garner in the choke hold. The choke hold crushed Garner’s wind pipe. Nevertheless, Pantaleo was never even charged with a crime.   And though the murder of Eric Garner was capture on video, and streamed on social media, few in white America were shaken.

This link to a video from The Guardian also contains graphic content. You might remember. It shows the murder of Eric Garner, in broad daylight, on a New York City Street: theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/dec/04/i-cant-breathe-eric-garner-chokehold-death-video

Making a Commitment to Clear Seeing and Action

The forms of Buddhism I admire and practice teach me to pay attention, not only to how my actions impact myself and others. They also teach me to see how what I ignore has personal and social consequences. In Buddhism, this tendency to ignore is called delusion. And, I have to say, I tend to be easily deluded about the suffering of others.

Of course, delusion is a natural human propensity. We avoid and ignore suffering because it hurts to pay attention.  We’re averse to seeing the suffering of others because it painful to witness.  Our hearts are so very naturally tender and raw.  We’d all rather take what seems like the easier path, the one requiring less tenderness, awareness, imagination and courage. But this delusion means that by choosing to ignore suffering, in this specific case, the suffering of Black America under white-supremacist hate, suffering can intensify and spread.  And, by ignoring suffering, I’m choosing to dwell in a world that’s not whole, a world that’s not real.

What’s more, overtime, without some kind of shock to my system, a shock like Charlottesville, I become more and more accustomed to dwelling in fantasy–to ignoring racism and suffering–to ignoring even my own suffering caused by numbing out to the suffering of others.  By ignoring suffering, by pretending the world here and beyond the horizon is other than it actually is, I cripple my own compassion and humanity—and my delusion gives space to hate.

We Can Get Real

Rather than pretend, the Buddha got real about life.  His life and teachings inspire my attempts to get real about my own life. They inspire me to live with more imagination, courage, love, and clear seeing.  One specific way I’ve used to get real in life is to take vows. And to take vows means to sometimes renew them.  That is, to consciously commit to center my life around noble commitments, intentions, and actions.

During the period in my life when I was a younger, more energized and connected activist, I used to regularly reflect on and commit to Thich Nhat Hanh’s Fourteen Precepts of Engaged Buddhism. Here is the Forth of the Fourteen precepts. It’s immediately relevant to delusion.

4. Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images, and sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.

Today, I recommit to the Fourteen Precepts of Engaged Buddhism. You might benefit from reading and reflecting on these precepts. Especially if you’re feeling adrift and fearful in these troubled, hate filled times,   Do the precepts make sense?  Are you inspired to live a more imaginative, courageous, directed and purposeful life when you reflect on them? Anyone can reflect on them.  You don’t have to be a Buddhist.  I invite you to do so.

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-fourteen-precepts-of-engaged-buddhism/

Here is a link to a relevant post on this site: sweepingheartzen.org/working-meditation-anger-suffering/