Race is Not Tangential to Meditation | Rhonda V. Magee

WEBVTT
1
00:00:02.459 --> 00:00:09.589
From ABC, this is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, guys.
2
00:00:09.689 --> 00:00:12.689
Of course it is great to become better at meditation
3
00:00:13.189 --> 00:00:16.629
on the cushion to have your practice improve over time.
4
00:00:17.030 --> 00:00:20.809
That's not the real point. As Sharon Salzberg, the great
5
00:00:21.170 --> 00:00:23.879
meditation teacher, has said, the point of meditation is not
6
00:00:23.890 --> 00:00:26.019
to become a better meditator per se. It's to become
7
00:00:26.059 --> 00:00:29.550
a better person, to get better at your life. And,
8
00:00:29.589 --> 00:00:32.049
you know, I often for myself describe it as just becoming,
9
00:00:32.070 --> 00:00:35.070
you know, less of a moron. And so the point
10
00:00:35.109 --> 00:00:38.009
is to get up from meditation from one minute, two minutes,
11
00:00:38.049 --> 00:00:40.590
five minutes, 20 minutes, whatever you're doing, and then put
12
00:00:40.609 --> 00:00:42.990
it to test in the real world with other human beings.
13
00:00:43.049 --> 00:00:45.130
How are you doing at the DMV? How are you
14
00:00:45.149 --> 00:00:48.990
doing at the office? That's why on this show, we
15
00:00:49.149 --> 00:00:52.810
once in a while really try to dive into what is,
16
00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:57.390
in my view, one of, if not the most tricky
17
00:00:57.429 --> 00:01:01.750
and contentious social issues in the United States of America
18
00:01:01.890 --> 00:01:03.909
and in many other countries in the world, which is race.
19
00:01:04.530 --> 00:01:08.950
And the takeaway for me from this week's guest is
20
00:01:08.989 --> 00:01:12.510
that race really is not a tangential issue to your
21
00:01:12.569 --> 00:01:16.349
meditation practice. It is the crucible in which you can
22
00:01:16.769 --> 00:01:19.890
test your meditation practice. And it's not just race, it's
23
00:01:19.989 --> 00:01:23.730
how do you deal with difference. It can be pigmentation,
24
00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:29.769
it can be chromosomal, it can be ideological. No matter
25
00:01:29.849 --> 00:01:34.609
how homogeneous your, you know, from a racial standpoint, your
26
00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:37.920
environment may be, there's difference around you all the time.
27
00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:40.500
And how are you dealing with that? What kind of
28
00:01:40.540 --> 00:01:43.879
assumptions are you bringing to the table? And can meditation
29
00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:48.659
untangle things in a useful way for you? So Rhonda
30
00:01:48.680 --> 00:01:51.140
McGee is a professor of law at the University of
31
00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:53.500
San Francisco. She's been on this show before. If you
32
00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:58.280
want to hear about her fascinating upbringing. Go back and
33
00:01:58.299 --> 00:02:02.079
listen to episode 124. But in this show, we're going
34
00:02:02.099 --> 00:02:03.780
to talk about her new book, which is called The
35
00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:07.060
Inner Work of Racial Justice, Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our
36
00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:12.000
Communities Through Mindfulness. And we talk about whiteness, what it's
37
00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:14.280
like to sort of wake up to whiteness, both as
38
00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:18.069
a white person and somebody who's non-white. We talk about
39
00:02:18.870 --> 00:02:21.210
something that I think is fascinating to discuss, and we
40
00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:23.949
have discussed before on this show, the disutility of shame
41
00:02:23.969 --> 00:02:29.430
and when looking at your own biases, practical ways to
42
00:02:29.650 --> 00:02:35.129
use meditation and mindfulness in these often incredibly painful and
43
00:02:35.229 --> 00:02:40.000
awkward conversations about race. We talk about some of the trickiness,
44
00:02:40.740 --> 00:02:44.259
even among the tricky issues, even among people who are
45
00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:47.360
really committed to this work. Like, where's the line between
46
00:02:48.340 --> 00:02:52.620
political correctness and what the Buddha would call right speech?
47
00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:56.120
We also talk about predatory listening and cancel culture. So
48
00:02:56.159 --> 00:02:59.750
we really cover a whole range of hot button issues
49
00:02:59.810 --> 00:03:05.270
in a really thoughtful and I find incredibly practical, meaningful way.
50
00:03:05.409 --> 00:03:09.250
And also Rhonda's just super fun and interesting. So here
51
00:03:09.270 --> 00:03:11.590
we go. Here's Rhonda McGee. Great to see you.
52
00:03:12.169 --> 00:03:13.090
Great to see you too.
53
00:03:13.129 --> 00:03:13.750
Thanks for coming on.
54
00:03:13.830 --> 00:03:14.310
Thank you.
55
00:03:14.330 --> 00:03:16.110
You're already laughing and smiling and we're going to be
56
00:03:16.150 --> 00:03:17.770
talking about tough stuff. So that's a good sign.
57
00:03:18.289 --> 00:03:20.900
Yeah. It's life. Yes. Yeah.
58
00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:25.669
That's a Useful thing to say, actually. I can't believe
59
00:03:25.689 --> 00:03:27.460
I'm going to ask this question. I've tried never to
60
00:03:27.530 --> 00:03:30.120
ask this question because it's such a cliched question, but
61
00:03:30.139 --> 00:03:32.360
here we go. Why did you write this book?
62
00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:39.180
Okay. I think this book actually kind of wrote me
63
00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:45.360
in a sense. I think I've been working toward the
64
00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:49.500
content of it for many, many years. This is my
65
00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:55.740
21st year teaching law. uh, in San Francisco and teaching, um,
66
00:03:55.919 --> 00:03:58.939
all those years I've taught, you know, traditional courses like
67
00:03:59.030 --> 00:04:04.650
personal injury law and insurance law, um, immigration, but I've
68
00:04:04.930 --> 00:04:09.050
also intentionally taught courses that invite us to kind of
69
00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:12.689
come around, gather around the campfire and look at how
70
00:04:12.789 --> 00:04:16.389
race and racism intersect with law and legal history and
71
00:04:16.629 --> 00:04:19.889
our own lives actually. And I think in the course
72
00:04:20.050 --> 00:04:25.379
of that, um, I certainly, number one, started relying very
73
00:04:25.560 --> 00:04:29.420
consciously on my own inner work to support that kind
74
00:04:29.459 --> 00:04:34.339
of outer work. So I was very intentionally relying all
75
00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:38.550
those years on my own mindfulness practice. And then at
76
00:04:38.579 --> 00:04:41.569
a certain point, I realized I needed to try to
77
00:04:41.610 --> 00:04:44.689
figure out how to bring that explicitly into the classroom
78
00:04:44.790 --> 00:04:46.910
to be of greater support to my students. And then
79
00:04:47.389 --> 00:04:50.009
not just into that classroom, but just into the legal
80
00:04:50.410 --> 00:04:55.670
conversation more generally. And so I just began exploring with that.
81
00:04:55.930 --> 00:05:00.149
And that was way back in 2003, two or three.
82
00:05:01.649 --> 00:05:03.810
And then I found the network of other people who
83
00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:07.600
both in academia generally were interested in bringing this inner
84
00:05:07.629 --> 00:05:10.600
and outer work together for service and work in the
85
00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:15.040
world for a more refined 21st century way of thinking
86
00:05:15.060 --> 00:05:16.959
about what it means to be an educated human being
87
00:05:17.399 --> 00:05:20.660
on the one hand, but also in law in particular.
88
00:05:21.819 --> 00:05:25.560
Because if you think about law, it's just this profound
89
00:05:25.730 --> 00:05:31.009
enterprise aimed at trying to, as best we can, create
90
00:05:31.050 --> 00:05:34.889
a structure for holding difficult conversations and dealing with difficult
91
00:05:34.910 --> 00:05:39.410
issues that can help the society cohere over time.
92
00:05:39.689 --> 00:05:40.910
It's so funny you say that because I think of
93
00:05:40.970 --> 00:05:45.259
lawyers as the people who do the annoying, super detailed
94
00:05:45.300 --> 00:05:47.439
contractual work that I really don't want to do and
95
00:05:47.459 --> 00:05:48.879
that I don't even want to talk about with them.
96
00:05:49.300 --> 00:05:53.449
I understand that. And yet, The purpose of that is
97
00:05:53.490 --> 00:05:55.709
to kind of facilitate the work that you want to
98
00:05:55.730 --> 00:05:56.329
do in the world.
99
00:05:56.350 --> 00:05:56.430
Yes.
100
00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:00.220
Right? So it's– yes, I understand that.
101
00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:01.939
And set the rules of the road for me and
102
00:06:01.980 --> 00:06:05.259
my employer about what I'm expected to do and what
103
00:06:05.300 --> 00:06:08.959
I can expect of them. So absolutely, if you widen
104
00:06:08.980 --> 00:06:10.000
the lens just a little bit.
105
00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:12.649
This is what we do. As a law professor, I
106
00:06:12.689 --> 00:06:16.629
get to widen the lens a little bit and help
107
00:06:16.689 --> 00:06:19.870
us see that the big questions and the big functions,
108
00:06:19.930 --> 00:06:23.279
if you will, of something that seems pretty mundane often,
109
00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:27.170
you know, the elements of the negligence, cause of action, duty, breach, causation,
110
00:06:27.209 --> 00:06:31.209
and damages. Like how that really, that particular as one
111
00:06:31.269 --> 00:06:34.769
example of what law is trying to do is really
112
00:06:34.810 --> 00:06:37.709
a way of looking at what is sort of the
113
00:06:37.750 --> 00:06:40.589
best we can offer as a society as a means
114
00:06:40.649 --> 00:06:44.769
to support resolving conflicts that just occur when somebody unintentionally
115
00:06:44.860 --> 00:06:48.060
injures another person. This is what we got. You know,
116
00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:52.600
and it's iterative. We try and iterate on it over time.
117
00:06:52.639 --> 00:06:55.459
That's what the common law system is about, changing as
118
00:06:55.500 --> 00:07:00.399
we need to take into consideration changes in the culture,
119
00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:03.370
changes in our sense of what right and wrong is,
120
00:07:04.509 --> 00:07:07.129
what's the right way to deal with a particular kind
121
00:07:07.170 --> 00:07:10.730
of suffering, changes over time. Whether or not to cognize
122
00:07:10.790 --> 00:07:13.750
or recognize a certain kind of suffering, changes as society does.
123
00:07:13.790 --> 00:07:17.250
So the beautiful thing, actually, about law for me is
124
00:07:17.290 --> 00:07:20.550
that it is this You know, it's this human effort
125
00:07:20.930 --> 00:07:27.990
and human project that is aiming toward a kind of,
126
00:07:30.430 --> 00:07:34.129
you know, a kind of perfection, if you will, a
127
00:07:34.189 --> 00:07:39.310
kind of making the best with what we have in
128
00:07:39.370 --> 00:07:44.639
response to conflict, which is inevitable in human community. And
129
00:07:44.759 --> 00:07:50.759
so for me, this book was about bringing– bringing to
130
00:07:50.819 --> 00:07:55.959
that conversation and to that profound human project something of
131
00:07:56.220 --> 00:08:01.209
some tiny bit or something of what I've been learning
132
00:08:01.670 --> 00:08:06.569
as I've been working to bring together this contemplative practice
133
00:08:07.069 --> 00:08:12.449
set of commitments that I call mindfulness, bringing that together
134
00:08:12.550 --> 00:08:16.730
with the particular part of law that works at the
135
00:08:16.810 --> 00:08:21.810
intersection of racism and racial injustice as it intersects with
136
00:08:22.250 --> 00:08:26.269
class and gender and sex orientation and all the other
137
00:08:26.540 --> 00:08:30.420
sorts of isms and schisms of our time. But for me,
138
00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:33.220
just working on that over time gave me a lot
139
00:08:33.779 --> 00:08:37.580
to do, but also gave me a certain way of
140
00:08:37.659 --> 00:08:44.190
holding these complexities that certainly helped me sustain in the work. Frankly,
141
00:08:44.289 --> 00:08:45.750
I had a moment where I was going to leave
142
00:08:45.789 --> 00:08:48.700
law Because I felt like if I couldn't do it
143
00:08:48.740 --> 00:08:50.539
in a way that was much more holistic, maybe I
144
00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:54.720
shouldn't be doing it. So it was partly me feeling
145
00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:57.679
my way to a sustainable way of doing this hard work,
146
00:08:58.019 --> 00:09:00.379
but also just feeling like, okay, it's helping me. I
147
00:09:00.899 --> 00:09:03.029
can see my students are suffering. I can see a
148
00:09:03.090 --> 00:09:06.289
lot of suffering in the world around this, that if
149
00:09:06.350 --> 00:09:08.009
it's helped me, maybe it might help somebody else.
150
00:09:08.450 --> 00:09:08.909
Around race.
151
00:09:09.590 --> 00:09:12.549
Around race and how we respond to it, racism, racial
152
00:09:12.610 --> 00:09:16.600
justice questions, around the role of law and all of that,
153
00:09:16.659 --> 00:09:21.840
which has been, frankly, both perpetrator and hope, right? It
154
00:09:21.899 --> 00:09:24.620
holds itself out as being the pathway to some sort
155
00:09:24.659 --> 00:09:26.850
of resolution. But on the other hand, if we look
156
00:09:26.889 --> 00:09:30.570
historically at the role of law, it's been, you know,
157
00:09:30.830 --> 00:09:35.350
people rightly point to it as really one of the
158
00:09:35.409 --> 00:09:38.610
kind of core issues Forces of oppression.
159
00:09:38.850 --> 00:09:40.830
Codifying it. Codifying the injustice.
160
00:09:41.009 --> 00:09:46.629
Exactly. Codifying race. Codifying racial hierarchy at every level.
161
00:09:47.649 --> 00:09:48.210
Three-fifths.
162
00:09:48.830 --> 00:09:53.610
Three-fifths right in the Constitution. And so many three-fifths. Fugitive
163
00:09:53.649 --> 00:09:59.970
slave clause. So many different places where compromises were made.
164
00:10:00.639 --> 00:10:03.139
right at the founding, right? So we move from the
165
00:10:03.580 --> 00:10:06.840
lilting beautiful language of we hold these truths to be
166
00:10:06.860 --> 00:10:13.580
self-evident and the Declaration of Independence, all men created equal.
167
00:10:14.419 --> 00:10:17.320
But this project of trying to expand on the promise
168
00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:21.350
of of the declaration and the founding documents expand on
169
00:10:21.370 --> 00:10:23.669
the promise that's implicit in all of that in ways
170
00:10:23.690 --> 00:10:28.539
that really include more and more again and again, more
171
00:10:28.600 --> 00:10:33.179
and more people. Right. So, yeah. So, so there's a
172
00:10:33.240 --> 00:10:37.519
way that then for me, the struggle was, I love this,
173
00:10:37.700 --> 00:10:40.830
this work of trying to be in this rich, in
174
00:10:40.870 --> 00:10:43.769
these rich conversations around the campfire about who we are
175
00:10:43.809 --> 00:10:45.970
as a society and how we resolve this or that.
176
00:10:47.169 --> 00:10:53.419
And again, really seeing how law can get, can really
177
00:10:54.090 --> 00:10:58.789
literally in ways that really create a lot of pain
178
00:10:58.850 --> 00:11:02.850
and suffering, the law itself can be that vector of oppression.
179
00:11:03.730 --> 00:11:08.629
And so that complexity of that seemed to me to be,
180
00:11:10.100 --> 00:11:14.559
to call for a much more profound engagement with it,
181
00:11:14.919 --> 00:11:19.419
not just cognitive, not just the intellectual project of what
182
00:11:19.460 --> 00:11:22.179
people think of law as memorization, think like a lawyer,
183
00:11:22.340 --> 00:11:27.340
argue certain skills, all of that, but another level of
184
00:11:27.419 --> 00:11:33.080
awareness that for me, mindfulness and the allied disciplines, the
185
00:11:33.139 --> 00:11:40.080
study with teachers, the community of sangha, if you will,
186
00:11:40.120 --> 00:11:42.700
the kind of being with other people, whether we call
187
00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:47.429
it sangha or not, who are also working toward being
188
00:11:47.490 --> 00:11:50.629
more present in their daily lives and living with awareness.
189
00:11:51.190 --> 00:11:57.190
All of these different aspects of mindfulness practice just seemed so,
190
00:11:57.490 --> 00:12:02.320
for me, critical to me being able to stay with
191
00:12:02.389 --> 00:12:05.340
the complexity of trying to work in law and trying
192
00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:06.659
to make a difference through law.
193
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:12.820
I was just talking about this with your friend and colleague,
194
00:12:13.019 --> 00:12:17.519
Jon Kabat-Zinn, the legendary meditation teacher, who's talked about his own,
195
00:12:17.580 --> 00:12:20.120
who I was interviewing him, he was talking about his
196
00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:23.639
own struggles with, you know, really just waking up to whiteness.
197
00:12:23.940 --> 00:12:24.200
Yeah.
198
00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:27.940
And I had this thought that I suspect there, and
199
00:12:27.980 --> 00:12:30.620
we talked, he and I talked about this, I suspect
200
00:12:30.730 --> 00:12:34.809
there are maybe people out there, particularly white people who listen,
201
00:12:35.090 --> 00:12:38.929
who see, okay, Dan's doing another episode on race and
202
00:12:38.970 --> 00:12:43.470
may scan that, it may scan to them as important,
203
00:12:43.549 --> 00:12:47.299
but not necessarily central. To their own meditation practice.
204
00:12:47.470 --> 00:12:50.429
Yeah. And that's another reason why I wrote the book, actually.
205
00:12:51.049 --> 00:12:56.549
Because my view is, as I, you know, listeners, I
206
00:12:56.590 --> 00:12:58.970
was able to hear the last part of this conversation
207
00:12:58.990 --> 00:13:01.309
you were having with John as I sat here.
208
00:13:01.330 --> 00:13:04.690
Just for the record, I just finished recording an episode
209
00:13:04.710 --> 00:13:07.370
with John. Rhonda was in the next room and could
210
00:13:07.409 --> 00:13:09.529
hear the conversation.
211
00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:14.860
So, you know, definitely this piece about, on the one hand,
212
00:13:15.379 --> 00:13:18.840
race and racism, whiteness, different ways of kind of being
213
00:13:19.539 --> 00:13:23.840
with the fact of race in our lives can often
214
00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:28.039
seem like a tangent to what we think of as mindfulness.
215
00:13:30.350 --> 00:13:34.409
And yet, for me, that in and of itself, that
216
00:13:34.429 --> 00:13:37.830
we think of it that way, is an indication that
217
00:13:37.870 --> 00:13:42.090
we're dealing with, you know, the legacies of racism as
218
00:13:42.149 --> 00:13:45.440
it's shown up in what we call mindfulness. Because in fact,
219
00:13:46.120 --> 00:13:48.750
if we're talking about being aware of all that is,
220
00:13:49.500 --> 00:13:53.570
and we know race and racism exists and has not
221
00:13:53.610 --> 00:13:57.309
been a minor factor in the construction of what we
222
00:13:57.350 --> 00:14:03.009
call this American experience and all of that and our identities,
223
00:14:03.090 --> 00:14:07.730
whether we are consciously thinking about that or not, if
224
00:14:07.750 --> 00:14:10.070
we know this and if we want to be more
225
00:14:10.129 --> 00:14:13.600
aware in our lives, the fact that what we call
226
00:14:13.659 --> 00:14:17.519
mindfulness that's somehow not centered on this is an indication
227
00:14:17.539 --> 00:14:21.879
that it's grown up through the lens of whiteness. It's
228
00:14:21.899 --> 00:14:28.879
grown up through the lens of a piece of racialized experience.
229
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:32.059
And this is not, you know, this is not meant
230
00:14:32.100 --> 00:14:34.379
to create a sense of shame or blame or anything.
231
00:14:34.500 --> 00:14:37.740
It's just to be, to wake up to what we're
232
00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:42.090
looking at. And so, so for me, because I, you know,
233
00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:46.750
felt during the over the years that I've been in
234
00:14:46.789 --> 00:14:51.289
this beautiful conversation and community around mindfulness practice and working
235
00:14:51.309 --> 00:14:56.299
with John and others as John was indicating in his
236
00:14:56.360 --> 00:15:00.620
conversation with you I come in racialized as a in
237
00:15:00.659 --> 00:15:06.570
American you know terminology as a black woman and racialized
238
00:15:06.649 --> 00:15:11.789
and cisgendered Black female, grown up, born in North Carolina,
239
00:15:12.110 --> 00:15:13.860
and I always say it because I think it matters,
240
00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:18.080
in 1967, right? This is my 52nd year on the planet.
241
00:15:18.659 --> 00:15:26.559
But born in 1967 in segregated North Carolina, where, you know,
242
00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:29.539
the legacies of this history that we've been talking about
243
00:15:29.559 --> 00:15:34.399
were just not abstractions, right? The town was still quite rich.
244
00:15:34.860 --> 00:15:38.460
quite segregated. My kindergarten that I, school class that I
245
00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:41.759
went to in 1972 had not been desegregated despite the
246
00:15:41.799 --> 00:15:43.879
fact that Brown versus Board of Education had come out,
247
00:15:44.259 --> 00:15:47.220
you know, really by that time, a generation ago, you
248
00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:51.649
could say in the fifties. So here I, you know,
249
00:15:51.710 --> 00:15:55.809
for me, my own experience made it very clear that,
250
00:15:56.230 --> 00:15:58.529
you know, race and racism and that quote unquote history
251
00:15:58.570 --> 00:16:02.700
was just still with us and still structuring opportunity in
252
00:16:02.740 --> 00:16:07.629
profound ways. Um, my grandmother, who I think of as
253
00:16:07.669 --> 00:16:10.450
my first kind of contemplative teacher, by the way, born
254
00:16:10.490 --> 00:16:15.870
in 1906 in North Carolina. 1906, the early 20th century,
255
00:16:16.409 --> 00:16:21.519
such a clear period of like the re-institutionalization of, or
256
00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:25.559
the reinstatement of, or the restoration of white supremacy following
257
00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:29.220
the Civil War. And that brief moment of possibility that
258
00:16:29.259 --> 00:16:32.799
we call reconstruction. So from the latter part of the
259
00:16:32.940 --> 00:16:39.340
19th century, the 19th century into the early 20th, they're
260
00:16:39.379 --> 00:16:42.179
really for black people like my grandmother and grandparents and
261
00:16:42.210 --> 00:16:44.509
the people that I, you know, sprung from in a
262
00:16:44.549 --> 00:16:48.529
real sense. This was a time of like profound racial
263
00:16:48.649 --> 00:16:53.789
oppression where, again, all of the kind of promises of
264
00:16:53.830 --> 00:16:58.909
the reconstruction had been pulled from the bottom of, you know,
265
00:16:58.950 --> 00:17:01.830
the foundation that people thought we could stand on. My
266
00:17:01.870 --> 00:17:04.269
grandmother was only able to go to school to like
267
00:17:04.289 --> 00:17:08.369
the second grade. again, very deeply in that kind of
268
00:17:08.430 --> 00:17:16.150
working class, almost like, you know, peonage kind of, that
269
00:17:16.789 --> 00:17:20.099
playing basically the same role in society that she would
270
00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:22.940
have under a slave society and my grandfather as well.
271
00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.299
So picking tobacco in North Carolina for much of their lives.
272
00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:30.799
And then by the time I come along in 1967,
273
00:17:30.799 --> 00:17:33.880
My grandmother is cleaning houses or cleaning one house again
274
00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:39.039
and again, seven days a week. This one home, which again,
275
00:17:39.059 --> 00:17:42.039
you know, if we own homes or have our own
276
00:17:42.099 --> 00:17:44.789
home right now, we realize you don't actually need somebody
277
00:17:44.829 --> 00:17:48.529
to clean from nine to five every day. That's a
278
00:17:48.730 --> 00:17:53.710
way of maintaining this caste, this racialized caste. So my
279
00:17:53.750 --> 00:17:57.599
grandmother's life then, I grew up watching her find a
280
00:17:57.680 --> 00:18:00.799
way to center herself before she went off to do
281
00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:04.700
that work. She didn't call it mindfulness, but of course
282
00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:07.460
it has so much in common with what we do
283
00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:14.180
call mindfulness. Deep commitment, discipline of like becoming aware, being
284
00:18:14.309 --> 00:18:18.150
with oneself as a ground for how it is that
285
00:18:18.309 --> 00:18:24.410
one lives in whatever circumstances present themselves to us, relates
286
00:18:24.470 --> 00:18:27.349
to whatever shows up. So in my mind, that's one
287
00:18:27.369 --> 00:18:30.220
of the reasons that she could get up in the morning,
288
00:18:30.299 --> 00:18:34.200
do that practice, get us off to preschool and school,
289
00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:36.880
wherever we needed to go at the time, and then
290
00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:38.579
go and do this work, but do it in a
291
00:18:38.660 --> 00:18:44.619
way that didn't cut off her ability to have heart,
292
00:18:44.980 --> 00:18:49.559
to care for even the children that she had helped
293
00:18:49.619 --> 00:18:52.980
raise in this one family over the years, as one example.
294
00:18:53.509 --> 00:18:55.980
And then it also, I could see gave her a
295
00:18:56.039 --> 00:18:58.900
sense of her worth such that she could go out
296
00:18:59.049 --> 00:19:00.930
and be a member of the community. She had been
297
00:19:00.970 --> 00:19:04.029
called to the ministry herself, actually. So she's cleaning houses
298
00:19:04.069 --> 00:19:08.170
on the one hand. She's also helping teach and support
299
00:19:09.009 --> 00:19:12.329
sort of spiritual, just sort of getting by, if you will,
300
00:19:12.569 --> 00:19:16.559
with backs up against the wall, helping people get through difficulty.
301
00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:22.039
So seeing my grandmother, whose whole life had been like
302
00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:28.069
really limited, by the ceilings placed on people like me,
303
00:19:30.450 --> 00:19:38.049
by this system of white supremacy and racial capitalism, frankly,
304
00:19:39.170 --> 00:19:45.009
that depended and still does on, you know, ways of
305
00:19:45.069 --> 00:19:49.789
systematically kind of limiting the pie, you know, keeping certain
306
00:19:49.809 --> 00:19:54.759
people out so that others can have more. So because
307
00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:59.299
I was, you know, very, very, I was formed in that.
308
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:03.740
Finding myself eventually fortunate to come along when I did,
309
00:20:03.940 --> 00:20:08.519
middle of the civil rights movement, in a sense, therefore
310
00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:12.000
a beneficiary. of changes in law that would enable me
311
00:20:12.019 --> 00:20:13.720
to be here with you. To go to school at
312
00:20:13.740 --> 00:20:16.210
the University of Virginia, which was not a place created
313
00:20:16.230 --> 00:20:20.049
for people like me, whether female of any race, certainly
314
00:20:20.089 --> 00:20:22.009
not black female. But to go to school at the
315
00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:27.369
University of Virginia, take three degrees, undergrad, sociology, master's in law,
316
00:20:29.940 --> 00:20:34.059
served in the military, became a lieutenant in the military,
317
00:20:34.799 --> 00:20:38.579
in the army. I did a lot of different things
318
00:20:38.859 --> 00:20:42.869
to kind of take advantage of opportunities that my people
319
00:20:42.910 --> 00:20:48.170
had not had before my generation, frankly. Uh, and, and
320
00:20:48.210 --> 00:20:52.849
yet it was always clear to me that, um, in
321
00:20:52.950 --> 00:20:56.279
moving into these places where people like me had previously
322
00:20:56.380 --> 00:21:01.420
not been invited or included or given access, in fact,
323
00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:11.900
had been systematically denied, excluded, um, uh, prevented from benefiting from.
324
00:21:13.029 --> 00:21:14.569
You know, it was just sort of clear to me
325
00:21:14.609 --> 00:21:21.190
that in those places of opportunity, there was a kind
326
00:21:21.289 --> 00:21:26.230
of unawareness. There was like a, you know, it was
327
00:21:26.269 --> 00:21:30.730
his own kind of bubble. And so, you know, W.E.B.
328
00:21:30.759 --> 00:21:35.099
Du Bois, they call him the towering kind of social
329
00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:38.519
public intellectual of the 20th century, and certainly a person
330
00:21:38.539 --> 00:21:40.900
whose work has helped us over the years understand race
331
00:21:40.940 --> 00:21:44.359
and racism in this culture. You know, he talked about
332
00:21:44.700 --> 00:21:49.819
race and the color line, that line separating really whites
333
00:21:49.940 --> 00:21:53.339
who were systematically privileged under our system for so long
334
00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:58.180
from everybody else in different ways. You know, that would
335
00:21:58.220 --> 00:22:01.410
be the problem of the 20th century, the negotiation of
336
00:22:01.450 --> 00:22:04.319
that line. And it query whether it's still the problem
337
00:22:04.339 --> 00:22:08.660
of the 21st. But really he was also, I think,
338
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:13.200
instrumental in helping us see that being embedded in contexts
339
00:22:14.259 --> 00:22:18.680
where these sorts of trainings and conditionings and barriers and
340
00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:24.609
opportunities are so deeply infused in the kind of the
341
00:22:24.750 --> 00:22:27.190
air we're breathing, the water we're swimming in that we
342
00:22:27.230 --> 00:22:32.309
kind of almost can't see, creates a kind of consciousness. And,
343
00:22:33.470 --> 00:22:36.480
you know, for him in particular, he talks about the
344
00:22:36.559 --> 00:22:41.579
dual or double consciousness that comes when you're navigating. You're
345
00:22:41.619 --> 00:22:44.859
moving from one world in which it's very clear that
346
00:22:44.920 --> 00:22:48.309
you are not in the other, but then you're moving
347
00:22:48.369 --> 00:22:53.710
into that other. So you're becoming kind of a code switcher, right,
348
00:22:53.930 --> 00:22:56.190
to use that language, or somebody who can kind of
349
00:22:56.349 --> 00:22:57.930
see through different lenses.
350
00:22:58.150 --> 00:23:00.410
I can operate in the white dominant world. I can
351
00:23:00.470 --> 00:23:04.250
operate in my community of origin.
352
00:23:04.410 --> 00:23:08.809
Absolutely. And exactly. And that becomes an invitation and something
353
00:23:08.869 --> 00:23:11.809
in a time that I grew up in where we
354
00:23:11.829 --> 00:23:14.390
were sort of given this opportunity to operate in the
355
00:23:14.410 --> 00:23:20.099
white world. Certainly, I wanted to take advantage of that
356
00:23:20.150 --> 00:23:23.539
in a certain sense. I wanted to, to the degree
357
00:23:23.579 --> 00:23:29.339
it would alleviate some of the basic pressure against basically
358
00:23:29.380 --> 00:23:32.430
being able to make a living and take care and
359
00:23:33.250 --> 00:23:36.609
all of that, right? So there was this opportunity place
360
00:23:37.509 --> 00:23:41.769
or dynamic around it. Like, yes, there is going to
361
00:23:41.809 --> 00:23:45.440
be this invitation to go into this different kind of world,
362
00:23:46.660 --> 00:23:51.539
succeed in that world as best as possible. We can
363
00:23:51.579 --> 00:23:55.559
do these things. And frankly, I think for people to
364
00:23:55.599 --> 00:23:58.630
succeed in America, no matter where you're from, no matter
365
00:23:58.690 --> 00:24:03.470
what your culture of origin, this has been the kind
366
00:24:03.509 --> 00:24:07.490
of a hidden, you know, sort of piece of the dynamic.
367
00:24:07.890 --> 00:24:10.250
It's like, where did you come from? How do you
368
00:24:10.329 --> 00:24:13.339
fit in from wherever you came, wherever your people came, right?
369
00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:17.519
Because not all of us were immigrants from somewhere, but
370
00:24:17.579 --> 00:24:20.299
most of us were if we go, you know, trace
371
00:24:20.339 --> 00:24:23.359
it far enough back. So this process by which we
372
00:24:24.339 --> 00:24:27.849
find our way in the American context has for all
373
00:24:27.869 --> 00:24:31.250
of us actually involved some kind of navigation around racism
374
00:24:31.309 --> 00:24:34.329
and race and fitting ourselves in. But if you're in
375
00:24:34.349 --> 00:24:41.029
the dominant kind of white racialized project, if you will,
376
00:24:41.289 --> 00:24:46.390
racialization project, it has become kind of hard for people
377
00:24:46.410 --> 00:24:49.349
to see the operation of it because it is dominant.
378
00:24:49.490 --> 00:24:52.829
What do you mean by racialization project? I think I
379
00:24:52.849 --> 00:24:55.500
know what you mean, but race is a construct. It's
380
00:24:55.519 --> 00:24:57.140
not actually a biological fact.
381
00:24:57.180 --> 00:25:00.420
Yeah. And it's a construct. It's being constructed in different
382
00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:05.180
ways in different places in different times. And in sociology sometimes,
383
00:25:05.339 --> 00:25:09.180
forgive me for using some cliches or some language that
384
00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:12.910
is more germane to these professions. But in sociology, this
385
00:25:12.970 --> 00:25:16.190
term racialization and thinking of it as kind of a
386
00:25:16.549 --> 00:25:24.390
social project by which we create race, races– the felt
387
00:25:24.490 --> 00:25:28.799
sense of what race is, right? Often without acknowledging that
388
00:25:28.819 --> 00:25:32.200
that's what's going on, right? In fact, almost never acknowledging
389
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:35.119
that that's what's going on. But just as a legacy
390
00:25:35.140 --> 00:25:39.119
of our culture and the ways we've been given to
391
00:25:39.220 --> 00:25:43.759
think about who we are, who matters, who this country,
392
00:25:43.819 --> 00:25:49.410
what this experiment is supposed to be about. Again, often implicit,
393
00:25:50.230 --> 00:25:57.640
not Usually explicit, but sometimes explicit. And so the projects
394
00:25:57.700 --> 00:26:02.119
of racialization by which something called race has been created
395
00:26:02.220 --> 00:26:10.849
and maintained and given meaning and given life are operating
396
00:26:10.910 --> 00:26:16.029
on all kinds of different levels. So, again, go back
397
00:26:16.069 --> 00:26:18.579
to what we have already named about the kind of
398
00:26:18.950 --> 00:26:22.039
structural inputs, puts of this that come from law, right?
399
00:26:22.819 --> 00:26:26.519
The Constitution alluded to the different terms in the Constitution,
400
00:26:26.539 --> 00:26:30.700
but then right after the Constitution, the very first immigration law, right?
401
00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:32.720
The 1790 Immigration Act of 1790. In that very first
402
00:26:32.759 --> 00:26:40.460
immigration law, Whiteness is privileged, like, so as a basis
403
00:26:40.519 --> 00:26:44.700
for becoming a naturalized citizen in the U.S. And many
404
00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:47.190
of us aren't aware of that. Those of us who
405
00:26:47.329 --> 00:26:49.150
are aware of it haven't been given a lot of
406
00:26:49.190 --> 00:26:53.170
support for thinking about what that has meant historically and
407
00:26:54.769 --> 00:26:57.470
what that might mean for the challenges we face today.
408
00:26:58.750 --> 00:27:02.839
To look at the fact that we, you know, in
409
00:27:02.859 --> 00:27:08.690
the one breath created this constitutional democracy. that at least
410
00:27:08.839 --> 00:27:18.519
created a possibility of rights being expanded to all. But
411
00:27:18.539 --> 00:27:21.000
it was clearly not at the founding meant to extend
412
00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:24.160
to all of us. And just to underscore it, like
413
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:30.809
the very first Federal Immigration Act makes clear that whiteness
414
00:27:30.849 --> 00:27:35.009
is a prerequisite for becoming a naturalized citizen. So this
415
00:27:35.130 --> 00:27:37.690
is 1790. We're still in the period of slavery and enslavement.
416
00:27:38.109 --> 00:27:40.470
Then we have the Civil War, of course, and the
417
00:27:40.890 --> 00:27:44.440
Reconstruction Amendments, right, by which we kind of remake the
418
00:27:44.500 --> 00:27:51.099
entire constitutional project to actually abolish slavery with the 13th, except,
419
00:27:51.140 --> 00:27:54.049
of course, if you committed a felony. So we know
420
00:27:54.569 --> 00:27:57.410
we never really abolished slavery, but in a way.
421
00:27:57.430 --> 00:28:02.960
Because an enormous number of often black males were locked up.
422
00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:06.319
For crimes either they didn't commit or that maybe shouldn't
423
00:28:06.339 --> 00:28:08.420
have been felonies or maybe shouldn't have had the sentences
424
00:28:08.480 --> 00:28:11.220
they had and then we have now the prison industrial complex.
425
00:28:11.240 --> 00:28:13.730
Exactly. So there's a way in which we have legacies
426
00:28:14.190 --> 00:28:16.349
that were built into the 13th Amendment frankly.
427
00:28:16.650 --> 00:28:19.849
There's a great documentary called The 13th by– what is
428
00:28:19.890 --> 00:28:22.650
her name? The woman who directed– Ava. Ava DuVernay.
429
00:28:22.690 --> 00:28:22.970
Yes.
430
00:28:23.109 --> 00:28:23.829
And it's on Netflix.
431
00:28:24.049 --> 00:28:24.470
Exactly.
432
00:28:24.509 --> 00:28:24.670
The 13th.
433
00:28:24.670 --> 00:28:25.529
So if people want to see more about that.
434
00:28:25.549 --> 00:28:26.769
We'll put a link to that in the show notes.
435
00:28:26.809 --> 00:28:32.410
Yeah. So The 13th, great, beautiful, ending abolishing slavery in
436
00:28:32.430 --> 00:28:36.700
a way but also– Not entirely. Fourteenth Amendment, we all know.
437
00:28:39.009 --> 00:28:44.430
The great, maybe, project of ongoing liberation and aspirational kind
438
00:28:44.470 --> 00:28:47.910
of freedom-making for us, giving us the Equal Protection Clause.
439
00:28:47.930 --> 00:28:51.390
That has enabled everything from the women's rights movement to
440
00:28:51.490 --> 00:28:57.190
the LGBTQ plus, right, beautiful set of rights and movements.
441
00:28:57.630 --> 00:29:01.369
That has come with the movement for liberation for sexual
442
00:29:01.390 --> 00:29:08.450
orientation minorities. So the 14th Amendment, again, like crazy, tremendous
443
00:29:09.190 --> 00:29:11.089
way of sort of saying this is kind of a
444
00:29:11.150 --> 00:29:13.839
different project now, or at least creating the possibility for
445
00:29:13.859 --> 00:29:19.279
radically different levels of inclusion happening right after the Civil War.
446
00:29:19.299 --> 00:29:22.980
And then the 15th Amendment, the right to vote. But
447
00:29:23.019 --> 00:29:25.589
of course, we all know that though all of this
448
00:29:25.619 --> 00:29:33.890
happened again, 1865 to 1877, or right around that time
449
00:29:33.930 --> 00:29:38.869
period when the Reconstruction ends, those beautiful promises with these
450
00:29:39.029 --> 00:29:43.049
new amendments, that could have did reconstitute us in a
451
00:29:43.089 --> 00:29:46.059
certain sense were kind of shut down. And they were
452
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:50.460
shut down kind of intentionally by the, you know, the
453
00:29:50.500 --> 00:29:54.160
white dominant forces that continue to control the Supreme Court
454
00:29:54.180 --> 00:29:57.440
on the one hand, the Congress, the executive branch on
455
00:29:57.480 --> 00:29:59.670
the other. And so we had to have a civil
456
00:29:59.690 --> 00:30:03.569
rights movement to say, come on, these amendments actually did
457
00:30:03.630 --> 00:30:06.670
mean to change things such that we would include more
458
00:30:06.730 --> 00:30:10.990
and more of us in this constitutional experiment. But that's
459
00:30:11.089 --> 00:30:15.990
always been such a contested truth. And the dominance of
460
00:30:16.150 --> 00:30:20.880
whiteness and of white experience has made it all just
461
00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:24.660
that much harder for us to engage with. Because, again,
462
00:30:24.680 --> 00:30:27.279
and this is where mindfulness can come in. Because if
463
00:30:27.460 --> 00:30:33.240
this consciousness is hidden, if the experience of the kind
464
00:30:33.259 --> 00:30:38.099
of racial specificity of experience is not named, if we
465
00:30:38.119 --> 00:30:44.880
don't see that if Congress is almost entirely white for
466
00:30:45.029 --> 00:30:50.650
most of our history, if the presidency is almost entirely white,
467
00:30:51.650 --> 00:30:53.329
just to speak about the race and leave the gender
468
00:30:53.369 --> 00:30:56.539
aside for a minute, We're not, if we don't see
469
00:30:56.559 --> 00:30:59.759
the Supreme Court right, we're not able to really think
470
00:30:59.819 --> 00:31:04.180
about that as like, you know, a white specific view
471
00:31:04.569 --> 00:31:08.069
of all of these things, as opposed to a more,
472
00:31:08.509 --> 00:31:11.950
we tend to, we've been given to think of, you know,
473
00:31:12.250 --> 00:31:16.170
whiteness is almost like racelessness. Like that's the human experience.
474
00:31:17.420 --> 00:31:20.700
And what we're trying to see more clearly, and what
475
00:31:20.740 --> 00:31:23.519
I think mindfulness can actually help us see more clearly,
476
00:31:24.759 --> 00:31:31.119
is that that's the confusion we've all been raised up in.
477
00:31:31.640 --> 00:31:35.599
It's literally confusion. It's literally a kind of ignorance to
478
00:31:35.660 --> 00:31:40.099
think that, you know, these kind of so-called race neutral
479
00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:46.140
institutions don't have racial specificity. It's racial specificity that is
480
00:31:46.220 --> 00:31:51.299
born of the dominant racial identity and experience of those
481
00:31:51.339 --> 00:31:54.019
who succeed in those systems. So if that's been true
482
00:31:54.059 --> 00:32:00.200
for law, And academia, as it has been. Mindfulness, of course,
483
00:32:00.259 --> 00:32:02.500
as well, is another institution that's kind of grown up
484
00:32:02.539 --> 00:32:07.990
in the society, created by beautiful human beings, our friends
485
00:32:08.049 --> 00:32:12.789
and yours that we love, but who, again, as a
486
00:32:12.869 --> 00:32:15.509
legacy of our time and our culture and our history,
487
00:32:16.170 --> 00:32:20.490
have been disproportionately, the leaders of mindfulness, disproportionately white.
488
00:32:20.539 --> 00:32:23.460
Look at the roster of guests on the show. You know,
489
00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:24.319
we do our best.
490
00:32:24.849 --> 00:32:25.029
Yeah.
491
00:32:25.130 --> 00:32:28.799
But not good enough. And is bias a part of that? Absolutely.
492
00:32:28.839 --> 00:32:30.200
Bias is part of the human experience.
493
00:32:30.779 --> 00:32:31.519
And it's structure.
494
00:32:32.019 --> 00:32:35.000
Yes, it's structure because I think we've had a structure
495
00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:39.880
in this culture where the luxury, what I think has
496
00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:42.410
been wrongly viewed as a luxury, in fact, is a
497
00:32:42.430 --> 00:32:45.130
human right to explore the mind and train the mind
498
00:32:45.549 --> 00:32:49.700
has been one that was available mostly to white whole
499
00:32:49.740 --> 00:32:52.559
food shoppers. And again, I say that with no judgment
500
00:32:52.579 --> 00:32:56.319
because I like to joke, I am a white whole
501
00:32:56.339 --> 00:32:58.359
food shopper who lives on the Upper West Side. So
502
00:32:59.079 --> 00:33:01.259
no judgment. And I think shame is a really pernicious
503
00:33:01.319 --> 00:33:06.119
thing to introduce into this discussion. But anyway, carry on.
504
00:33:06.220 --> 00:33:09.339
I do think, yes, the whiteness does carry on. You
505
00:33:09.380 --> 00:33:11.039
were about to say, you were about to talk about
506
00:33:11.059 --> 00:33:13.000
the role of whiteness in the mindfulness community.
507
00:33:13.019 --> 00:33:15.599
It's true, right? So thank you for just naming what
508
00:33:15.940 --> 00:33:19.509
you just named because again, The shame piece is part
509
00:33:19.549 --> 00:33:23.509
of what gets in the way of us naming what
510
00:33:23.549 --> 00:33:27.349
it is that might be seen here. And so it
511
00:33:27.369 --> 00:33:30.529
is important to kind of, this is again where mindfulness
512
00:33:30.569 --> 00:33:34.569
can come in, really to help us just open up
513
00:33:34.630 --> 00:33:38.019
and cultivate the capacity to just see what there is
514
00:33:38.079 --> 00:33:42.119
to be seen. Putting aside judgment for the, at least
515
00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:46.400
for the moment, long enough so that we can really
516
00:33:46.640 --> 00:33:55.609
better apprehend and relate with greater purposefulness and intentionality with
517
00:33:55.670 --> 00:34:05.140
what is. So for me, yeah, mindfulness is an incredibly
518
00:34:06.099 --> 00:34:13.349
useful practice for waking up to these realities. And again...
519
00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:19.599
I do think that the opportunity, if you will, to
520
00:34:19.820 --> 00:34:28.619
understand how deeply embedded we all are in a racialized
521
00:34:28.699 --> 00:34:35.590
world is something that mindfulness is really perfectly attuned to
522
00:34:35.630 --> 00:34:38.469
support us with, but it hasn't been presented that way
523
00:34:38.570 --> 00:34:41.650
because we've been so deeply embedded in a racialized world.
524
00:34:41.710 --> 00:34:43.849
We can't see it. It's often used of the, I
525
00:34:43.889 --> 00:34:46.769
think you talked about this too, the Fish can't see
526
00:34:46.789 --> 00:34:47.210
the water.
527
00:34:47.469 --> 00:34:48.630
Exactly.
528
00:34:48.710 --> 00:34:52.349
Just as a resource for white people, there's a– I've
529
00:34:52.429 --> 00:34:56.869
mentioned this before on the show. There's a podcast. It's
530
00:34:56.889 --> 00:34:59.710
called Seeing White. It was recommended to me by a
531
00:34:59.750 --> 00:35:03.789
former guest on the show, several– multiple appearances on the
532
00:35:03.829 --> 00:35:06.969
show and also a very popular teacher on the 10%
533
00:35:06.969 --> 00:35:09.760
Happier app, 7A Selassie. I really recommend it. I listen
534
00:35:09.780 --> 00:35:11.760
to this podcast. If you want to find it, the
535
00:35:11.800 --> 00:35:16.239
podcast itself is actually called Seen, S-C-E-N-E, Seen White. on
536
00:35:16.300 --> 00:35:18.900
radio and so that's the name of the podcast you
537
00:35:18.920 --> 00:35:21.320
search for that and up will come a couple of
538
00:35:21.360 --> 00:35:23.960
series they've done one is called seeing white it's called
539
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:26.280
men so the host is a man a white guy
540
00:35:26.639 --> 00:35:31.000
who has looked at whiteness which was naming a thing
541
00:35:31.039 --> 00:35:33.219
that i think most white people aren't even really aware
542
00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:35.380
of because as you said before i think white people
543
00:35:35.780 --> 00:35:38.980
think of themselves as the absence of race not consciously
544
00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:45.380
but subconsciously and then he also did something about um Yeah.
545
00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:48.349
Which is– both of them are excellent. It's interesting because
546
00:35:48.469 --> 00:35:49.949
I think I've said this too on the podcast, so
547
00:35:49.969 --> 00:35:52.090
I apologize for the repetition. But I shared it with
548
00:35:52.110 --> 00:35:55.150
the entire staff at Nightline. And the white people on
549
00:35:55.170 --> 00:35:58.030
the staff were freaking– they were like, this is so good.
550
00:35:58.889 --> 00:36:03.059
And then my black colleagues were like, there is nothing
551
00:36:03.119 --> 00:36:03.440
new here.
552
00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:04.280
Right. Of course.
553
00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:07.500
So that in and of itself is a good data point.
554
00:36:07.980 --> 00:36:08.119
Right?
555
00:36:08.159 --> 00:36:12.360
Because this is– This is something that white people need
556
00:36:12.380 --> 00:36:14.500
to wake up to and why– just to get back
557
00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:16.639
to the beginning of the conversation, why I don't believe
558
00:36:16.659 --> 00:36:23.199
this is tangential to the project of waking up writ large, meditation,
559
00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:27.119
10 percent happier, whatever you want to call it, is
560
00:36:27.159 --> 00:36:28.800
for all the reasons that you just pointed out, which
561
00:36:28.860 --> 00:36:31.860
is you're waking up to a fundamental, often unseen structure
562
00:36:31.900 --> 00:36:35.619
or set of structures within our society, useful because it's
563
00:36:35.760 --> 00:36:39.019
reality and we– if we're engaged in meditation, we purport
564
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:41.980
to want to see it as reality. And also because
565
00:36:42.019 --> 00:36:44.619
if we want to be useful and helpful in our world,
566
00:36:44.659 --> 00:36:47.400
if we believe in the other wing of awakening, one
567
00:36:47.440 --> 00:36:50.780
wing is wisdom, the other is compassion, then it's useful
568
00:36:50.800 --> 00:36:52.550
to see the structure so that we can be helpful.
569
00:36:53.170 --> 00:36:55.449
But it's also useful just on a much more down-to-earth,
570
00:36:55.489 --> 00:36:59.849
moment-to-moment level. If you're interested in seeing all of your neuroses,
571
00:37:00.250 --> 00:37:03.750
because that's what we do in meditation practice, well, try
572
00:37:03.789 --> 00:37:06.369
taking a look at whatever thoughts pop into your head
573
00:37:06.449 --> 00:37:08.780
around race and get ready to be humbled.
574
00:37:09.170 --> 00:37:09.289
Yes.
575
00:37:09.469 --> 00:37:11.809
And this is true, by the way, for white people,
576
00:37:11.889 --> 00:37:12.409
black people.
577
00:37:12.489 --> 00:37:12.849
All of us.
578
00:37:13.070 --> 00:37:14.380
Any pigmentation.
579
00:37:14.449 --> 00:37:14.880
Any people.
580
00:37:14.900 --> 00:37:18.960
Because we're all racist. No, I mean that because– and
581
00:37:18.980 --> 00:37:21.280
this is not a– it sounds controversial, but it isn't.
582
00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:24.199
If you know anything about the way we evolved, we
583
00:37:24.260 --> 00:37:27.340
evolved for bias. So this is why I think shame
584
00:37:27.380 --> 00:37:33.329
is so useless in this context because we evolved in
585
00:37:33.449 --> 00:37:38.409
a homogeneous environment where we're in our little villages– And
586
00:37:38.449 --> 00:37:40.369
we need to be able to tell the difference between
587
00:37:40.909 --> 00:37:44.150
often dangerous outsiders and our own folks. And so we
588
00:37:44.170 --> 00:37:45.550
have bias. We need to be able to tell the
589
00:37:45.570 --> 00:37:48.929
difference between a snake and a stick, too. The mind
590
00:37:49.070 --> 00:37:52.590
is quickly sorting in an environment of lots of inputs.
591
00:37:52.670 --> 00:37:53.230
Absolutely.
592
00:37:53.590 --> 00:37:56.230
So go ahead. Take a look at how your mind sorts.
593
00:37:56.710 --> 00:37:56.929
Exactly.
594
00:37:56.949 --> 00:37:59.869
And you get ready to see all of the things
595
00:37:59.909 --> 00:38:02.429
you think about yourself, how high-minded and fair you are,
596
00:38:02.969 --> 00:38:06.380
and put that to the test. by using mindfulness to
597
00:38:06.420 --> 00:38:08.679
see how you react and what kind of judgments you
598
00:38:08.699 --> 00:38:11.619
come to upon seeing a face of a different pigmentation,
599
00:38:11.820 --> 00:38:12.679
whatever color you are.
600
00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:13.360
Anyway, I'll shut up.
601
00:38:13.619 --> 00:38:17.909
No, no. Thank you for riffing on that because it's so, again,
602
00:38:18.070 --> 00:38:24.389
bringing it down to earth. It's in us. Peggy McIntosh,
603
00:38:24.409 --> 00:38:28.780
who wrote a beautiful essay on white privilege, unpacking the
604
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:33.940
the invisible knapsack, right? So looking at whiteness and the
605
00:38:34.320 --> 00:38:39.079
privilege aspect of it that can come with white experience
606
00:38:39.179 --> 00:38:42.539
and other types of experience as well. But her essay
607
00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:46.159
specifically on that, she also talks about how systems, how
608
00:38:46.199 --> 00:38:51.849
this is about not just about individual predilection and individual psychology, right?
609
00:38:51.949 --> 00:38:56.170
Which is the temptation in our culture, hyper individualizing it all.
610
00:38:56.670 --> 00:38:58.610
How am I? How good am I? What am I doing?
611
00:38:58.940 --> 00:39:01.409
And so therefore, again, to be sort of defended against
612
00:39:01.469 --> 00:39:03.989
the idea that we're all that we have anything to
613
00:39:04.030 --> 00:39:07.110
work on because it can seem like a personal attack.
614
00:39:08.590 --> 00:39:11.170
And I do think it's very helpful then to think
615
00:39:11.250 --> 00:39:17.880
about the system, systemic structural pieces of this, including whiteness
616
00:39:18.199 --> 00:39:21.699
as a construct and a structure that all human beings
617
00:39:22.059 --> 00:39:24.380
who are brought into, let's say, this culture. I do
618
00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:26.559
know something about other cultures, but this is my culture.
619
00:39:27.420 --> 00:39:30.559
We're all invited into some kind of negotiation. and relationship
620
00:39:30.599 --> 00:39:34.280
with whiteness, you know, some sort of way of. So
621
00:39:34.340 --> 00:39:37.900
whiteness is is is I think of it as not
622
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:41.400
just about a way of thinking about the identity of
623
00:39:41.519 --> 00:39:47.929
some racialized people. Okay, so white identity is maybe a piece,
624
00:39:47.989 --> 00:39:50.190
it's a sort of Venn diagram sort of thing happening
625
00:39:50.230 --> 00:39:56.530
here in my mind. So how one identifies oneself through
626
00:39:56.610 --> 00:39:59.219
language of race and in recognition of the fact that
627
00:39:59.239 --> 00:40:05.000
there's a racialization called whiteness is one piece, I think,
628
00:40:05.019 --> 00:40:08.380
of whiteness. Whiteness is also kind of this philosophical idea
629
00:40:08.840 --> 00:40:11.070
of who matters and who doesn't and of A kind
630
00:40:11.090 --> 00:40:14.449
of a way– it's a legacy of white supremacy that
631
00:40:14.469 --> 00:40:23.809
has helped structure notions of success, notions of productivity. That again,
632
00:40:24.150 --> 00:40:27.769
all of us, if we've been successful, have figured out
633
00:40:27.789 --> 00:40:31.510
how to navigate even if we're not racially identified as white.
634
00:40:31.530 --> 00:40:33.699
So let me just stop you on that for a
635
00:40:33.699 --> 00:40:35.869
second because I think there's a lot there. Mm-hmm. First
636
00:40:35.889 --> 00:40:38.489
of all, I've always had some problem with the use
637
00:40:38.550 --> 00:40:42.300
of white supremacy as a phrase because I hear that
638
00:40:42.320 --> 00:40:45.099
and I think of the people marching in Charlottesville. Those
639
00:40:45.139 --> 00:40:48.739
are white supremacists. You use the term white supremacy and
640
00:40:48.940 --> 00:40:52.639
many academics use the term white supremacy to talk about
641
00:40:54.030 --> 00:40:57.670
whiteness being the dominant culture. But I just call that
642
00:40:57.769 --> 00:41:01.510
out because, you know, we can get into this. I
643
00:41:01.530 --> 00:41:03.570
think there are many reasons. One of the reasons why
644
00:41:03.590 --> 00:41:06.090
I keep coming back to shame. and thinking about it
645
00:41:06.170 --> 00:41:09.570
in the context of political polarization and racial polarization that
646
00:41:09.590 --> 00:41:12.389
we're seeing in this country right now, is that shame
647
00:41:12.550 --> 00:41:21.840
shuts down reason, right? And disables people's ability, it seems
648
00:41:21.900 --> 00:41:24.800
to me, based on no evidence other than just looking
649
00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:26.420
at how it plays out in a larger culture and
650
00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:28.280
looking at how it plays out in my mind. When
651
00:41:28.320 --> 00:41:32.389
I feel shame, I'm defensive, and I'm looking for people
652
00:41:32.409 --> 00:41:33.969
to agree with me, and I'm not really thinking in
653
00:41:33.989 --> 00:41:38.599
the most broad fair-minded way and I agree and I
654
00:41:38.679 --> 00:41:42.289
worry that white supremacy is just like unhelpful in that
655
00:41:42.329 --> 00:41:45.530
context as a term anyway but the point you were
656
00:41:45.550 --> 00:41:49.570
actually making there is that part of whiteness is this
657
00:41:49.710 --> 00:41:52.559
let's succeed I think what you're saying I think what
658
00:41:52.579 --> 00:41:53.760
I hear you're saying and I want to draw you
659
00:41:53.820 --> 00:41:59.639
out on it yeah let's succeed let's It's kind of
660
00:41:59.719 --> 00:42:02.869
not quite satisfied with what's happening right now. I need
661
00:42:02.909 --> 00:42:05.929
to get the next thing. That's urgency. Yes, the urgency.
662
00:42:06.010 --> 00:42:09.340
Productivity. I like capitalism, right? So it's kind of a–
663
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:09.920
it's hard.
664
00:42:09.820 --> 00:42:10.880
To pull the two apart.
665
00:42:11.179 --> 00:42:11.420
Yes.
666
00:42:11.820 --> 00:42:13.710
But is that a white thing or is that a
667
00:42:13.869 --> 00:42:14.510
human thing?
668
00:42:15.210 --> 00:42:16.010
That's a good question.
669
00:42:16.929 --> 00:42:19.309
Because I've heard this critique of whiteness and I've always
670
00:42:19.349 --> 00:42:21.469
had this question of like, look, I look at the
671
00:42:21.489 --> 00:42:28.719
Chinese and they seem pretty– notwithstanding the nominally capitalist– I
672
00:42:28.739 --> 00:42:33.099
mean communist government– They seem to be adapting– adopting capitalism
673
00:42:33.119 --> 00:42:36.019
with a robustness. Is that because of colonialism or is
674
00:42:36.039 --> 00:42:38.960
there something innate to the human– I mean the Buddha
675
00:42:38.980 --> 00:42:43.300
was talking about suffering being this– it had many facets.
676
00:42:43.320 --> 00:42:45.840
But one of the facets was there's a hungry ghost
677
00:42:45.929 --> 00:42:50.289
in you that can never be satiated. He was talking
678
00:42:50.309 --> 00:42:54.150
about this stuff in the context of the Indian subcontinent
679
00:42:54.150 --> 00:42:58.269
2600 years ago. I believe whiteness was that much of
680
00:42:58.309 --> 00:43:00.179
a thing in that part of the world. So I
681
00:43:00.260 --> 00:43:01.940
wonder about this critique.
682
00:43:02.139 --> 00:43:05.119
Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. I love this. So I'm
683
00:43:05.159 --> 00:43:06.840
just going to say that we're going to end this
684
00:43:06.880 --> 00:43:09.639
conversation and only just be beginning to talk about all
685
00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:12.519
the things that we might, right? I mean, we're just
686
00:43:12.539 --> 00:43:14.989
going to be getting to like the beginning, beginning of
687
00:43:15.050 --> 00:43:21.329
some juicy stuff. And because it is this rich, everything
688
00:43:21.349 --> 00:43:23.489
that we're talking about could be his own, you know,
689
00:43:24.400 --> 00:43:32.039
seminar you know practice commitment um because whether we call
690
00:43:32.079 --> 00:43:36.880
it whiteness or dominance i mean it's whiteness because in
691
00:43:36.920 --> 00:43:41.480
a sense in this culture um the dominant class has
692
00:43:41.519 --> 00:43:45.719
been racialized as white and all you know in the
693
00:43:45.889 --> 00:43:50.250
kind of capitalist structure first with the clearing of the
694
00:43:50.309 --> 00:43:54.000
land um and on and on, everything that we've built
695
00:43:54.039 --> 00:43:59.659
on top of it, has happened to benefit that dominant
696
00:43:59.679 --> 00:44:03.079
racial group. So, yeah, I mean, it is a feature
697
00:44:03.099 --> 00:44:07.969
of maybe dominance, not only whiteness, but in this culture
698
00:44:08.010 --> 00:44:13.969
that dominance has kind of, again, fused with this, been colored,
699
00:44:14.010 --> 00:44:17.710
if you will, with these notions of, frankly, whiteness. And
700
00:44:17.730 --> 00:44:20.650
so it is, I think I appreciate you kind of
701
00:44:20.730 --> 00:44:24.860
troubling this kind of way of naming this as whiteness
702
00:44:24.969 --> 00:44:30.179
as such, as a kind of, because it can maybe be,
703
00:44:33.699 --> 00:44:36.500
we might need to refine it or we might do
704
00:44:36.519 --> 00:44:39.539
better with a bit more nuance around this. But really,
705
00:44:39.559 --> 00:44:45.570
if we think about the patterns by which dominance constructs consciousness,
706
00:44:46.659 --> 00:44:50.599
and recognize that that's a culturally and contextually specific set
707
00:44:50.619 --> 00:44:54.239
of processes and projects. We're in a culture and a
708
00:44:54.280 --> 00:44:58.750
context where whiteness has been white supremacy, the history of
709
00:45:00.010 --> 00:45:03.550
that legacy of laws and cultural commitments that said in
710
00:45:04.309 --> 00:45:09.510
every important institution, whites matter most. That is what I
711
00:45:09.550 --> 00:45:13.000
mean by white supremacy. It's like, yes, you see it
712
00:45:13.099 --> 00:45:16.280
in Charlottesville, but I wish we only saw it in Charlottesville.
713
00:45:17.110 --> 00:45:21.610
The legacies of this very deep commitment that we as
714
00:45:21.650 --> 00:45:26.429
a culture made, and we can point out, in this conversation,
715
00:45:26.469 --> 00:45:29.610
we've surfaced some of the touchstones where you can say, well,
716
00:45:29.659 --> 00:45:32.530
here's an example of it. And there's another example in
717
00:45:32.590 --> 00:45:35.800
immigration law, in constitutional law, in who got to go
718
00:45:35.860 --> 00:45:39.099
to University of Virginia, et cetera, et cetera. There's so
719
00:45:39.340 --> 00:45:43.800
many ways that our culture just really gave itself over
720
00:45:43.880 --> 00:45:48.250
to white supremacy, and we know it. And so for me,
721
00:45:48.610 --> 00:45:51.989
it really is kind of useful to kind of be
722
00:45:52.050 --> 00:45:57.750
able to name that. And yet, as you point out, shame. Again,
723
00:45:57.769 --> 00:46:00.650
a whole other seminar, a whole other conversation, I actually think.
724
00:46:01.349 --> 00:46:04.349
Rather than sort of, I think part of what we're
725
00:46:04.429 --> 00:46:10.030
up against is we don't, we haven't really explored shame
726
00:46:10.570 --> 00:46:12.719
as much as we might. Because as you point out,
727
00:46:13.320 --> 00:46:18.710
anything that seems to get us anywhere near shame threatens humiliation,
728
00:46:18.889 --> 00:46:30.239
threatens all of the profound human neurobiological defenses against being
729
00:46:31.460 --> 00:46:37.500
rendered vulnerable to a sense that I don't matter and
730
00:46:37.639 --> 00:46:41.139
I'm worthless. All of the different ways we think about
731
00:46:41.159 --> 00:46:46.280
what shame does and humiliation does are at risk because
732
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:50.690
of the way our culture has not seen the legacies
733
00:46:50.750 --> 00:46:58.590
of our history or has, you know, been resistant to just, again, again,
734
00:46:59.030 --> 00:47:01.510
some of it is not conscious, I think, the resistance.
735
00:47:01.869 --> 00:47:05.130
But as if we don't see, as we talked about before,
736
00:47:05.750 --> 00:47:10.329
the white specificity of all these things, then yes, defendedness
737
00:47:10.389 --> 00:47:14.670
and defensiveness is predictable. Psychologically predictable is kind of a
738
00:47:14.710 --> 00:47:18.429
cognitive dissonance. Someone comes along and says, well, you know,
739
00:47:19.800 --> 00:47:22.340
whatever the place, University of Virginia is predominantly white and
740
00:47:22.380 --> 00:47:24.900
has the legacies of whiteness running all the way through
741
00:47:24.920 --> 00:47:28.320
it and maleness, of course, too. If you haven't been
742
00:47:28.340 --> 00:47:30.860
thinking about that at all, that can seem like a
743
00:47:30.909 --> 00:47:32.250
cognitively dissonant thing.
744
00:47:32.630 --> 00:47:33.730
Why would you have been thinking about it?
745
00:47:33.750 --> 00:47:34.090
Why would you?
746
00:47:34.110 --> 00:47:36.590
Because your whole life has been just in this– you've
747
00:47:36.610 --> 00:47:39.909
been in the water. You can't see it. And then
748
00:47:39.969 --> 00:47:41.829
somebody comes along and points it out to you and
749
00:47:41.869 --> 00:47:42.170
you're like.
750
00:47:42.360 --> 00:47:46.260
Resistant, defensive, and feeling shame and feeling threatened and feeling vulnerable.
751
00:47:46.280 --> 00:47:48.659
You don't want that. And of course you don't. But
752
00:47:49.139 --> 00:47:53.280
for me, you know, really bringing mindfulness to these things
753
00:47:53.320 --> 00:47:58.079
we call this complex of emotions that are touching around
754
00:47:58.119 --> 00:48:01.860
what we call shame is actually quite important. We could
755
00:48:01.880 --> 00:48:02.980
do a whole lot of work on that. And I
756
00:48:03.019 --> 00:48:05.440
think we should to really be able to do this
757
00:48:05.460 --> 00:48:08.019
kind of work that we're talking about really invites and
758
00:48:08.179 --> 00:48:10.409
is calling on us as a culture and as a
759
00:48:10.429 --> 00:48:16.309
mindfulness culture. to figure out how to relate to this
760
00:48:16.369 --> 00:48:21.659
complex of emotions and reactivities that we call shame, how
761
00:48:21.679 --> 00:48:27.019
to relate to that with more skillfulness. Because for me,
762
00:48:27.280 --> 00:48:30.280
there's at least a kind of something to look at
763
00:48:30.500 --> 00:48:35.039
around neurotic shame, which is just about like, anytime any
764
00:48:35.059 --> 00:48:37.179
of this comes up, I feel shame. It's not about me,
765
00:48:37.239 --> 00:48:40.500
not about what I've done, on the one hand. Versus
766
00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:46.090
a shame that might appropriately call forth inquiry around what
767
00:48:46.130 --> 00:48:49.190
have I been not willing to see? What have I
768
00:48:49.250 --> 00:48:55.510
been not willing to do? Where are my responsibilities here, right?
769
00:48:55.610 --> 00:48:58.130
The kind of shame that we is raised up to
770
00:48:58.250 --> 00:49:01.329
kind of feel like as a human being with agency
771
00:49:01.429 --> 00:49:04.230
and wanting to, again, as you pointed to the compassionate
772
00:49:04.250 --> 00:49:08.030
wing of the practice, wanting to do less harm. How
773
00:49:08.090 --> 00:49:11.739
have I been not willing to see some things Now,
774
00:49:11.809 --> 00:49:15.320
I don't mean to say that shame necessarily might attach
775
00:49:15.340 --> 00:49:20.940
to that, but something, some element of quickening. that says, oh,
776
00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:23.159
I actually have some work to do here. Maybe we
777
00:49:23.179 --> 00:49:25.139
don't want to call it shame, whatever that word is.
778
00:49:25.980 --> 00:49:29.960
But so there's a way in which I think mindfulness
779
00:49:29.980 --> 00:49:37.769
can help us recognize the ethics of what it means
780
00:49:37.789 --> 00:49:42.530
to be alive, the This idea of karma, I don't
781
00:49:42.630 --> 00:49:45.219
use that word very much. But if you read the
782
00:49:45.239 --> 00:49:49.360
teachings of the Buddha, this idea that our actions in
783
00:49:49.400 --> 00:49:53.639
the world, you know, are relevant. And to me, this
784
00:49:53.699 --> 00:49:56.420
is partly what we're talking about. The ethics of what
785
00:49:56.440 --> 00:49:59.539
it means to not just become more aware, but to
786
00:49:59.659 --> 00:50:02.559
live with awareness. And to do that in a way
787
00:50:02.619 --> 00:50:06.900
that ideally, I think, minimizes suffering. That calls on us
788
00:50:07.320 --> 00:50:10.460
to be a little bit more robust, a little bit more...
789
00:50:12.239 --> 00:50:13.940
To have a little bit more what I call like
790
00:50:15.099 --> 00:50:21.469
fortitude or resolve or this deeper capacity. You know, we're
791
00:50:21.489 --> 00:50:25.650
not kids anymore. To be able to turn toward things
792
00:50:25.710 --> 00:50:29.789
that really would otherwise trigger us, make us reactive, maybe
793
00:50:29.869 --> 00:50:33.260
threaten this shame reactivity. But rather than saying, okay, I
794
00:50:33.300 --> 00:50:36.500
can't go there. Instead to say, actually, maybe I couldn't
795
00:50:36.519 --> 00:50:38.280
have gone there at a different point in my life.
796
00:50:38.960 --> 00:50:41.889
But I've been doing some work. And I probably can
797
00:50:41.909 --> 00:50:44.409
go– I can let a little bit more of this in,
798
00:50:44.849 --> 00:50:48.630
just enough to see where my own work, what my responsibility,
799
00:50:48.710 --> 00:50:53.530
what my right action here might be around this thing
800
00:50:53.550 --> 00:50:54.530
called race and racism.
801
00:50:55.710 --> 00:51:04.860
More 10% Happier after this. You talk about doing the work.
802
00:51:05.199 --> 00:51:05.599
Yeah.
803
00:51:07.119 --> 00:51:08.539
And this book is not just for white people. It's
804
00:51:08.559 --> 00:51:08.900
for all people.
805
00:51:08.920 --> 00:51:10.800
It's for all of us. Right. For sure.
806
00:51:10.820 --> 00:51:13.599
So what would the work look like and how does
807
00:51:13.659 --> 00:51:14.420
mindfulness help?
808
00:51:15.119 --> 00:51:19.139
Yeah. I mean, so, um, I think it is just
809
00:51:19.719 --> 00:51:26.409
what we've been talking about as a part of it. Um, recognizing, accepting,
810
00:51:26.550 --> 00:51:29.989
investigating with as much non-attachment. I've just used that RAIN
811
00:51:30.130 --> 00:51:33.849
acronym that is a famous teaching acronym, um, in the
812
00:51:33.889 --> 00:51:38.309
work of mindfulness. Um, RAIN, R-A-I-N, as a way of
813
00:51:38.369 --> 00:51:42.269
just summarizing what it is that, in some sense, mindfulness
814
00:51:42.750 --> 00:51:46.289
practice and the allied disciplines is meant to give us
815
00:51:46.329 --> 00:51:50.260
in our world. The capacity to recognize, to see what's happening,
816
00:51:50.739 --> 00:51:54.159
to accept for the moment what it is without being
817
00:51:54.260 --> 00:51:57.340
at war with reality, as some of our teachers have
818
00:51:57.360 --> 00:52:02.949
put it. In other words, we might discern, it might
819
00:52:02.989 --> 00:52:06.110
come to some discerning judgment about what to do. But
820
00:52:06.170 --> 00:52:08.409
for the moment, we just want to accept it long
821
00:52:08.449 --> 00:52:11.250
enough to say, this is actually a feature of this
822
00:52:11.329 --> 00:52:15.230
world that I might not have seen or might need
823
00:52:15.250 --> 00:52:18.849
to learn a little bit more about. So recognize, accept, I,
824
00:52:18.909 --> 00:52:24.820
the investigate piece. Pausing, taking in, expending what might be
825
00:52:24.840 --> 00:52:28.940
called enough right effort to see where am I being reacted?
826
00:52:29.429 --> 00:52:31.849
And what is the specificity of my reaction? Am I
827
00:52:31.889 --> 00:52:36.349
getting angry? Am I afraid? What's underneath this anger? Like,
828
00:52:36.429 --> 00:52:41.030
what am I really feeling threatened by here? And what
829
00:52:41.070 --> 00:52:44.309
are the different moves I'm kind of subtly doing that
830
00:52:44.349 --> 00:52:47.210
I might not have even been willing to, been able
831
00:52:47.250 --> 00:52:49.849
to see or willing to see or willing, able to
832
00:52:49.929 --> 00:52:52.329
name or willing to name? What are the ways I
833
00:52:52.369 --> 00:52:57.329
might be not wanting to admit the kind of feeling state,
834
00:52:57.570 --> 00:53:02.010
you know, what's happening underneath the reactivity, what's happening underneath
835
00:53:02.050 --> 00:53:09.630
the resistance, what's happening underneath the denial. So recognize, accept, investigate, again,
836
00:53:09.670 --> 00:53:13.039
with as much compassion as possible. All of it. Like,
837
00:53:14.179 --> 00:53:18.659
for me, that, whew, that call toward compassion is the
838
00:53:18.900 --> 00:53:22.519
only really right, it seems like the only right way
839
00:53:22.559 --> 00:53:24.550
to be with all of this. Because we didn't create
840
00:53:24.570 --> 00:53:27.230
this world. You know what I mean? Like, we all
841
00:53:27.329 --> 00:53:30.750
inherited the world with all of these so-called projects going
842
00:53:30.869 --> 00:53:32.670
on with race and racism and sexism, right?
843
00:53:33.289 --> 00:53:35.769
Now, that's not to say that– We're also not responsible
844
00:53:35.789 --> 00:53:36.409
for evolution.
845
00:53:36.809 --> 00:53:40.849
Exactly. That too. And yet that is also– that's true.
846
00:53:40.929 --> 00:53:44.250
All that's true. And we do have some agency and
847
00:53:44.289 --> 00:53:47.059
we do– right? So it's like this both and. It's
848
00:53:47.119 --> 00:53:51.079
that radical complexity of it all. So to me, when
849
00:53:51.099 --> 00:53:54.500
you see the radical complexity of all of that, compassion
850
00:53:54.559 --> 00:53:56.929
is like other– you know, others who've sat with these
851
00:53:56.949 --> 00:53:58.909
sorts of things over time, it's very clear to me,
852
00:53:58.989 --> 00:54:03.409
compassion is the only right response. Starting with ourselves. Starting
853
00:54:03.469 --> 00:54:07.239
with ourselves. Because, of course, we're going to, you know,
854
00:54:07.639 --> 00:54:14.519
flinch and ouch and feel, you know, when I see,
855
00:54:14.559 --> 00:54:17.579
for example, the way or have seen and do see
856
00:54:18.139 --> 00:54:22.260
the way that my own upbringing trained my ears for English.
857
00:54:23.400 --> 00:54:25.909
And so that when I moved to San Francisco from
858
00:54:25.949 --> 00:54:29.789
the South and suddenly found myself in the DMV or
859
00:54:29.929 --> 00:54:33.340
on Fillmore Street having, you know, hearing people speaking languages
860
00:54:33.360 --> 00:54:37.579
that I didn't recognize as English, there was that part
861
00:54:37.639 --> 00:54:40.559
of me that was sort of like, you know, reactive.
862
00:54:41.780 --> 00:54:45.800
Felt a little bit of like, you know, is this,
863
00:54:45.960 --> 00:54:49.659
you know, is this okay? All of that. I'm not
864
00:54:49.719 --> 00:54:52.900
proud to say that those were some of the reactions
865
00:54:53.059 --> 00:54:56.849
I have had, When I'm thinking I was in one
866
00:54:56.889 --> 00:54:58.690
kind of place where one kind of language would be
867
00:54:59.630 --> 00:55:01.690
what I would be, what my ears would have to
868
00:55:01.730 --> 00:55:05.210
work with and define myself, like either having people speak
869
00:55:05.250 --> 00:55:07.590
a language that I don't understand and whatever can come
870
00:55:07.630 --> 00:55:09.289
up with that. Well, what are they talking about? And
871
00:55:09.469 --> 00:55:11.809
are they talking about me? And am I safe here?
872
00:55:11.869 --> 00:55:16.280
Whatever that is. All of that. I kind of got that, honestly,
873
00:55:16.320 --> 00:55:18.579
growing up in North Carolina and Virginia, where in the
874
00:55:18.619 --> 00:55:21.659
particular places that I lived at that time, we didn't
875
00:55:21.719 --> 00:55:26.639
hear a lot of different languages around us. my identity
876
00:55:26.719 --> 00:55:29.460
is tied to me feeling like I'm an open liberal.
877
00:55:29.519 --> 00:55:31.949
Like I, you know, I don't, of course I want to,
878
00:55:32.030 --> 00:55:33.889
I want to, I learned French, you know, I want
879
00:55:33.909 --> 00:55:38.269
to learn the languages, but am I a human being
880
00:55:38.369 --> 00:55:43.469
whose biology and neurobiology kind of makes me prefigure and
881
00:55:43.849 --> 00:55:46.630
cognitively predict what is going to be present and then
882
00:55:46.670 --> 00:55:50.110
react when something shows up that I'm, that I didn't expect. Yeah.
883
00:55:50.809 --> 00:55:53.250
So for me, the work looks like that. The work
884
00:55:53.269 --> 00:56:00.000
looks like, recognizing, noticing. And it's very embodied, Dan. It's
885
00:56:00.039 --> 00:56:03.239
about being present to the body. It's really literally a
886
00:56:03.320 --> 00:56:06.610
move that can happen when something shows up that we're
887
00:56:06.650 --> 00:56:09.050
not used to, that we weren't trained to see or
888
00:56:09.090 --> 00:56:12.809
trained to appreciate or trained to accept or be ready
889
00:56:12.849 --> 00:56:15.510
to open up to. And today it comes up in
890
00:56:15.570 --> 00:56:18.880
so many different ways. It's the intersection of race with
891
00:56:18.980 --> 00:56:24.639
gender and sex orientation and and immigration status. It's just,
892
00:56:25.219 --> 00:56:27.949
it's coming up all the time if we're willing to
893
00:56:27.989 --> 00:56:31.150
see it and to see that that's what it is.
894
00:56:31.489 --> 00:56:33.809
We might not realize or be willing to name that
895
00:56:33.869 --> 00:56:42.159
it's really kind of another legacy of being trained to,
896
00:56:42.300 --> 00:56:44.880
in patterns of dominance and to relate to dominance and to,
897
00:56:45.380 --> 00:56:48.719
and I say relate to dominance again to invite inquiry
898
00:56:49.159 --> 00:56:52.929
around how all of us who want to succeed in
899
00:56:52.989 --> 00:56:57.289
this context are being invited to relate to dominance and
900
00:56:57.329 --> 00:57:00.949
patterns of dominance in ways that imbibe it and play
901
00:57:00.989 --> 00:57:04.199
it out. This is why these projects are not, the
902
00:57:04.239 --> 00:57:07.860
projects of racial justice, the projects of waking up to racism,
903
00:57:08.380 --> 00:57:14.599
the work of becoming more committed to minimizing harm in
904
00:57:14.619 --> 00:57:18.449
these areas is for all of us. Because again, you
905
00:57:18.489 --> 00:57:20.409
see it all the time. The mere fact that you
906
00:57:20.510 --> 00:57:25.579
hire cops of color doesn't mean you won't have, not
907
00:57:25.599 --> 00:57:28.440
to pick on cops, but just, right, the mere fact
908
00:57:28.480 --> 00:57:32.820
that you diversify any institution does not mean, like what
909
00:57:32.840 --> 00:57:35.460
we call in the diversity work, facial diversity. Just you
910
00:57:35.500 --> 00:57:37.119
open the door and you look around the table and
911
00:57:37.159 --> 00:57:40.969
you see, okay, we don't have only whites here. Does
912
00:57:41.030 --> 00:57:46.090
that mean that the processes, policies, work of that institution
913
00:57:46.110 --> 00:57:52.019
will necessarily change? It's actually not that simple. We know
914
00:57:52.880 --> 00:57:57.170
that the system can select for people who look different
915
00:57:57.230 --> 00:58:03.829
but who have been trained to succeed by imbibing and
916
00:58:04.590 --> 00:58:06.050
playing out practices of doctrine.
917
00:58:06.070 --> 00:58:07.070
You're still fishing the same water.
918
00:58:07.590 --> 00:58:07.849
Yes.
919
00:58:07.869 --> 00:58:09.650
You're still in the larger cultural context.
920
00:58:09.769 --> 00:58:12.590
You are. And you might look a little different, but
921
00:58:13.909 --> 00:58:18.130
the people in that place are still being rewarded for–
922
00:58:18.469 --> 00:58:23.550
maintaining the status quo and maintaining those patterns of dominance
923
00:58:23.590 --> 00:58:24.010
and oppression.
924
00:58:24.150 --> 00:58:26.550
Because you took us pretty far down the road in
925
00:58:26.570 --> 00:58:30.099
terms of, you know, where the rubber hits the road,
926
00:58:30.119 --> 00:58:33.900
what we can do to use our practice to explore
927
00:58:33.920 --> 00:58:35.900
all this. And you were talking about RAIN, the recognizing.
928
00:58:36.519 --> 00:58:40.820
A is accepting or allowing. I is investigating. The N is, well,
929
00:58:40.840 --> 00:58:44.909
sometimes it's non-identification. Like, in other words, seeing that it's not,
930
00:58:44.929 --> 00:58:50.039
you can't, Whatever's going on, you can't really claim ownership.
931
00:58:50.079 --> 00:58:52.440
It's not really about you. And we don't want you
932
00:58:52.460 --> 00:58:55.400
to make a new story. Like, I am this whatever.
933
00:58:55.519 --> 00:59:00.199
I'm this white privileged. I am this whatever it is. Non-identification.
934
00:59:00.239 --> 00:59:05.469
Holding it with some lightness. Sometimes non-attachment is used. Sometimes,
935
00:59:05.829 --> 00:59:07.949
what's the other word? Nurturing is another way people are
936
00:59:07.969 --> 00:59:11.219
thinking about the end these days. Yeah. For me, again,
937
00:59:11.590 --> 00:59:13.840
however you bring in that compassionate piece, I'm happy to
938
00:59:13.860 --> 00:59:16.519
put it there with the end. But in, right, this
939
00:59:16.579 --> 00:59:20.000
idea of like all of the rain process is to
940
00:59:20.039 --> 00:59:24.139
be held with a kind of commitment to being with
941
00:59:24.159 --> 00:59:28.360
the suffering that comes up when we have the wherewithal.
942
00:59:29.760 --> 00:59:34.070
the steadfastness to stay in these difficult places of inquiry.
943
00:59:35.550 --> 00:59:38.090
So yeah, and can sometimes be about nurturing as well.
944
00:59:38.610 --> 00:59:41.929
So I think that's incredibly useful, but just to take
945
00:59:41.949 --> 00:59:50.960
even another level closer to sort of practicality, would you
946
00:59:51.000 --> 00:59:54.590
recommend that we I've taken– I took a course on
947
00:59:54.630 --> 00:59:57.050
race and the dharma taught in part by the aforementioned
948
00:59:57.230 --> 00:59:59.090
Sabine Selassie. One of the things they recommended was to
949
00:59:59.130 --> 01:00:01.449
sort of take a day or even a five to
950
01:00:01.489 --> 01:00:05.400
ten-minute section where you just really pay close attention to
951
01:00:05.420 --> 01:00:08.980
whatever thoughts come into your mind based on who's in
952
01:00:09.019 --> 01:00:12.760
front of you. Or what kind of practices that would
953
01:00:12.800 --> 01:00:17.920
even take this into the doable zone that would you recommend?
954
01:00:18.679 --> 01:00:21.510
I love that you just named that. And you're asking
955
01:00:21.530 --> 01:00:25.389
me this question because there are specific practices. And of course,
956
01:00:25.409 --> 01:00:26.829
that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book
957
01:00:26.849 --> 01:00:31.969
to help us think together about and elaborate different ways
958
01:00:32.010 --> 01:00:34.920
that we might wake ourselves up more to these things.
959
01:00:37.500 --> 01:00:41.880
There's infinite number. Once you decide, I think the first
960
01:00:42.039 --> 01:00:45.480
and most important thing is to make a decision, have
961
01:00:45.519 --> 01:00:50.050
an intention to bring awareness to this aspect of our experience.
962
01:00:51.190 --> 01:00:53.710
Then there again, like anything else, there's so many different
963
01:00:53.730 --> 01:00:57.969
ways you can do it. I ask my students, for example,
964
01:00:58.010 --> 01:01:02.429
to take one of these implicit associations tests, right, where
965
01:01:02.449 --> 01:01:04.199
you can look online and get at least a sense.
966
01:01:04.590 --> 01:01:05.590
Yeah, those are controversial.
967
01:01:05.679 --> 01:01:09.440
I know they're controversial. Yeah, I'm well aware. And yet
968
01:01:09.820 --> 01:01:13.619
I think it's even with the controversy worth looking at,
969
01:01:13.699 --> 01:01:19.099
worth being in that conversation, being in the conversation around,
970
01:01:19.639 --> 01:01:23.929
how pervasive bias is and how we how again our
971
01:01:23.969 --> 01:01:26.769
brains are structured for bias as you put it before
972
01:01:27.550 --> 01:01:31.590
and how therefore um as best as we try to
973
01:01:31.610 --> 01:01:34.940
become aware it's it's it's a challenge for us as.
974
01:01:34.719 --> 01:01:36.900
An onion yeah it may make you cry yes.
975
01:01:39.079 --> 01:01:41.880
So yes so different ways of like really looking at
976
01:01:42.500 --> 01:01:45.039
um bias and figuring out as best we can where
977
01:01:45.119 --> 01:01:52.260
we're biased practice for recognizing um Stories, telling stories, I
978
01:01:52.300 --> 01:01:55.030
think is very, very important. And this book is very
979
01:01:55.070 --> 01:02:00.500
much about that, actually. It's about normalizing a kind of
980
01:02:00.559 --> 01:02:02.960
contemplative storytelling as part of the practice.
981
01:02:03.579 --> 01:02:06.179
Does that mean like opening up about moments where you
982
01:02:06.219 --> 01:02:07.440
had a thought?
983
01:02:07.659 --> 01:02:09.860
Exactly, like I just did about like I'm on the
984
01:02:09.880 --> 01:02:12.360
streets or I'm at the DMV and I hear all
985
01:02:12.400 --> 01:02:14.599
these languages and I'm like, whoa, that's a kind of
986
01:02:14.940 --> 01:02:16.900
what I call a race story. I'll give you one. Yeah.
987
01:02:19.460 --> 01:02:20.699
I don't know if I've told the story in the
988
01:02:20.719 --> 01:02:22.860
podcast before. I may have. But last year, I took
989
01:02:22.900 --> 01:02:23.820
my son to see Frozen.
990
01:02:23.840 --> 01:02:24.440
Yes.
991
01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:26.360
About Norwegians.
992
01:02:26.860 --> 01:02:27.000
Yes.
993
01:02:27.219 --> 01:02:28.300
They're largely white.
994
01:02:28.340 --> 01:02:29.400
I haven't actually seen.
995
01:02:29.500 --> 01:02:31.679
I mean... I took him to see the play.
996
01:02:31.780 --> 01:02:34.780
Thank you for letting me know. I'm like, who is Elsa? Okay, yeah.
997
01:02:35.460 --> 01:02:36.880
So I took him to see the play. He'd already
998
01:02:36.900 --> 01:02:38.219
seen the movie. But my wife and I took him
999
01:02:38.239 --> 01:02:41.300
to see the play. I work for Disney. So it's
1000
01:02:41.380 --> 01:02:42.460
a must. And in the play.
1001
01:02:47.480 --> 01:02:49.699
In the first scene or something like that, or one
1002
01:02:49.719 --> 01:02:53.210
of the first scenes, Elsa and Anna are prancing around
1003
01:02:53.269 --> 01:02:55.349
the stage, and then their parents come on. And in
1004
01:02:55.369 --> 01:02:58.349
the play, the parents are black. And my first thought was,
1005
01:02:58.530 --> 01:02:59.130
who are these people?
1006
01:03:00.030 --> 01:03:00.230
Right.
1007
01:03:00.929 --> 01:03:01.110
Yeah.
1008
01:03:01.329 --> 01:03:05.880
What? I couldn't compute it. And I was like, oh.
1009
01:03:06.420 --> 01:03:08.119
And I think it was not long after I had
1010
01:03:08.159 --> 01:03:11.599
taken Seb's course that she co-taught. I was like, well,
1011
01:03:11.619 --> 01:03:14.579
that's an interesting moment. I don't really want to see that.
1012
01:03:14.940 --> 01:03:17.409
But actually, I've been put into a mind– state where
1013
01:03:17.789 --> 01:03:20.349
I was a little bit more welcoming of it. And so, yeah,
1014
01:03:20.369 --> 01:03:22.869
the shame was all there. It's like how you told
1015
01:03:22.929 --> 01:03:25.230
myself a bunch of stories about how racist I was.
1016
01:03:25.269 --> 01:03:26.909
But I was like, oh, this is interesting. I didn't
1017
01:03:26.949 --> 01:03:30.199
invite that thought. So where does that come from? And
1018
01:03:30.400 --> 01:03:33.659
there's a quote, actually, that I'm talking a lot about Seb,
1019
01:03:33.679 --> 01:03:37.639
but it was, I think, the automatic footer on her
1020
01:03:37.780 --> 01:03:39.860
emails for a while. which is something like you're not
1021
01:03:39.880 --> 01:03:42.800
thinking your thoughts, you're thinking the culture's thoughts, which is
1022
01:03:42.820 --> 01:03:45.719
a quote from somebody whose name I can't remember right now.
1023
01:03:45.949 --> 01:03:50.269
But I was like, yeah, so somewhere that got embedded. Obviously,
1024
01:03:50.309 --> 01:03:53.550
it's just confusing that whatever race their parents would have
1025
01:03:53.570 --> 01:03:56.010
been if they weren't white, it would take you a minute.
1026
01:03:56.030 --> 01:03:57.710
It would take you a minute. But nonetheless, I went
1027
01:03:57.750 --> 01:04:00.070
quickly to they're definitely not the parents.
1028
01:04:00.309 --> 01:04:02.909
Right. Who are these people?
1029
01:04:03.050 --> 01:04:06.010
So, yeah, I mean, it's embarrassing, but it's also like
1030
01:04:06.170 --> 01:04:06.550
it happened.
1031
01:04:06.670 --> 01:04:09.050
It happens a lot. It happens. I mean, and a
1032
01:04:09.230 --> 01:04:13.289
version of what you just described can happen any given
1033
01:04:13.329 --> 01:04:17.090
day in America somewhere where, for example, a group of
1034
01:04:17.110 --> 01:04:19.650
four people might show up or even a couple for
1035
01:04:19.670 --> 01:04:23.139
a reservation, but they happen to be of different races
1036
01:04:23.619 --> 01:04:26.760
at a restaurant. So show up at the reservation desk,
1037
01:04:27.780 --> 01:04:30.440
as has happened to me, as part of a group
1038
01:04:31.519 --> 01:04:38.360
that is not monoracial. It can happen. that the person
1039
01:04:38.380 --> 01:04:40.219
behind the desk will look down, look up, call for
1040
01:04:40.239 --> 01:04:42.960
the party. You're here. We're here. They look down and look.
1041
01:04:42.980 --> 01:04:46.800
They're still waiting, looking for the party. The party, if
1042
01:04:46.880 --> 01:04:49.179
it does not show up in that monoracial, what I've
1043
01:04:49.199 --> 01:04:51.320
been trained, what the culture has trained me to see
1044
01:04:51.460 --> 01:04:54.260
as the two people at a top, a tabletop, right,
1045
01:04:54.380 --> 01:04:57.500
or the group of four. They're all looking from all
1046
01:04:57.539 --> 01:05:01.179
walks of life. It's going to happen. It just takes
1047
01:05:01.219 --> 01:05:03.539
a minute for people to realize these four people will
1048
01:05:03.559 --> 01:05:07.050
be seated together and have dinner together. despite the fact
1049
01:05:07.070 --> 01:05:11.590
that they're coming from these radically. So again, yeah, mindfulness
1050
01:05:11.650 --> 01:05:15.250
is bringing awareness, creating some space for looking at what
1051
01:05:15.289 --> 01:05:18.610
we know in our bones about how we are in
1052
01:05:18.690 --> 01:05:21.050
this all the time. We are in these systems and
1053
01:05:21.090 --> 01:05:24.650
the systems are in us, as Peggy McIntosh did say.
1054
01:05:25.570 --> 01:05:27.469
We are in these systems and they are in us.
1055
01:05:28.210 --> 01:05:32.809
So yes, these thoughts are coming up unbidden. And again,
1056
01:05:33.659 --> 01:05:36.510
what was it like in the body that moment? that
1057
01:05:36.590 --> 01:05:38.849
moment when they show up on stage or that moment when,
1058
01:05:40.010 --> 01:05:45.409
you know, we hear some language and we're like, wait,
1059
01:05:45.489 --> 01:05:47.489
I didn't, I don't know about this. I'm just using
1060
01:05:47.510 --> 01:05:50.909
this as one example. Looking back in what is happening
1061
01:05:50.949 --> 01:05:54.340
in the body is important. It's such an important kind
1062
01:05:54.380 --> 01:05:58.320
of source. I've guided folks in doing these kinds of reflections,
1063
01:05:58.420 --> 01:06:01.989
telling these kinds of race story moments, you know, and,
1064
01:06:02.119 --> 01:06:05.030
and creating more spaciousness around it. Noticing if there's a
1065
01:06:05.070 --> 01:06:09.489
bit of that shame complex coming in or whatever it is, recognizing, accepting,
1066
01:06:09.570 --> 01:06:13.449
let's just create space where we can name that we
1067
01:06:13.510 --> 01:06:18.059
know something about this. And through that, um, dissipate some
1068
01:06:18.099 --> 01:06:22.920
of the kind of resistances and kind of places where
1069
01:06:22.940 --> 01:06:26.280
we get stuck and hooked and, um, shut down and
1070
01:06:27.340 --> 01:06:31.860
confused and, you know, willing to stay ignorant. Uh, I'm
1071
01:06:31.880 --> 01:06:34.940
thinking about a workshop where I was in conversation and
1072
01:06:35.579 --> 01:06:39.460
inviting this kind of reflection. Often what I'll do is
1073
01:06:39.559 --> 01:06:42.719
ask people, you know, what comes up for you when
1074
01:06:42.739 --> 01:06:46.920
you're invited to look at race in mixed company, for example,
1075
01:06:47.599 --> 01:06:52.619
or to look at a resume. Think about the last
1076
01:06:52.659 --> 01:06:54.780
time you saw a resume. Did you make any assumptions
1077
01:06:54.949 --> 01:06:57.210
based on the name you saw or when the email
1078
01:06:57.250 --> 01:07:00.389
comes in? Or did you have a moment when you
1079
01:07:00.429 --> 01:07:03.590
had a notion? that this person was of one background
1080
01:07:03.610 --> 01:07:06.750
and you learn that they weren't and what was going
1081
01:07:06.809 --> 01:07:09.469
on there. So this is a way of also answering
1082
01:07:09.489 --> 01:07:12.090
your question. There are many different ways that we can
1083
01:07:12.110 --> 01:07:16.280
sort of challenge ourselves to kind of break us out
1084
01:07:16.300 --> 01:07:18.880
of the trance, if you will, of the cultures, trainings
1085
01:07:18.960 --> 01:07:22.739
about these things. Invite that kind of challenge. So in
1086
01:07:22.760 --> 01:07:26.210
this one session in which I was inviting that for
1087
01:07:26.230 --> 01:07:30.510
the group, I had a young white man say, I'm
1088
01:07:30.590 --> 01:07:35.449
noticing here For the first time, that whereas up until
1089
01:07:35.489 --> 01:07:38.889
this moment, if somebody had asked me what comes up
1090
01:07:38.909 --> 01:07:41.030
for me when I see racism or think about race,
1091
01:07:41.190 --> 01:07:45.329
I would have said, I don't see race and I
1092
01:07:45.849 --> 01:07:49.889
don't know anything about it. I haven't seen white racialized
1093
01:07:49.929 --> 01:07:55.099
man in his 30s. His report in that moment was
1094
01:07:57.239 --> 01:08:01.309
he was in the practice. the practice of this spacious,
1095
01:08:01.369 --> 01:08:06.409
compassionate space for just looking at the very subtle ways
1096
01:08:07.190 --> 01:08:10.670
that when this topic comes up, things start to happen inside,
1097
01:08:11.230 --> 01:08:14.000
even if the face doesn't change, something is going on.
1098
01:08:14.489 --> 01:08:17.880
What he was able to see and name was that
1099
01:08:18.020 --> 01:08:21.060
whereas he traditionally said, I haven't seen and I don't know,
1100
01:08:21.800 --> 01:08:25.060
there was a movement in the direction of not seeing
1101
01:08:25.220 --> 01:08:29.550
and not wanting to know, avoidance, which he hadn't really realized.
1102
01:08:30.170 --> 01:08:34.800
slowed down enough and given himself enough space to name
1103
01:08:34.840 --> 01:08:39.159
and recognize. To me, on the one hand, that's like
1104
01:08:39.180 --> 01:08:41.239
a very subtle thing. It's not like he's going out
1105
01:08:41.260 --> 01:08:46.439
and changing the world, right? He's not rewriting the law.
1106
01:08:47.380 --> 01:08:50.100
But that level of awareness and to be able to
1107
01:08:50.500 --> 01:08:52.880
have some place where you can say, this is true
1108
01:08:52.899 --> 01:08:55.970
in my life, that most of my life I've said
1109
01:08:56.050 --> 01:08:58.090
I don't know anything about race. It's something I guess
1110
01:08:58.130 --> 01:09:00.680
I got to turn and learn from other people. In
1111
01:09:00.720 --> 01:09:06.300
this moment, I realize I actively have avoided this conversation.
1112
01:09:06.800 --> 01:09:11.220
When it comes up, I actively clench and move away.
1113
01:09:12.579 --> 01:09:16.670
To me, to see that is an opening. That can
1114
01:09:16.729 --> 01:09:20.670
change a trajectory. We don't know what follows from that.
1115
01:09:21.189 --> 01:09:23.810
And so that to me is really how mindfulness can
1116
01:09:23.829 --> 01:09:24.630
support us in the work.
1117
01:09:25.630 --> 01:09:26.470
What about speech?
1118
01:09:27.270 --> 01:09:27.449
Yeah.
1119
01:09:27.930 --> 01:09:29.369
So I think a lot about political correctness.
1120
01:09:29.689 --> 01:09:29.930
Yeah.
1121
01:09:30.350 --> 01:09:32.869
And I think there are really compelling arguments on both sides.
1122
01:09:35.829 --> 01:09:38.520
How do you think about political correctness as it relates
1123
01:09:38.600 --> 01:09:41.350
to the Buddhist concept of right speech, which is often
1124
01:09:41.439 --> 01:09:45.819
described as, you know, say that which is true and
1125
01:09:45.840 --> 01:09:48.310
which is useful? Yeah. At the right time.
1126
01:09:48.680 --> 01:09:52.640
Exactly. Good question. I know you bring me the good
1127
01:09:52.680 --> 01:09:53.300
questions here.
1128
01:09:53.319 --> 01:09:56.180
I save them all for you.
1129
01:09:56.220 --> 01:10:03.350
Thank you, Dan. Oh, I mean, every moment of this
1130
01:10:03.409 --> 01:10:06.609
kind of work is an opportunity to be reflecting in
1131
01:10:06.649 --> 01:10:09.510
a certain sense on what this means actually as a
1132
01:10:09.569 --> 01:10:14.550
lived thing and living in some sense, like whatever way
1133
01:10:14.569 --> 01:10:15.649
we're trying to make this real.
1134
01:10:15.670 --> 01:10:16.569
Yeah.
1135
01:10:17.750 --> 01:10:23.899
Absolutely what you just described in terms of, um, you know,
1136
01:10:24.340 --> 01:10:27.140
really trying to speak the truth and trying to speak
1137
01:10:27.279 --> 01:10:31.439
in a way that, um, I mean, often this idea
1138
01:10:31.460 --> 01:10:34.550
of like not being, uh, disagreeable is what can get
1139
01:10:34.930 --> 01:10:38.770
into the conversation around. Is it right speech to, to
1140
01:10:38.810 --> 01:10:42.550
kind of, um, call us into conversation about these things
1141
01:10:42.829 --> 01:10:47.109
if it, um, well, again, specifically you're talking about the
1142
01:10:47.130 --> 01:10:52.119
intersection between political correctness, this sort of way we have
1143
01:10:52.180 --> 01:10:56.939
in this culture, sought to heighten our awareness of how
1144
01:10:57.039 --> 01:11:01.300
language can do harm by almost sort of creating these
1145
01:11:01.420 --> 01:11:03.619
codes of what we can say and what we can't.
1146
01:11:06.140 --> 01:11:10.130
And then on the other hand, like, you know, right speech,
1147
01:11:10.189 --> 01:11:13.029
which is kind of, I think, a more radical invitation
1148
01:11:13.069 --> 01:11:15.729
to trying to be present with what is and speak
1149
01:11:15.770 --> 01:11:19.609
the truth as best as possible. And sometimes that aligns
1150
01:11:19.649 --> 01:11:22.630
with what we call political correctness, and sometimes it may not.
1151
01:11:24.390 --> 01:11:27.409
You know, it's more than I can really unpack in
1152
01:11:27.449 --> 01:11:30.739
this moment, but what I can say is I do
1153
01:11:30.800 --> 01:11:35.960
think that for me, everything comes back to what am
1154
01:11:36.079 --> 01:11:41.439
I doing in this moment to seek to act from
1155
01:11:41.779 --> 01:11:46.720
and speak from the ground of being as clear as
1156
01:11:46.800 --> 01:11:48.960
I can and seeking to minimize harm at the same
1157
01:11:48.979 --> 01:11:51.229
time or not to do no harm as best I can.
1158
01:11:52.909 --> 01:11:55.590
I want to be clear. I don't want to do harm.
1159
01:11:56.010 --> 01:11:58.609
I might do harm. I know this. To live in
1160
01:11:58.630 --> 01:12:01.170
the world is to do some harm, right? We destroy things,
1161
01:12:01.449 --> 01:12:04.539
put our foot down somewhere, we're crushing the world. So,
1162
01:12:04.579 --> 01:12:07.119
I mean, you know, there's got to be radical humility
1163
01:12:07.180 --> 01:12:10.569
around it or else we can't do anything. We're going
1164
01:12:10.590 --> 01:12:14.010
to make mistakes. We're going to say things that will
1165
01:12:14.090 --> 01:12:17.810
ruffle feathers, et cetera, et cetera. But if we are,
1166
01:12:17.840 --> 01:12:24.020
you know, willing to acknowledge when what we have tried
1167
01:12:24.079 --> 01:12:28.000
and put into the world as best we can from
1168
01:12:28.020 --> 01:12:32.020
the place of wanting to speak the truth and not
1169
01:12:32.060 --> 01:12:36.409
to hurt, sometimes it does, right? Right. recognizing the difference
1170
01:12:36.430 --> 01:12:40.159
between intent and impact. Again, such an important feature of
1171
01:12:40.199 --> 01:12:43.979
this work of justice. There is a difference between I've tried,
1172
01:12:44.000 --> 01:12:47.260
I'm speaking the truth, I'm trying to speak rightly. Whew,
1173
01:12:47.439 --> 01:12:53.859
somebody heard something in that that was hurtful. Humility and
1174
01:12:53.930 --> 01:12:59.670
compassion for myself and for the other person invites being
1175
01:12:59.789 --> 01:13:03.770
able to hear And to create a space where we
1176
01:13:04.229 --> 01:13:08.909
can reflect on what just happened there. What just happened there?
1177
01:13:09.270 --> 01:13:12.590
And really, again, there's a whole set of teachings. I
1178
01:13:12.609 --> 01:13:16.350
write about them to some degree here around mindful communication
1179
01:13:17.270 --> 01:13:21.359
because it's right speech and it's right reception, or if
1180
01:13:21.399 --> 01:13:24.380
you will. There's a piece of it that's about how
1181
01:13:24.439 --> 01:13:31.960
we create some spaciousness around this beautiful but challenging space.
1182
01:13:32.199 --> 01:13:36.779
project of human communication it's like you get I often
1183
01:13:36.800 --> 01:13:38.699
say you just have one person there there's a whole
1184
01:13:39.420 --> 01:13:43.859
radical opportunity for disagreement but certainly any two people it's
1185
01:13:44.600 --> 01:13:49.689
our the fact of our very different positionalities of radically
1186
01:13:49.750 --> 01:13:53.130
I mean it's like it's like almost mind-blowing the different
1187
01:13:53.170 --> 01:13:55.590
paths that you and I for example have walked to
1188
01:13:55.649 --> 01:13:58.710
this moment I mean I know that without knowing your
1189
01:13:58.750 --> 01:14:00.710
whole story you know that without knowing mine is true
1190
01:14:00.750 --> 01:14:05.050
for any two people And yet, nevertheless, we come together,
1191
01:14:05.069 --> 01:14:09.149
we use our words, we speak the same language, and we,
1192
01:14:10.310 --> 01:14:12.630
in a way that to me is very poignant and beautiful,
1193
01:14:12.670 --> 01:14:15.939
this effort to communicate and connect across these radically different
1194
01:14:15.979 --> 01:14:20.979
bases of lived experience. I like to name that whenever
1195
01:14:21.060 --> 01:14:23.960
I try to bring people together for communication around anything.
1196
01:14:25.619 --> 01:14:28.500
And so it does touch and concern this conversation about
1197
01:14:28.659 --> 01:14:32.500
political correctness. To me, it's really just about You know,
1198
01:14:32.520 --> 01:14:37.119
the language has gotten caught up in the discourse around politics.
1199
01:14:37.699 --> 01:14:39.840
But if you just kind of unpack what's going on there,
1200
01:14:40.079 --> 01:14:45.670
it's an invitation to be intentional and to be in
1201
01:14:45.710 --> 01:14:50.829
an intentional and dynamic conversation and a mindful conversation, a
1202
01:14:50.890 --> 01:14:53.649
meta conversation about how we're going to be with each other.
1203
01:14:56.229 --> 01:14:59.659
It's always got to have, for me, some element of
1204
01:14:59.720 --> 01:15:05.979
that compassion and So it does for me anyway, invite
1205
01:15:06.039 --> 01:15:12.409
both intentionality and agency and recognizing there's some work for
1206
01:15:12.430 --> 01:15:14.289
me to do to try to minimize harm in the
1207
01:15:14.329 --> 01:15:17.630
way that I speak with others about these things. And
1208
01:15:18.670 --> 01:15:22.289
in relationship with you and with others, I'm going to
1209
01:15:22.329 --> 01:15:25.500
know that I might make mistakes. I'm going to ask
1210
01:15:25.640 --> 01:15:34.880
for your holding of my imperfections. you know, with some kindness.
1211
01:15:35.859 --> 01:15:37.670
And I'm going to be willing to offer that to
1212
01:15:37.710 --> 01:15:41.710
you so that this can be a more robust space where,
1213
01:15:41.850 --> 01:15:45.590
you know, you can mess up. I can mess up.
1214
01:15:46.350 --> 01:15:50.159
And though we might need to do some work to repair,
1215
01:15:51.239 --> 01:15:54.970
we can apprehend doing work to repair. I mean, I
1216
01:15:55.029 --> 01:15:58.869
do think that's– there's a lot of brittleness that is
1217
01:15:58.909 --> 01:16:04.829
like a legacy of some really well-intended social justice work
1218
01:16:05.270 --> 01:16:14.180
around these topics. A lot of righteous and self-righteousness, right?
1219
01:16:14.199 --> 01:16:15.479
It's both.
1220
01:16:15.539 --> 01:16:20.020
Right, right, yeah. And, you know, for me, this is
1221
01:16:20.100 --> 01:16:25.880
again why mindfulness and– the broader project of, you know,
1222
01:16:27.079 --> 01:16:30.760
let's say contemplative, if not Buddhist, to speak to the
1223
01:16:30.840 --> 01:16:36.399
traditions that I draw on most frequently nowadays. The broader
1224
01:16:36.510 --> 01:16:41.369
invitation is ultimately about freedom. And that for me includes
1225
01:16:42.850 --> 01:16:48.470
freedom from even my own, you know, self-identified ways of
1226
01:16:48.609 --> 01:16:53.359
seeing my wounds and and your relationship to me, right?
1227
01:16:53.399 --> 01:16:57.300
I mean, it's like to begin a conversation about race
1228
01:16:57.319 --> 01:17:04.810
and racialization is also to begin an opportunity for waking
1229
01:17:04.930 --> 01:17:10.029
up and for deeper human connection and for, you know,
1230
01:17:10.390 --> 01:17:16.880
letting some things go, actually, and some healing and beginning again.
1231
01:17:17.810 --> 01:17:19.970
And so for me, there's a flow to that. There's
1232
01:17:20.010 --> 01:17:24.489
an equanimity to that. There's loving, you know, there's all
1233
01:17:24.529 --> 01:17:27.890
of the different, there's sympathetic joy, right? All of the
1234
01:17:27.909 --> 01:17:30.350
different abodes, if you will, that are the kind of
1235
01:17:30.399 --> 01:17:35.220
core teachings about what mindfulness might, how that might live
1236
01:17:36.359 --> 01:17:41.279
in our lives. You know, we want, in a certain sense,
1237
01:17:41.460 --> 01:17:45.300
everything that I write about in the field of racial
1238
01:17:45.359 --> 01:17:51.850
justice and identity-based work around mindfulness is a pathway to
1239
01:17:53.010 --> 01:17:56.670
waking up and a pathway to freedom and joy and
1240
01:17:57.710 --> 01:18:03.859
equanimity and, and love, frankly. So yeah, that's really what
1241
01:18:03.899 --> 01:18:09.199
it is. And that isn't about Pollyanna. That isn't about bypassing. It's,
1242
01:18:09.560 --> 01:18:11.899
and I smile sometimes when I say this, people might
1243
01:18:11.960 --> 01:18:16.819
hear the smile sometime. It is for me recognizing that, um,
1244
01:18:17.590 --> 01:18:19.149
And I would be remiss. I would feel remiss if
1245
01:18:19.180 --> 01:18:22.560
I didn't say this part. You know, every minute that
1246
01:18:22.600 --> 01:18:25.380
we're alive is a kind of gift. And, yeah, we're
1247
01:18:25.399 --> 01:18:29.340
going to turn towards some of the harder, uglier, the
1248
01:18:29.939 --> 01:18:33.899
stuff that can invite some shame. And this conversation gets
1249
01:18:33.960 --> 01:18:38.939
us there. And, my goodness, it could be otherwise. We
1250
01:18:38.960 --> 01:18:43.050
could not have the privilege of having this breath and
1251
01:18:44.390 --> 01:18:51.840
on this earth, this radically beautiful planet, right? It's all there.
1252
01:18:52.340 --> 01:18:54.600
And to me, you know, I don't– in the work
1253
01:18:54.640 --> 01:18:57.819
that I do, it is an invitation to go into
1254
01:18:57.859 --> 01:19:01.930
these hard conversations but to stay in those conversations from
1255
01:19:01.970 --> 01:19:06.989
a place of, you know, opening up to the mystery
1256
01:19:07.250 --> 01:19:09.609
of what it means to be alive. and to the
1257
01:19:09.649 --> 01:19:13.890
responsibility we have to help each other walk each other
1258
01:19:13.930 --> 01:19:18.350
back home when we get kind of lost and stuck
1259
01:19:18.989 --> 01:19:24.770
in these more limited senses of what's here and what's now.
1260
01:19:24.979 --> 01:19:27.060
I asked you a question and you answered it and
1261
01:19:27.100 --> 01:19:29.720
then elevated it to a different place. I'm going to
1262
01:19:29.739 --> 01:19:34.420
go back down into that political correctness. So I don't
1263
01:19:34.479 --> 01:19:36.579
know that I have a view. I haven't done enough
1264
01:19:36.619 --> 01:19:39.010
work to really know that I have a view But
1265
01:19:39.029 --> 01:19:42.989
I have just some shreds of shards of thoughts. So
1266
01:19:44.090 --> 01:19:46.869
the best arguments I've heard for political correctness you kind
1267
01:19:46.909 --> 01:19:51.029
of articulated. It's like this is what happens when the
1268
01:19:51.069 --> 01:19:55.199
culture gets more heterogeneous and groups that it was easy
1269
01:19:55.220 --> 01:19:59.079
to be rude to or dismissive of are saying, no,
1270
01:19:59.140 --> 01:20:00.760
you can't call me that name. Ouch.
1271
01:20:00.819 --> 01:20:01.100
Yes.
1272
01:20:01.600 --> 01:20:05.100
So, yeah, I mean that strikes me as– I see
1273
01:20:05.119 --> 01:20:08.739
the validity to that argument. And I also see the
1274
01:20:08.779 --> 01:20:12.880
validity to the– I haven't– forgive me, everybody, if I've
1275
01:20:12.899 --> 01:20:15.119
got the poll numbers wrong here. But I think that
1276
01:20:15.159 --> 01:20:17.739
I saw a poll number something around like 80 percent
1277
01:20:17.760 --> 01:20:22.399
of Americans think political correctness has gone too far. And
1278
01:20:22.899 --> 01:20:26.729
it touches on the sort of shame thing that it
1279
01:20:26.869 --> 01:20:31.170
shuts down the more constructive parts of our brain. Once
1280
01:20:31.189 --> 01:20:34.979
you activate the reptile fear-based part of the brain– the
1281
01:20:35.020 --> 01:20:40.119
higher order functioning of the brain, the rational component, the
1282
01:20:40.159 --> 01:20:42.819
reasoning part of the brain just doesn't operate as well.
1283
01:20:42.880 --> 01:20:47.399
And so if we're in an environment where many of
1284
01:20:47.460 --> 01:20:52.489
us are made to feel like we're just incorrigible, then
1285
01:20:52.510 --> 01:20:58.310
it becomes hard to engage. And I think we're seeing
1286
01:20:58.350 --> 01:20:59.670
that play out in our politics.
1287
01:20:59.750 --> 01:21:00.430
I think you're right.
1288
01:21:01.329 --> 01:21:04.579
And so I do know people who worry that Too
1289
01:21:04.619 --> 01:21:10.039
much political correctness just– while the intention is, I think,
1290
01:21:10.659 --> 01:21:14.189
really a positive one, I think, it can have really
1291
01:21:14.319 --> 01:21:17.920
negative outcomes. And yet I still see the reason for–
1292
01:21:18.010 --> 01:21:22.770
to be careful. And so it's tricky. It's really tricky.
1293
01:21:22.810 --> 01:21:24.729
And then one other thing I'd say is that I
1294
01:21:24.770 --> 01:21:26.680
really like what you talked about, the sort of common
1295
01:21:26.720 --> 01:21:29.520
denominator here being– you used a big, grandiose word, but
1296
01:21:30.779 --> 01:21:33.039
it actually doesn't have to be. You used the word love.
1297
01:21:33.350 --> 01:21:37.899
But love can be just defined in a very down-to-earth manner,
1298
01:21:37.909 --> 01:21:42.539
which is, you know, wanting the best for, having basic
1299
01:21:42.600 --> 01:21:49.399
goodwill for any other sentient being, right? So, for example,
1300
01:21:49.439 --> 01:21:51.560
like if you're in a situation where– I was listening
1301
01:21:51.579 --> 01:21:53.779
to a Dharma talk the other night from a great
1302
01:21:53.800 --> 01:21:57.300
teacher named Winnie Nazarko, who's a meditation teacher in the
1303
01:21:57.340 --> 01:22:00.000
Insight community who's got a background in social justice work.
1304
01:22:00.039 --> 01:22:01.220
She and I don't know each other, but I was
1305
01:22:01.239 --> 01:22:03.869
listening to the talk. Shout out to you, Winnie. And
1306
01:22:03.949 --> 01:22:06.229
she had done a lot of sort of social justice work.
1307
01:22:06.369 --> 01:22:07.810
She was a community organizer.
1308
01:22:07.970 --> 01:22:08.130
Yeah.
1309
01:22:08.390 --> 01:22:12.130
Sound a little bit Obama-esque there. And she talked about
1310
01:22:12.270 --> 01:22:15.989
some of her– I took from her talk and I apologize, Winnie,
1311
01:22:16.010 --> 01:22:18.590
if I'm mischaracterizing it. But I took from her talk
1312
01:22:18.630 --> 01:22:22.289
in part some misgivings about the current environment on the left.
1313
01:22:22.869 --> 01:22:27.090
And she talked about this concept of predatory listening where
1314
01:22:27.310 --> 01:22:30.149
I'm just listening to you to mess up so that
1315
01:22:30.220 --> 01:22:30.909
I can shame you.
1316
01:22:30.939 --> 01:22:31.149
Right.
1317
01:22:31.689 --> 01:22:34.619
And so I worry about that, too. And I see
1318
01:22:34.640 --> 01:22:37.680
the complexity. I see I think I see at least
1319
01:22:37.739 --> 01:22:40.479
a fraction of the complexity, let's just say.
1320
01:22:40.960 --> 01:22:41.300
Oh, yeah.
1321
01:22:41.359 --> 01:22:44.300
And it's hard for me to to to really come
1322
01:22:44.739 --> 01:22:45.779
to reckon with really.
1323
01:22:45.939 --> 01:22:49.060
Oh, thank you so much. I you know, and maybe
1324
01:22:49.100 --> 01:22:51.739
this is why I do. You heard me do it.
1325
01:22:52.239 --> 01:22:54.930
You were kind to sort of characterize it as like
1326
01:22:54.949 --> 01:22:58.789
elevating complexity. I kind of shift a little bit off
1327
01:22:58.909 --> 01:23:06.380
of the specific language of political correctness. I certainly understand.
1328
01:23:06.659 --> 01:23:09.420
I think I understand what people mean when they talk
1329
01:23:09.460 --> 01:23:12.439
about the problem of, quote unquote, cancel culture, which is
1330
01:23:12.500 --> 01:23:15.199
another way of thinking about this kind of predatory listening thing.
1331
01:23:15.550 --> 01:23:18.069
It's like I'm listening. And then the cancel piece is
1332
01:23:18.409 --> 01:23:20.510
the minute you say it, then I'm no longer listening.
1333
01:23:21.029 --> 01:23:23.220
or the minute I see this in you, then you
1334
01:23:23.319 --> 01:23:25.039
are no longer acceptable in some way.
1335
01:23:25.199 --> 01:23:27.600
Yeah, we're going to organize a Twitter mob and then
1336
01:23:27.619 --> 01:23:28.920
you're going to be deplatformed.
1337
01:23:29.520 --> 01:23:33.720
That, or we're going to disinvite you because you are.
1338
01:23:33.659 --> 01:23:35.579
A member of the military.
1339
01:23:35.600 --> 01:23:36.260
Which happened to me.
1340
01:23:36.579 --> 01:23:37.020
Really?
1341
01:23:37.079 --> 01:23:41.710
Yes, at a university school group, at a law school
1342
01:23:41.949 --> 01:23:48.130
in San Francisco, a left-leaning law group. Literally, someone saw
1343
01:23:48.149 --> 01:23:50.409
on the resume that I had been an officer in
1344
01:23:50.430 --> 01:23:57.060
the military and decided to disinvite me because of that. So, um, yes,
1345
01:23:57.149 --> 01:24:00.239
I completely think that, um, there is a way that, um,
1346
01:24:00.640 --> 01:24:04.979
the social justice left culture, you know, I wrote this
1347
01:24:05.020 --> 01:24:09.899
book for, for that group too. I often use mindful
1348
01:24:09.960 --> 01:24:14.140
communication as an alternative way of talking about this specifically
1349
01:24:14.180 --> 01:24:20.729
for this reason. Um, you know, um, The temptation to
1350
01:24:20.850 --> 01:24:29.609
self-aggrandize and to harden another kind of identity around our awakenings,
1351
01:24:29.670 --> 01:24:37.520
our wokeness or whatever, right, is its own bait of
1352
01:24:37.600 --> 01:24:40.619
our time, a bait for getting hooked, a bait for
1353
01:24:40.659 --> 01:24:44.399
getting stuck, a bait for being caught in ways that,
1354
01:24:45.819 --> 01:24:48.470
you know, the teachings of the Buddha taught. invite us
1355
01:24:48.529 --> 01:24:52.579
to become more aware of. That's true for all of us.
1356
01:24:53.130 --> 01:24:55.529
None of us is given a pass on this, in
1357
01:24:55.569 --> 01:25:00.020
my view, my humble view. And in particular, I do
1358
01:25:00.119 --> 01:25:05.479
think this book and what my work has been about
1359
01:25:05.979 --> 01:25:10.420
has been about inviting all of us from wherever we enter,
1360
01:25:10.659 --> 01:25:14.550
whatever door we come in, to kind of come into
1361
01:25:14.590 --> 01:25:20.579
that same room of reflection and of ethical engagement with
1362
01:25:21.340 --> 01:25:23.880
how we want to be with each other. I use
1363
01:25:23.899 --> 01:25:27.590
the phrase personal justice for this part, personal and interpersonal.
1364
01:25:28.229 --> 01:25:30.430
In other words, justice to me is a, there's a
1365
01:25:30.470 --> 01:25:32.489
kind of an ecology of what we mean by justice.
1366
01:25:32.529 --> 01:25:36.050
It apprehends work that we do within ourselves and for
1367
01:25:36.109 --> 01:25:39.670
ourselves and with and for each other on a one-to-one.
1368
01:25:40.810 --> 01:25:44.319
So that to me calls forth a commitment to the,
1369
01:25:45.819 --> 01:25:48.600
Write speech, yes, but also, as best I can, write listening.
1370
01:25:49.899 --> 01:25:53.409
And responding to, you know, the things that someone says
1371
01:25:53.430 --> 01:25:55.869
that might make me flinch a little bit and wonder,
1372
01:25:55.909 --> 01:26:01.890
wait a minute, was that a microaggression? To try to choose,
1373
01:26:02.109 --> 01:26:07.060
recognize the reactivity and choose to respond. This is not
1374
01:26:07.380 --> 01:26:10.659
tone policing, right? There's so many different ways that people
1375
01:26:11.100 --> 01:26:15.359
dismiss everything I'm saying as not being, you know, sharp enough, like,
1376
01:26:15.979 --> 01:26:18.420
you know, fierce enough for the time. Like right now
1377
01:26:18.460 --> 01:26:21.579
we need to really push back in all these ways.
1378
01:26:21.619 --> 01:26:25.340
And I do think oppression is so real and it
1379
01:26:25.380 --> 01:26:28.279
has hurt so many people that there's reasons why people
1380
01:26:28.420 --> 01:26:32.359
are feeling like I don't have, why is the black woman,
1381
01:26:32.439 --> 01:26:34.369
I can hear the criticism, why is the black woman
1382
01:26:34.449 --> 01:26:38.109
counseling compassion? Like, you know, why are we always the
1383
01:26:38.310 --> 01:26:42.630
ones who have to go the extra mile? You don't.
1384
01:26:44.289 --> 01:26:47.970
It's a question of how you want to live. Yes,
1385
01:26:49.350 --> 01:26:54.060
we have been– we are up against some things in
1386
01:26:54.220 --> 01:26:58.600
our time and place and we're free. And we're free.
1387
01:26:58.920 --> 01:27:02.079
Yeah. I mean I really hear what you're saying and
1388
01:27:02.220 --> 01:27:06.760
I think I really hear what you're saying. I don't–
1389
01:27:07.470 --> 01:27:10.210
my thinking about this is definitely nebulous at an early
1390
01:27:10.229 --> 01:27:12.989
stage but I don't think I have a problem with ferocity.
1391
01:27:13.960 --> 01:27:16.600
or strength or calling things out as you see them,
1392
01:27:16.619 --> 01:27:19.159
I think it goes back to what you said before. Like,
1393
01:27:19.279 --> 01:27:23.239
where is that coming from? And having some humility and
1394
01:27:23.300 --> 01:27:28.449
some clarity via mindfulness to like, what is motivating you?
1395
01:27:29.390 --> 01:27:32.569
You know, where is that coming from? And yeah, there
1396
01:27:32.590 --> 01:27:34.149
are a lot of things that there's a lot of
1397
01:27:34.189 --> 01:27:38.430
injustice out there. And I think that ferocity and, and, and,
1398
01:27:38.850 --> 01:27:43.970
and volume makes a lot of sense. I think there
1399
01:27:43.989 --> 01:27:47.069
are a lot, but it gets, I just keep coming
1400
01:27:47.090 --> 01:27:49.060
back to this great expression from, I don't know if you,
1401
01:27:49.090 --> 01:27:49.789
do you know Ruth King?
1402
01:27:50.229 --> 01:27:50.430
I do.
1403
01:27:50.590 --> 01:27:53.409
Okay, so Ruth's been on the show. She has, I
1404
01:27:53.449 --> 01:27:55.010
tried to get her to call her last book this,
1405
01:27:55.050 --> 01:27:57.590
but she ignored me. But it's a phrase she uses
1406
01:27:57.949 --> 01:28:00.229
about this work, which is messy at best.
1407
01:28:01.050 --> 01:28:01.970
Yeah, exactly.
1408
01:28:02.109 --> 01:28:04.060
And that's where I kind of land with all this,
1409
01:28:04.069 --> 01:28:10.260
because almost every argument on every side, I see the validity.
1410
01:28:13.010 --> 01:28:17.729
You know, and again, the need for so much more nuance.
1411
01:28:18.180 --> 01:28:19.060
That's sad.
1412
01:28:19.140 --> 01:28:20.840
I don't see the validity of the argument that the
1413
01:28:20.859 --> 01:28:22.720
people in Charlottesville are making, just to be clear.
1414
01:28:22.760 --> 01:28:25.920
That's what I mean. Like, you know, because literally what
1415
01:28:26.000 --> 01:28:30.750
this can be about is about actual vulnerability to violence
1416
01:28:30.750 --> 01:28:34.670
and trying to protect us from that. Actual physical violence
1417
01:28:34.670 --> 01:28:38.569
on the one hand, but then there are degrees, verbal violence. right?
1418
01:28:38.600 --> 01:28:43.619
So nuance. And needing to be fierce when we need
1419
01:28:43.640 --> 01:28:51.760
to be fierce is not an excuse for, right, you
1420
01:28:51.819 --> 01:28:58.180
have a bazooka, everything is, you know, the arrayed army.
1421
01:28:59.119 --> 01:29:01.680
In other words, you have a hammer, everything's a nail. No,
1422
01:29:02.939 --> 01:29:07.899
mindfulness is about really developing over the course of our
1423
01:29:07.979 --> 01:29:10.579
humble lifetimes as best we can, knowing we're always going
1424
01:29:10.600 --> 01:29:15.970
to fail, this kind of capacity to act from a
1425
01:29:16.010 --> 01:29:18.470
place of what's called for here and now and to
1426
01:29:18.510 --> 01:29:21.329
have that kind of skillful means engagement with what's up.
1427
01:29:23.149 --> 01:29:27.949
And that's, again... You know, our culture doesn't necessarily do
1428
01:29:28.029 --> 01:29:34.729
nuance that well. And this is why I've been drawn
1429
01:29:35.380 --> 01:29:41.300
and just feel like right at home, actually, in this
1430
01:29:41.399 --> 01:29:45.560
place of inviting for myself and with the folks I'm
1431
01:29:45.760 --> 01:29:50.930
privileged to work with, this deeper capacity to just, yeah,
1432
01:29:50.989 --> 01:29:54.310
be messy is necessary. Be fierce when you need to be.
1433
01:29:55.270 --> 01:29:59.250
be quiet when you need to be, ask for forgiveness
1434
01:29:59.270 --> 01:30:04.039
when you need to, ask for permission maybe. Like just
1435
01:30:04.859 --> 01:30:10.060
because being in human community is hard. It's harder than
1436
01:30:10.100 --> 01:30:13.920
it's advertised. You know, we call ourselves the diverse nation
1437
01:30:13.939 --> 01:30:15.779
and we do all these things where we bring people together.
1438
01:30:16.539 --> 01:30:20.210
It's never been easy. It probably never will be. And
1439
01:30:20.250 --> 01:30:24.609
so again, a legacy of dominance culture is like, Nobody
1440
01:30:24.670 --> 01:30:27.550
messes up. There's no conflict. Yeah. We mess up and
1441
01:30:27.569 --> 01:30:31.010
there's conflict and we keep staying in the conversation.
1442
01:30:31.510 --> 01:30:31.750
That's.
1443
01:30:33.050 --> 01:30:33.270
Yeah.
1444
01:30:33.390 --> 01:30:35.430
And I will also say just in my experience, as
1445
01:30:35.489 --> 01:30:37.409
messy as it can be at times and as much
1446
01:30:37.449 --> 01:30:39.750
pain as I've experienced, which is just a tiny bit
1447
01:30:39.770 --> 01:30:45.369
of pain as I've experienced having these conversations, life's more
1448
01:30:45.409 --> 01:30:47.890
interesting and better with the different people around the table.
1449
01:30:47.930 --> 01:30:51.069
Better. There's joy for me. There's a way again, I
1450
01:30:51.109 --> 01:30:55.210
smile because that's life. It's a, it's, It's the aliveness
1451
01:30:55.970 --> 01:30:57.949
that I don't want. I personally don't want to miss
1452
01:30:58.569 --> 01:31:01.590
on this, whatever, how many more passes I have around
1453
01:31:01.630 --> 01:31:03.970
the sun on this beautiful planet.
1454
01:31:04.369 --> 01:31:06.680
Last question, which is, can you just plug the book, please?
1455
01:31:07.109 --> 01:31:09.460
OK, the book is called The Inner Work of Racial Justice,
1456
01:31:09.899 --> 01:31:15.560
Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness. And it
1457
01:31:15.800 --> 01:31:18.819
is an invitation to take any piece of that title
1458
01:31:18.920 --> 01:31:21.489
and critically sit with it and reflect on it and
1459
01:31:21.550 --> 01:31:24.939
challenge me and others about it. But to come into
1460
01:31:24.960 --> 01:31:29.369
the conversation and to bring what you bring because I
1461
01:31:29.409 --> 01:31:31.909
do think all of us, every single one of us,
1462
01:31:32.130 --> 01:31:34.930
every single person within the scope of the hearing of
1463
01:31:34.970 --> 01:31:39.899
this has something unique, some teaching that we all need
1464
01:31:39.939 --> 01:31:44.000
to hear from your own particular experience. And we can
1465
01:31:44.039 --> 01:31:47.939
all learn from somebody else. And so, yeah, thank you
1466
01:31:47.960 --> 01:31:49.699
for giving me this opportunity to talk about.
1467
01:31:49.720 --> 01:31:50.640
And do you have a website?
1468
01:31:50.840 --> 01:31:54.420
I do have a website now. And it is just RhondaVMcGee.com.
1469
01:31:55.300 --> 01:31:58.960
And I'd love to see folks joining me there and elsewhere.
1470
01:31:59.359 --> 01:32:02.899
I'll be teaching at Spirit Rock and Omega and Esalen,
1471
01:32:03.319 --> 01:32:07.890
different places this year. So I'm around and I'd love
1472
01:32:07.909 --> 01:32:12.189
to be in conversation with anybody who resonates with this. Awesome.
1473
01:32:12.390 --> 01:32:13.590
Great to talk to you. Thank you.
1474
01:32:13.829 --> 01:32:14.489
Thank you, Dan.
1475
01:32:15.069 --> 01:32:17.109
Again, big thanks to Rhonda. Always great to see her.
1476
01:32:18.229 --> 01:32:20.550
All right. We got one voicemail this week. Here we go.
1477
01:32:21.210 --> 01:32:24.010
Hi, my name is Jennifer Scott. I'm calling from Queens,
1478
01:32:24.109 --> 01:32:28.550
New York. I just finished listening to the recent podcast
1479
01:32:28.569 --> 01:32:32.029
you had with Jon Kabat-Zinn, and I feel like it's
1480
01:32:32.069 --> 01:32:36.119
the first time I heard a white man who has
1481
01:32:36.439 --> 01:32:40.680
success in the Western world with meditation and mindfulness talk
1482
01:32:40.720 --> 01:32:46.359
about white privilege and social injustice. I found there's quite a,
1483
01:32:46.350 --> 01:32:48.590
you know, there's a contrast with the, you talked a
1484
01:32:48.630 --> 01:32:51.550
lot at the beginning about not doing versus doing in
1485
01:32:51.590 --> 01:32:56.020
regards to meditation and like having a practice. And at
1486
01:32:56.060 --> 01:33:00.739
the end, John talked about turning towards it with integrity.
1487
01:33:00.880 --> 01:33:04.560
And I'm curious, how does social justice fit into this?
1488
01:33:05.039 --> 01:33:09.909
And I find that a lot of white people, privileged
1489
01:33:10.170 --> 01:33:15.109
people tout meditation and this ability to be inactive and
1490
01:33:15.189 --> 01:33:19.340
to do nothing. And as we learn more about white
1491
01:33:19.380 --> 01:33:22.199
privilege and what it means to be anti-racist and to
1492
01:33:22.239 --> 01:33:26.079
take action and to not be a part of the oppressor,
1493
01:33:26.100 --> 01:33:30.539
I just am hungry for more conversation about that and
1494
01:33:30.680 --> 01:33:34.039
for people to be courageous and brave and like really
1495
01:33:34.260 --> 01:33:37.439
dive in there. So I I just want more. If
1496
01:33:38.140 --> 01:33:40.500
you could do more, that would be great. Thank you
1497
01:33:40.600 --> 01:33:41.460
so much. Bye.
1498
01:33:42.319 --> 01:33:45.359
Great question. I'm really glad you asked it. I'm going
1499
01:33:45.380 --> 01:33:47.710
to take a shot at answering it because I think
1500
01:33:47.750 --> 01:33:50.550
it's so important. But because I think it's so important,
1501
01:33:50.569 --> 01:33:52.750
I also just want to give the caveat that this
1502
01:33:52.850 --> 01:33:55.510
is something I've thought about, but not so deeply that
1503
01:33:55.550 --> 01:33:58.100
I would hold myself up as any sort of expert.
1504
01:33:58.119 --> 01:34:01.930
There is a rich tradition of, I think it's called
1505
01:34:02.489 --> 01:34:06.520
socially engaged Buddhism. Bhikkhu Bodhi is a leader in this area.
1506
01:34:06.529 --> 01:34:09.739
There's another group called the Zen Peacemakers. Sharon Salzberg has
1507
01:34:09.779 --> 01:34:14.760
a book coming out about engaging in sort of activism
1508
01:34:15.020 --> 01:34:17.659
and how to keep your head while doing that work.
1509
01:34:18.039 --> 01:34:20.359
So there are people who know much, much, much more
1510
01:34:20.380 --> 01:34:22.100
than I do. And we'll have Sharon come on to
1511
01:34:22.159 --> 01:34:24.420
talk about her book and we'll get at this very issue.
1512
01:34:24.439 --> 01:34:27.329
But let me give you this sort of cheapo version
1513
01:34:27.390 --> 01:34:30.069
just from me a little bit off the cuff. So
1514
01:34:30.789 --> 01:34:35.220
I see an immense value in non-doing or doing nothing.
1515
01:34:36.020 --> 01:34:40.300
But I don't think you want to live forever in
1516
01:34:40.319 --> 01:34:43.560
a state of meditation where you're doing nothing. I just
1517
01:34:43.600 --> 01:34:48.619
think that the not doing informs the rest of your life,
1518
01:34:48.640 --> 01:34:52.710
which is mostly doing or sleeping in really profound ways
1519
01:34:52.930 --> 01:34:56.739
and makes you more effective. So I don't– I didn't
1520
01:34:56.800 --> 01:35:01.260
read Jon Kabat-Zinn's comments as, hey, you shouldn't do anything ever.
1521
01:35:01.399 --> 01:35:05.550
I read it as periods of time where you are
1522
01:35:05.750 --> 01:35:10.670
sitting and watching your own mind, aka non-doing, watching the
1523
01:35:10.710 --> 01:35:12.869
mind instead of getting involved in the mind to the
1524
01:35:12.890 --> 01:35:15.069
best of your ability because you're going to get caught
1525
01:35:15.109 --> 01:35:16.829
up in your thoughts, et cetera, et cetera. But to
1526
01:35:16.850 --> 01:35:18.890
the best of your ability, sitting there and watching your mind,
1527
01:35:19.670 --> 01:35:23.649
that can really transform the way you are in the world.
1528
01:35:24.460 --> 01:35:28.720
couple of things can happen one is you're less sucked
1529
01:35:28.939 --> 01:35:35.760
in by your habitual stories and dramas so that when
1530
01:35:35.779 --> 01:35:40.600
you're out in the world doing hopefully important work you're
1531
01:35:40.720 --> 01:35:44.659
less reactive you're more effective you're better able to tune
1532
01:35:44.699 --> 01:35:47.359
in and listen to other people another thing that can
1533
01:35:47.399 --> 01:35:50.319
happen in my experience as a consequence of doing this
1534
01:35:50.340 --> 01:35:54.890
of not doing anything of doing this non-doing is that
1535
01:35:54.949 --> 01:35:59.020
when you see how crazy you are, you understand that
1536
01:35:59.189 --> 01:36:03.159
this is universal. We all have this mind. And depending
1537
01:36:03.239 --> 01:36:08.180
on the conditions in which we've lived our lives, an
1538
01:36:08.260 --> 01:36:13.359
enormous range of results can come out of that. And
1539
01:36:13.520 --> 01:36:16.130
so you get a sense. In my experience, it makes
1540
01:36:16.149 --> 01:36:19.210
you just a little bit less judgmental. I'm still judgmental.
1541
01:36:20.010 --> 01:36:22.840
I wish I was less judgmental. But I noticed that
1542
01:36:22.880 --> 01:36:26.119
it's taken the edge off because I know what it's
1543
01:36:26.199 --> 01:36:28.500
like now in my own head in a little bit
1544
01:36:28.600 --> 01:36:32.939
more– with more intimacy and hopefully with more of a
1545
01:36:32.979 --> 01:36:36.409
sense of humor. And therefore, I'm able to not judge
1546
01:36:36.449 --> 01:36:39.210
people and have some compassion and empathy when I'm seeing
1547
01:36:39.270 --> 01:36:44.310
other people losing it. As it happens, just totally serendipitously,
1548
01:36:44.670 --> 01:36:46.869
I was a more devout Buddhist. I would maybe call
1549
01:36:46.909 --> 01:36:51.729
it karma. As I was– Thinking about how I was
1550
01:36:51.750 --> 01:36:54.220
going to answer your question this morning, earlier this morning
1551
01:36:54.279 --> 01:36:58.680
as before I recorded this answer. And in the interim,
1552
01:36:58.800 --> 01:37:00.239
after having thought about it a little bit, I was
1553
01:37:01.039 --> 01:37:04.270
then eating breakfast and listening to a Dharma talk by
1554
01:37:04.329 --> 01:37:08.329
Joseph Goldstein. And he started talking about the very same thing.
1555
01:37:08.369 --> 01:37:13.680
And he quoted a Taoist expression, which is non-action is
1556
01:37:13.779 --> 01:37:19.560
not inaction. that you can respond better out in the
1557
01:37:19.609 --> 01:37:21.909
world if you have a clearer view, not only of
1558
01:37:21.939 --> 01:37:25.739
your own mind, but perhaps as a consequence of having
1559
01:37:25.779 --> 01:37:27.560
a clearer view of your own mind, a clearer view
1560
01:37:27.600 --> 01:37:31.840
of the overall situation, which then allows you to respond
1561
01:37:31.920 --> 01:37:36.979
wisely instead of reacting blindly. As I said, there are
1562
01:37:37.000 --> 01:37:39.819
many people who know much more about this issue than
1563
01:37:39.899 --> 01:37:42.579
I do, and I would recommend you check them out.
1564
01:37:43.279 --> 01:37:46.279
But hopefully that provides a little bit of clarity. I
1565
01:37:46.319 --> 01:37:50.140
really appreciate the question. And while I'm on the subject
1566
01:37:50.180 --> 01:37:52.500
of appreciation, let me just appreciate the folks who do
1567
01:37:52.520 --> 01:37:56.399
this podcast, Ryan Kessler, Samuel Johns, Grace Livingston, Lauren Hartsock,
1568
01:37:56.439 --> 01:37:59.619
Tiffany Omohundro, Leighton is operating the boards right now. And
1569
01:37:59.649 --> 01:38:02.750
I do want to say, you know, podcasters at this
1570
01:38:02.810 --> 01:38:04.989
point in the show are often saying, hey, you know,
1571
01:38:05.029 --> 01:38:08.130
mention us on Twitter, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm
1572
01:38:08.149 --> 01:38:10.029
going to say something like that, which is that if
1573
01:38:10.109 --> 01:38:13.649
this show or any other show is useful to you personally,
1574
01:38:14.210 --> 01:38:15.569
To the extent that you can share it and it
1575
01:38:15.609 --> 01:38:17.489
really doesn't have to be on Twitter or wherever, even
1576
01:38:17.510 --> 01:38:20.420
if it's just one-on-one or if you're at the office
1577
01:38:20.460 --> 01:38:22.680
talking about your favorite shows and podcasts with people, a
1578
01:38:22.720 --> 01:38:25.319
conversation that happens all the time, a conversation I love
1579
01:38:25.350 --> 01:38:27.630
to be part of. If you happen to just drop
1580
01:38:27.689 --> 01:38:32.100
our name, the 10 percent– Happier Podcast, into that conversation,
1581
01:38:32.380 --> 01:38:34.319
that's just really helpful to us. It helps us grow
1582
01:38:34.699 --> 01:38:39.300
and ensures that my team and I can continue to
1583
01:38:39.359 --> 01:38:41.939
do this work for a long period of time, which
1584
01:38:42.020 --> 01:38:45.340
would be great because we all love doing it. So
1585
01:38:45.380 --> 01:38:47.560
thank you for that, and thanks to our podcast insiders
1586
01:38:47.590 --> 01:38:50.329
who give us incredibly useful feedback every week. That's also
1587
01:38:50.449 --> 01:38:53.130
amazingly helpful. And I'll see you next week with a
1588
01:38:53.149 --> 01:38:53.590
new episode.