DJATD-Recognizing Wholeness
“People have inherent worth outside of commodity relations and capitalist notions of productivity. Each person is full of history and life experience.”
This month, in gratitude and humility, I offer thanks to the many indigenous cultures who used language to express and preserve concepts of wholeness and belonging that have been eradicated from modern western culture and mindfulness practice.
Words
One of Laura’s Favorite Practice Spaces
Words are powerful cultural tools; they are constructed within the context of a culture and act to describe and, more often than not, to support the values and ideals of that culture either explicitly or implicitly. Over time, though, the deep roots of words can become lost to changing use and mores. My lifelong practice includes an examination of words, their origins, and their use over time. No matter how a word may have been used in the past, no matter how it is used today, I find that this kind of examination can lead to recognition of invisible-ized concepts and intentions of both marginalization and wholeness. Uncovering this invisible-ization can lead me to important awarenesses and choices supporting liberatory use of language in the modern world. Honoring this practice, this month, I proposed definitions of “recognizing,” “wholeness,” and “samma-sati” that point to the dynamic, organic qualities of those concepts and support our liberation; these are reflected in the Word Bank below.
Multi-Cultural Wisdom on Wholeness and Belonging - Interconnection is Key
I Am Because We Are
Diving deeply into Sins Invalid’s principle of Recognizing Wholeness, I was reminded of the Bantu word “ubuntu,” sometimes translated as “I am because we are.” A chance encounter, via NPR, made me aware of a Filipino word, Kapwa, that expresses a similar understanding in Filipino culture. This discovery spurred an inquiry into the existence of words representing wholeness from indigenous cultures everywhere. My unscientific research led me to discover indigenous words from many cultures on every continent on this plant that express a sacred connection between everything in the natural environment, human and non-human; common understandings of connection as identity; societal norms in disparate cultures whereby the individual is defined as the group and the group is defined as the individual. The words and phrases I discovered and the sources that lead me to them are reflected in Multi-Cultural Wisdom on Wholeness and Belonging.
Taking all of this in, I am struck by the vast difference between the indigenous everything-is-sacred worldview as compared to modern western worldview where “sacred” is very specific and exists in only certain bodies or locations or objects, and between the indigenous understanding of connection as survival, as the entire way of living, in contrast to the US’ cult of rugged individualism. Discovering that varying indigenous cultures from all over the planet shared these common values was somehow both expected and surprising. Why wouldn’t all kinds of indigenous peoples, living close to the land and all its beings, each have found ways to express a deeply felt interconnection with the natural process of life carried out in the bodies of animals, trees, skies mountains, waters, rocks? At the same time, it’s shocking and heartbreaking to realize freshly how this deep and vital wisdom has been so thoroughly eradicated by the delusions of modernity. Discovering a universality in indigenous concepts of wholeness and belonging reinforces my sense that “practice” as taught through a westernized, colonized lens is partialized and abortive. But I take heart in a belief that “practice” does not need to be taught, that it can be discovered innately in our bodies. This faith carries me forward.
Modern Relational Wholeness and Belonging
“Our wounds around belonging happen relationally. They‘ll heal that way, too.” ~ Sebene Selasi
Belonging, which is Identity, which is Wholeness
Based on my etymological archaeology, it appears every person’s indigenous roots, whatever our particular origins may be, are likely to include an understanding of humanity that is based on a close family relationship with the entire natural world. I believe this expansive view of relationship, honoring the deep inherent natural connection between ourselves and everything that surrounds us, provided indigenous peoples with a sense of wholeness that has been deconstructed in contemporary society. Today, in the U.S., we find ourselves steeped in a culture centering “rugged individualism” in place of honoring, valuing, and building community; prioritizing individual accumulation in place of stewarding and sharing natural resources; and nourishing a cult of fame rather than honoring the personal qualities that allow each person to contribute to society according to their own capacities. The painful impact of this disconnection is blindly expressed in the work of at least some respected and even wise contemporary thinkers, authors, researchers, and teachers who address wholeness and belonging.
For instance, Brene Brown, who researches shame and vulnerability, experiences that cause us to feel outside of wholeness and belonging, shared these words on a podcast episode titled “Brene Brown’s Guide to Healing and Finding True Belonging:” “….I don’t know that I’ve interviewed anyone, even spiritual leaders, who have the belonging thing completely nailed because I don’t think it is what we think it is. I don’t think that it’s having a big posse of friends or having a crew or rolling with a bunch of people. I still feel lonely and alone on a really regular basis.” These words, giving voice to a contemporary cultural value of having a “posse,” speak from an undigested experience of being separated from healthful communal roots and describe how being together with people who also feel unrooted means we get to enjoy being unrooted together for a while -- a temporary and unsatisfying experience. Brene Brown and Maya Angelou offer the same words to express an individualistic understanding of belonging that springs from the imperatives of modern culture: “I belong to myself.” In order to survive in a culture that disbelieves interconnectedness, this kind of observation becomes necessary, and so they are contemporary truths, but they are not deep wisdom. They are not an antidote to the painful dissatisfaction that arises in us as we experience our lack of true community rootedness. “I belong to myself” is like shooting darts without knowing where the dart board is.
Ritual, Wholeness, Belonging
“Ritual should precede human involvement with the world and with each other ” ~ Malodoma Patrice Some
Malidoma Patrice Some, in his book Ritual: Power, Healing and Community, shows us how ritual in the indigenous Dagara community, existed to strengthen relationships between individuals, the natural world, and the Otherworld. Commitment and dedication to weaving these relationships into everyday and milestone occasions created ease, balance, belonging, identity, and a sense of wholeness. In his view, Western Machine technology [the culture we now live in] is the spirit of death made to look like life. When comparing indigenous to modern western culture, he said: The greatest shock that American culture has on traditional people is the notion of speed….it appears that the indigenous world looks while the industrial world overlooks….Indigenous people are indigenous because there are no machines barring the door to the spirit world where one can enter in and listen to what is going on within at a deep level, participating in the vibration of Nature….Thus the two worlds of the traditional and the industrial are diametrically opposed. The indigenous world, in trying to emulate Nature, espouses a walk with life, a slow, quiet day-to-day kind of existence. The modern world, on the other hand, steams through life like a locomotive, controlled by a certain sense of careless waste and destruction.”
In Ritual, Brother Malidoma also describes the practice of ritual as the first step in healing sick community members, and I believe this points to an awareness that illness disrupts or is a reflection of disruption in personal/natural world/Otherworld relationships that must be healed in order for bodily healing to take place in a way that can be of communal value. Illness, like disability, removes its subject from community. In the west, we practice that removal. What Brother Malidoma points to is the opposite, first practicing wholeness and inclusion, then dealing with the corporeal body. Audre Lorde’s experience with prosthesis after mastectomy illustrates how the modern world instead asks the person who is altered by illness or disability to “pretend” to be “the same” for the sake of others’ comfort.
Helping us to understand how ritual can arise from indigenous and modern bodies, Brother Malidoma tells a story of an attempt to recreate a Dagara funeral ritual at a men’s consciousness and awareness meeting. Extensive preparation, prayer, and rehearsal took place and, initially, the ritual this group conducted followed closely with Dagara tradition. This “quickly translated into an appalling chaos” that Brother Malidoma began to perceive as “no longer a Dagara grief ritual, but a ritual—period.” Also perceiving the impact this ritual had on its participants as positive, Brother Malidoma reflected “Even though it was just scratching the surface, the scratch was at least opening something. Ritual need not be indigenous in order to be healing; as he observed, “When there is an opportunity for people to mourn their losses, the horizon for rites that heal will be pure and bright, and healing will come pouring into the souls in a great moment of reunion.”
Abandoning Rituals of Disconnection
Be aware of what we are washing ourselves of and what we are washing ourselves in
An absence of connection with traditional ritual does not bar modern peoples from re-creating and re-connecting with ourselves, each other, and the natural world. We can create our own healing rites, perhaps starting to observe the “speed” at which we conduct ourselves in all things. Whatever we do repeatedly, consistently, becomes ritual. In this sense, we can’t escape ritual. We can understand ourselves as performing rituals of disconnection by speeding through life in order to meet externally-focused values; disconnecting from our natural, embodied sense of wholeness by tuning out/binging/ dissociating in the many ways contemporary culture offers (social media, on-demand streaming, drugs and alcohol, and so on). Accepting offers of disconnection is a practice of unawareness as relief from the pain of disconnection inherent in modern, colonized culture. To move away from all of this toward connectedness we don’t have to be perfect. We can begin by simply being aware of how we practice disconnection. The awareness itself is a reconnection. When we notice ourselves practicing disconnection, we might even affirm, “I notice I’m practicing disconnection right now.” We can further affirmatively notice our feelings and motivations, as in, I’m experiencing boredom, overwhelm, or whatever the emotional tone is. Perhaps, with everything that’s going on in the world today, you may notice that your chosen disconnection practice feels like the only thing you know how to or can do at any given moment. None of this is wrong. It simply is what is at the moment. Noticing restores our power. With this kind of noticing, we can begin to insert rituals of connection, of embodied awareness, into our lives; any embodied practice will do, meditation, singing, gardening, cuddling a pet, any practice that helps to bring us into our bodies. As we engage in rituals of embodied awareness, we might celebrate our intention to connect deeply with ourselves and with the grief that will naturally arise from time to time when practicing embodied awareness in modern western culture. We can follow Rumi’s suggestion to be aware of what we are washing ourselves of and what we are washing ourselves in.
One reason I practice with words is because they are part of what Malidoma Patrice Some calls “the Machine;” I intend to be connected with the natural world, not the Machine. Practicing with the definition of disability that I choose, that disability means having a natural body that performs natural functions in accordance with its unique capabilities, requires that I embody it, I ritualize it, regardless of what anyone else thinks or practices. If I am practicing getting to know my inherent condition of being entire, whole, and unbroken, then I embrace whatever my capacities are. The quality of my capacities is my wholeness, not my brokenness.
All of this is deep work and next month, as we explore the principle of Sustainability, we will move more deeply into it.
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Thank you for gathering with me to examine Recognizing Wholeness and being a valuable part of Sangha Is All. I’m looking forward to being with you again in February for sharing and discussion on Sustainability.
Because of repeated Zoom attacks, I am no longer using Eventbrite for registration or to provide gathering reminders. If you do not already receive a monthly email from Sangha Ia All, you can register to receive it and the gathering Zoom link here. Until then, utilize the resources linked below, revisit any of our recordings, and, if convenient, join our weekly Embodied Awareness practice on Thursdays at 1pm US central time. The link for Embodied Awareness practice can also be requested here.
Sangha Is All Word Bank:
Dharma – essentially truth, or the true nature of reality.
Disability –(a) having a natural body that performs natural functions in accordance with its unique capabilities;
(b) a label applied in ableist culture to create an artificial division between people into prescribed “normative” and “non-normative” categories for purposes of exclusion.
Multi-Cultural Wisdom on Wholeness and Belonging
Noble Disciple - a person who practices for awareness is one who seeks the true nature of reality, tires to look straight into the true nature of reality, has perfect confidence in the true nature of reality, and is always seeking to arrive at the true nature of reality.
Recognizing –To again get to know, become acquainted with, learn, inquire/examine something.
Samma Dhitti (Right View) - A perspective reflecting a balanced and intentional gaze toward a profound understanding of the true nature of reality.
Samma Sankappa (Right Intention) - Seek out, nurture, and encourage thoughts and intentions that are in balance with the true nature of reality.
Samma Kammanta (Right Action) - In all aspects of life, consciously engaging in activities that seek to create balance with the true nature of reality.
Samma Ajiva (Right Livelihood) – Engaging in means to earn one’s living, regardless of the economic system utilized, in equanimity and balance with the true nature of reality.
Samma Vayama (Right Effort) - Cultivating and nurturing our full, complete, very best, vigorous effort infused with focused and concentrated will so that energy can be brought into our Right Actions with dedication and persistence.
Samma Sati (Right Remembering / Mindfulness) - Vigorously and persistently cultivating and nurturing a dedicated practice of re-knowing and re-constructing the Wisdom and Moral Discipline to be with ourselves, others, and the world in a way that is both authentic to us and supports and is in harmony with .the true nature of reality.
Sangha Is All Playlists
September 7 – Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate Debe and Kala
October 5 - Robert Macht Vishnu and Pelawak
November 2 - Average White Band – Pick Up The Pieces and Sly & The Family Stone – I Want to Take You Higher
December 7 - Community - Christmas Infiltration, Adam Sandler - The Chanukah Song, and Gayla Peevey - I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas
January 4 – Chantress Seba, Rising Into the Light
January 4 Links:
Recording - Disability Justice and The Dharma-Recognizing Wholeness
Sebene Salasi, You Belong
Malidoma Patrice Some, Ritual – Power, Healing , and Community
Brene Brown on The School of Greatness podcast episode, (2017) Brene Brown’s Guide to Healing and Finding True Belonging
Maya Angelou in conversation with Bill Moyers (1973), A Conversation with Maya Angelou
The Cancer Journals, Audre Lorde
January 4 Quotes:
“’…sati meaning mindfulness’. Again, being the moderns that we are, we put the word “mind” right at the start. But many scholars have noted multiple meanings and connotations of sati. ‘Remembering’ is my favorite translation. It implies the memory of true nature.” ~ Sebene Selassi, You Belong, page 82
“The greatest shock that American culture has on traditional people is the notion of speed…..I believe that the difference between the indigenous world and the industrial world has mostly to do with speed – not about whether one world needs to have ritual and the other doesn’t….it appears that the indigenous world looks while the industrial world overlooks….Indigenous people are indigenous because there are no machines barring the door to the spirit world where one can enter in and listen to what is going on within at a deep level, participating in the vibration of Nature….Thus the two worlds of the traditional and the industrial are diametrically opposed. The indigenous world, in trying to emulate Nature, espouses a walk with life, a slow, quiet day-to-day kind of existence. The modern world, on the other hand, steams through life like a locomotive, controlled by a certain sense of careless waste and destruction.” ~ Malidoma Patrice Some, Ritual --Power Healing and Community, page 15, and 17-18
“Belonging is being a part of something bigger than yourself, but it’s also the courage to stand alone and to belong to yourself above all else.” “I belong to myself.” ~ Brene Brown, Brene Brown’s Guide to Healing and Finding True Belonging (The School of Greatness podcast)
“I belong to myself.” ~ Maya Angelou, A Conversation with Maya Angelou
“I don’t know that I’ve interviewed anyone, even spiritual leaders, who have the belonging thing completely nailed because I don’t think it is what we think it is. I don’t think that it’s having a big posse of friends or having a crew or rolling with a bunch of people. I still feel lonely and alone on a really regular basis.” – Brene Brown, Brene Brown’s Guide to Healing and Finding True Belonging (The School of Greatness podcast)
“The presence of the Otherworld is never trivial. The general impression is that ritual should precede human involvement with the world and with each other….When a person is suddenly sick, while he lies in pain, the head of the house first goes to the diviner and finds out what went wrong. There he funds out what ritual must be done. He comes back home, finds the elements that must enter into the ritual and performs it. Only after all of this does it finally become necessary to do something directly with the sick person. By that time, the illness has been dealt with symbolically. What remains is the actualization of that which has already been performed.” ~ Malidoma Patrice Some, Ritual --Power Healing and Community, pages 24-5
“In the midst of the [Roman] crusades and violent sectarian conflict [Rumi] said, ‘I go to the Moslem mosque and the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church and I see one altar.’ This is a radical idea now, but Rumi held the conviction in the 13th century with such deep gentleness that its truth was recognized.” ~ Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi, page 246
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God,
God is in the look in your eyes,
In the thought of your looking, nearer to you that your self,
or things that have happened to you
There’s no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself
~ Rumi, From Be Melting Snow, The Essential Rumi, page 13
Ways to Practice Together Until Recognizing Wholeness on January 4:
Sangha Is All Embodied Awareness Practice, Thursdays at 1pm CT
Southsea Sangha’s Earthworm Sangha, a monthly meditation group run by and for disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill people. Scroll to the bottom of this page to find more information and to register.
Bodhi Bodies, a monthly practice group run by and for disabled people as part of the World Interbeing Sangha (Thich Nhat Hahn’s Plum Village tradition). Click here for more information and to register.
Mindbody Solutions, yoga and community offerings.
