DJATD-Collective Liberation
“No body or mind can be left behind – only moving together can we accomplish the revolution we require.”
Gratitude
This month, in gratitude and humility, I offer thanks to Sins Invalid for cultivating the 10 Principles of Disability Justice that have been the foundation of this series of gatherings. Without the unique experiences cultivated through their disabled, queer, femme, Indigenous and Global Majority, trans and non-binary bodies, the 10 Principles of Disability Justice would not exist and we would not be benefited by practicing with them. I also offer deep gratitude to Bhumisparsha, Heartwidth Sangha, and other communities I have been privileged to practice with and support in recent years, helping me to arrive at the place from which I felt both ready and driven to offer this series of gatherings.
Words
This month, we again investigated both of the principle’s title words. Revisiting “collective,” previously examined during Commitment to Cross-Disability Solidarity and Collective Access, we considered how unique and singular individuals can choose to act cooperatively, like migrating geese sharing leadership in a triangle formation of singular purpose and values. Etymologically, “liberation” is an act of setting free from restraint or confinement, reminding us that liberation requires our active participation. Examining liberation leads us to examine the meaning of “free” and to discovering both the anticipated idea of how being free is not being in bondage and less expectedly to how freedom connects to love and commitment; love helps us to balance freedom with commitment. Restriction and freedom inter-are; we have a striving, a longing, a natural inclination to be free from restraint or bondage; this same longing to be free to care and express ourselves and act and can call upon us to restrict, limit, focus, redirect, and shape our freedom to facilitate loving relationship. The Collective Liberation principle further calls on us to recognize that we require a revolution. Revolution’s literal meaning of revolving or turning resonates deeply with the Pali word dukkha, commonly translated into English as “suffering;” Sebene Selassi explains, “Dukkha refers to all the ways life is imperfect, unsatisfactory, and painful. This encompasses the pain that is inevitable: the loss, illness, and difficulties that are an unavoidable part of being alive. It also describes the suffering we cause (and the freedom we deny) ourselves because we are in contention with pain…. In Pali, dukkah is a metaphor. Kha is the axle hole of a wheel and the prefix du- means bad (su- is good) So dukkha is a bad or crooked axle hole…” In Shakyamuni’s time, this metaphor vividly brought to mind the discomfort humans experienced when riding in a wagon equipped with a bad axle hole, causing the wheel to revolve around it jarringly and providing the riders with a very uncomfortable ride. When we take the depth of this original metaphor into account today, we arrive at complex and nuanced perspectives on human suffering that include the resources and capacities one has for providing a smooth rather than bumpy ride as we navigate the challenges that modern life surfaces. The revolution we require starts with objective observation of the turning of the wagon wheels of our lives that is evaluative, kind, and compassionate. Resources and capacities may limit our choices, but the choice to call upon ourselves to turn our thoughts, actions, and intentions toward love and liberation, toward smoothing the ride for ourselves and for all beings, is always available. Simple, but not easy. This is why we practice and why it’s crucial that we practice together.
Turning to Eight-Fold Noble Path elements, this month I chose to focus on the word “right,” appearing in English translations as the first word of each of these elements. Because Shakymuni was responding to competing and prior teachers and sects, 2600 years ago by using the Pali word “samma” he was calling on his students to adopt his teachings, he was describing his teachings as the right way to practice in order to achieve liberation. Today it’s crucial that we consider each element of the Eight-Fold Noble Path in a context that is free of limiting, dualistic, right versus wrong, perspectives. The Pali word “samma” means thoroughly, properly, rightly; in the right way, as it ought to be, best, perfectly. Itranslate this as meaning in alignment with the true nature of reality. Without alignment to what is, contention arises and suffering is inevitable. Taking all of this in, we can understand that the principles of the Eight-Fold Noble Path affirm that claiming what is just, efficient, effective, healthful, and supportive for our disabled bodies is valid. That doesn’t mean it’s simple or easy, but doing so is in alignment with the true nature of reality from which we all arise.
What is Liberation?
“Liberation is not a solution to samsara, it’s available in human bodies.”. ~ Douglas Brooks
Picking up where I ended last month, I suggested that “What is the scope of our gaze” could also be phrased “What is liberation,” pointing to Mia Mingus’ observation “There is no liberation without disabled people.” In typical US Buddhist spaces, some may think liberation is freedom from suffering, from what makes us unhappy or uncomfortable, and this is understandable because of the way the Four Noble Truths are commonly phrased; but we also know while living an embodied life we will never be free of bad axle holes. It’s also common to encounter the belief that liberation is freedom from samsara, or the cycle of life, death, rebirth; this is also understandable because of emphasis Shakyamuni placed on transcending rebirth in his teachings; but if I spend my incarnation focused on not having another one, have I truly lived?
I differ from Shakyamuni in firmly being a householder, a person who chooses engagement rather than withdrawal as a way of life. Whatever the ultimate purposes of my incarnation may be, I believe I am in this body, on this planet, at this time to live and engage as fully as possible. Different frameworks for evaluating how to live fully are available; Buddhism is one of them. Shakyamuni put forth his teachings 2600 years ago; we live in a radically different world than Shakyamuni. Contemporary radical dharma asks us to move beyond simple translations of Pali words into English and using them as the basis for practice. It calls in the understanding that all bodies, regardless of body configuration, appearance, location, orientation, age, or capacity, are valid members of the collective. As nature demonstrates through her many wonders, including those flocks of migrating geese demonstrating shared leadership, we have choice and agency in how we orient to and organize within the collective. I offer Lien Shutt’s Engaged Four Noble Truths as one appropriate modern resynthesis of Shakyamuni’s original Four Noble Truths “that focuses on how [these principles] can be used to actively address suffering and injustices in our contemporary lives.”. They are:
(1) Harm and harming are present.
(2) Understand fully the causes and conditions for harm and harming.
(3) Individual and collective agency for ending harm is possible.
(4) The Eightfold Noble Path empowers wholeness.”
Looking back is great; we can always learn lessons about the modern world by reference to past events and conditions, but looking back is not living today. I need wholeness today. Living today, seeking liberation today, requires that we consider our modern world and use what we can observe about it, including what we learn through studying both its history as well modern advances in art, science, technology, and social theory to aim toward liberation, to use love coupled with objective observation to balance freedom and restraint. Balance is not statis. It is not a return to the past. It is not turning a blind eye to injustices in the present in the cause of what is “good enough” or “possible.” Balance is the continual, active process of seeking equipoise amongst opposing forces. There will always be bad axle holes. For me, practicing with love to smooth their effect for all beings is the practice of liberation.
Love Liberates
Without love, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our world community from oppression and exploitation are doomed. ~ bell hooks, Love as the Practice of Freedom
We can quibble about how best to translate the Eight-Fold Noble Path and the Four Noble Truths from Pali into English, but it’s not just choosing best-fit words that’s at issue; careful consideration of how these principles empower us as individuals living in the present moment is most crucial. Considering what’s most crucial brings me to love. Other languages provide several unique words for what we, in English, express as the single word “love.” Greek, for instance, has entirely separate words for unconditional love, passionate love, platonic love, uniquely deep loyalty and comradery, familial love, self-love, and love shown to guests and travelers. Lumping such differing experiences into one word creates endless opportunities for confusion and miscommunication. I agree with bell hooks when she observes “imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition”, and she goes on to endorse the definition of love developed by M. Scott Peck, “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Inquiring into the meaning of love becomes especially important when we understand that love connects with liberation. Maya Angelou expressed the intimate connection between love and liberation, saying “Really, being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are.” Zenju Earthlin Manuel tells us, “There are many possible meanings or experiences of spiritual liberation as it emerges from within. I experience it as freedom from projections of superiority and inferiority among sentient beings. To experience liberation in such a way is to experience authentic compassion, wisdom, love, and interrelationship.” bell hooks further teaches, “Without love, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our world community from oppression and exploitation are doomed. As long as we refuse to address fully the place of love in struggles for liberation we will not be able to create a culture of conversion where there is a mass turning away from an ethic of domination….A culture of domination is anti-love. It requires violence to sustain itself. To choose love is to go against the prevailing values of the culture.” Returning to Maya Angelou, she says simply, “love liberates.”
When I accept love as the intention and action of extending myself for spiritual growth, sometimes in myself, sometimes in others, sometimes in both, I establish myself in an active relationship to Lien Shutt’s first Engaged Noble Truth, that harm and harming are present. In my humanity, I have caused and will again cause harm. Bringing responsible forgiveness to this and understanding myself and others in this way creates spaces and ease for relationships that nurture growth rather than inflict punishment. This connects to the second Engaged Noble Truth, calling us into an inquiry to understand fully the causes and conditions for harm and harming whoever the perpetrator is. To understand and be loving toward others who cause harm as we would to ourselves echoes Thich Nhat Hahn’s story of coming to understand the interbeing between himself and pirates that caused harm to Vietnamese refugees I discussed in the Interdependence blog, and the Iroquois Seven Generation Principle that calls for the consequences of present actions to be considered in the context of their impact over the next seven generations. Nurturing ease and space for growth provides a fertile ground to work individually and collectively toward ending harm, the Third Engaged Noble Truth. The Fourth Engaged Noble Truth points out that working with our understanding, intentions, speech, actions, livelihood, efforts, remembering, and togetherness, the Eight-Fold Noble Path, is a practice that creates wholeness in ourselves and has the potential to create wholeness in all members of the collective.
I am saddened that I find so few mindfulness communities explicitly practicing with love. To have embodied awareness for my entire being requires love. To have embodied awareness of the bodily, social, political, and economic experiences of disability requires love. To have embodied awareness for the entire collective with all its disparate thoughts, requirements, causes, and conditions requires love. In retrospect, it seems that I, too, have failed to call love in consistently during this series. There’s nothing like a learning experience – I’m grateful for practicing with Disability Justice and the Dharma in a way that allows me to both refine and expand my intentions. I know I can grow my practice and my offerings to be explicit about liberatory love. That is what I intend to do. Whatever definition of love you choose to adopt, I hope you expand your practice to include .liberatory love as well.
***
Thank you for gathering with me to examine Collective Liberation and being a valuable part of Sangha Is All. It has been my honor to gather with you over the past 10 months.
Sangha Is All Word Bank:
Access - a coming to, an approach; way of approach; entrance, best practiced in balance with and with respect for true nature of reality that creates the infinite diversity of our world.
Access Intimacy – that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else “gets” your access needs. ~ Mia Mingus
Collective – (a) a singular form a whole consisting of a plurality of individuals
(b) anytime what we're fighting for brings us into conflict with the legitimate needs of another group of people, it's a sure sign that the picture is too small. ~ Aurora Levins Morales
Commitment – with others, sending forward dedication to a future promise that governs and imposes healthful restriction on present action.
Descriptively Disabled - having lived experience of being disabled. ~ Mia Mingus
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.
Free – nobly, joyfully, lovingly not being in bondage and having the capacity to act according to one’s own will, including being willing to restrict oneself in loving relationship.
Intention - a stretching out, straining, exertion, effort, aspiration, thought and purpose of awareness.
Interbeing – Our deep interconnection with everything else in existence. ~ Thich Nhat Hahn
Interdependence - reciprocally given reliance upon and confidence that the conditions necessary to perform basic daily activities (like rising, dressing, and interacting with others), and satisfy basic daily requirements (like sheltering, toileting, eating, healthcare, and resting) will be created and maintained by our community.
Intersection - the existence of multiple identities within single individuals. ~ Kimberle Crenshaw
Intersectionality - (a) the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect, especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.
(b) living with the identities I have in the midst of the complex social and political traffic of today’s world.~ Kimberle Crenshaw
Liberation – –(a) setting free, an act of setting free from restraint or confinement.
(b) using love to balance freedom and commitment; practicing with love to smooth the effect of opposing forces for all beings.
Mana – in Buddhism, a “conceit,” or fanciful idea, representing one of the seven anusayas (‘latent tendencies’) of greed, attachment to existence, hatred, conceit, wrong view, uncertainty, bewilderment.
Multi-Cultural Wisdom on Wholeness and Belonging(Indigenous language)
Need - The conditions required by my humanity to perform basic daily activities (like rising, dressing, and interacting with others), and satisfy basic daily requirements (like sheltering, toileting, eating, healthcare, and resting).
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.
Political – from a Greek word meaning “city,” and simply referring to the matters of collectives of persons living in the same place.
Politically Disabled - someone who is descriptively disabled and has a political understanding about that lived experience.~ Mia Mingus
Recognizing – to again get to know, become acquainted with, learn, inquire/examine something.
Revolution – the inherent revolving or turning nature of matter, particles, thoughts, and affairs that naturally lead to liberation but can be impelled or influenced in many directions.
Right - A direct, efficient, and effective course that is consistent with the true nature of reality.
Samma – (a) thoroughly, properly, rightly; in the right way, best, perfectly.
(b) in alignment with the true nature of reality.
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) – Actively cultivating thoughts, intentions, purposes, plans, and resolve in balance with the true nature of ultimate reality and the blueprint of our bodies ,hearts, existence.
Samma Vacca (Right Speech) - Consciously using speech, whether through our voice, actions or some other means, including the words and actions we choose to withhold, to aim toward creating balance with and support of 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.
Samma Samadhi (Right Togetherness / Interbeing / Distillation) - the practice and experience, arising from concentrated intention and clear focus, of being put together or in union with the true nature of reality.
Sociopathy – severely anti-social or anti-communal. An ethic that accumulation of the utmost possible by individuals, whatever the consequences for other living beings anywhere in the world, is inherently sociopathic.
Solidarity – the whole, well-kept, uninjured awareness of shared interests that recognizes common interests and produces common goals.
Sustain – to hold or root ourselves up from below, to stretch up in order to provide for ourselves the necessities of life.
Suffering -
(a) First Arrows – objectively painful experiences.
(b) Second Arrows – a person’s way of responding to First Arrows that causes additional mental, physical or emotional discomfort in themselves.
(c) Third Arrows – additional mental, physical or emotional discomfort caused in persons living with First Arrows by the inability or refusal of “normative” persons and processes to recognize and appropriately respond to the needs in valid intersections. The experience of Third Arrows can cause Tangles within individuals.
Systemic Mana – the cultural and collective expression of comparison and competition that is expressed through societal norms (at its most benign) or hierarchy and oppression (at its most violent). ~ Sebene Selasi
Tangle - an intertwined and knotted collection of inner experiences, in this case caused by Third Arrows, that can result when the overlapping and compounding nature of obstacles acts to conceal and enhance the challenge of arriving at ways forward.
Wholeness - the inherent quality of our own healthy, sound, genuineness.
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
February 1 – Deva Premal, Gayatri Mantra (a 28:27minute looping version can be found here)
March 2 - Bill Withers, Lean on Me, Stevie Wonder, Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing
April 7 - Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden: Where Can I Go Without You, Spotify or YouTube
May 3 - Chantress Seba, Om Gam Mantra
June 7 - Ocean Waves
June 7 Links:
Mia Mingus, Access intimacy, Interdependence, and Disability Justice (4/12/17)
Sebene Selassi, You Belong
Lien Shutt, Home Is Here
bell hooks, All About Love
Maya Angelou, A Conversation with Maya Angelou, and Love Liberates
Zenju Earthlin Manuel, The Way of Tenderness
June 7 Quotes:
“Thinking we can’t survive our brokenness is like the ocean thinking it can’t survive the wave.”
“Does my belief restrict your access to resources?” ~ Lama Rod Owens
“Access intimacy is critical to disability justice because there will never be any work with disabled people that does not include accessibility work….So, if we are working to transform the world for all of us, and not just some of us, access will be a huge part of this work. There is no liberation without disabled people.” ~ Mia Mingus
“Dukkha refers to all the ways life is imperfect, unsatisfactory, and painful. This encompasses the pain that is inevitable: the loss, illness, and difficulties that are an unavoidable part of being alive. It also describes the suffering we cause (and the freedom we deny) ourselves because we are in contention with pain…. In Pali, dukkah is a metaphor. Kha is the axle hole of a wheel and the prefix du- means bad (su- is good) So dukkha is a bad or crooked axle hole…” ~ Sebene Selassi
“Liberation is NOT a solution to samsara, it’s available in human bodies.” ~ Douglas Brooks
(1) Harm and harming are present.
(2) Understand fully the causes and conditions for harm and harming.
(3) Individual and collective agency for ending harm is possible.
(4) The Eightfold Noble Path empowers wholeness.” ~ Lein Shutt
“Imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition.” ~ bell hooks
“Really, being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are.” ~ Maya Angelou
“Love liberates.” ~ Maya Angelou"
“There are many possible meanings or experiences of spiritual liberation as it emerges from within. I experience it as freedom from projections of superiority and inferiority among sentient beings. To experience liberation in such a way is to experience authentic compassion, wisdom, love, and interrelationship.” ~ Zenju Earthlin Manuel
“Without love, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our world community from oppression and exploitation are doomed. As long as we refuse to address fully the place of love in struggles for liberation we will not be able to create a culture of conversion where there is a mass turning away from an ethic of domination….A culture of domination is anti-love. It requires violence to sustain itself. To choose love is to go against the prevailing values of the culture.” ~ bell hooks
Ways to Practice Together
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.
Every Body, Every Mind Sangha, a weekly practice group for people living with disabilities, limitations, differences and chronic illnesses offered by East Bay Meditation Center. Visit the every body every mind website for more information; email ebem@eastbaymeditation.org” to request a Zoom link.
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.
Living Mindfully With Illness Together, a weekly mindfulness practice group for folks living with illness or disability and their caregivers. Click here to sign up.
Mindbody Solutions, yoga and community offerings for disabled folks of all kinds.
