Here's one of my favorite lines, this is from a very dear friend and Buddhist
teacher Ruth King, she says: 'Anger is initiatory, it is not transformative.'
'Anger is initiatory, it is not transformative.'
We need the energy, it wakes us up,
it alerts us; but then we need to keep on going to what's next.
Another teacher of mine, Ruby Sales, who's a civil rights activist and an elder
she describes non-redemptive anger as when you lose access to your
deepest intelligence and wisdom. Redemptive anger is when you get energized
but then you move on to out of care acting. So what I'd like to do is
take a moment to reflect, invite you to check in with yourself.
And just to give you a taste of these two steps that we can take, and the first is the U-turn
where we come back to what's actually going on inside us
and the second step is to bring a really kind presence to what's here;
only then can we act from soul force.
So you might reflect: scan this week, last week
where you might have felt hooked in your own way in bad othering
where you may have felt anger and blame or contempt or hatred whatever level
kind of fixate or hook on to a person or a group
and as part of checking this out, sense what's the worst part of this for you
really what is most disturbing, so you're honestly recognizing
what's going on for you
and for some of you there may not be, it might not be so externalized
on a societal level; maybe there's a bad othering going on in your
immediate relationships, and you'd like to work with that; you can too
when you're making somebody else wrong or the enemy, sensing the worst part
and when you've really gotten in touch with the worst part, what you think is most
distressing about this, what most upsets you; and there may be images with it and so on
making the U-turn. And sense how the bad othering feels in your body:
what goes on, what's it like when you're blaming or angry
when you feel hate or aversion
how does your heart feel, and your mind
and to deepen the attention, you might sense if you weren't caught in the anger
what underneath that would you have to feel that would be really painful?
If you had to put aside the anger and really drop under it,
would it be feeling powerless? Would it be feeling hurt?
Would it be feeling brokenhearted on behalf of others?
Would it be feeling fear that's out of control and it's going to get worse,
that you're threatened or others are threatened that you care about?
What's under the anger?
What's the most vulnerable place under the anger?
And you might even just put your hand on your heart as you pay attention, like, what's really there?
Holding a very kind presence with whatever vulnerability is there
breathing with it
sensing under that the bad othering is a place of hurt or fear or grief
that you can bring tenderness to
because if you can come home to yourself in this way
feeling the vulnerability and bringing kindness there,
then you might be able to sense your intention to be part of the healing
to really respond to our world from compassion, with that soul force
if you'd like you can open your eyes.
What we're exploring together is the inner work that evolves us from being
dominated or hijacked by hatred; and
some of you may have really gotten in touch with really strong,
charged bad othering; and other of you maybe they're tired or distracted
or maybe didn't have bad othering going on, and that's totally fine
you can just use this as kind of a template for another time.
But it's a critical process for all of us at some point if we want to transform our world
and it takes really deep intention because it's so much easier to go into anger
than it is to pause and feel what's underneath; anger is way easier.
So it takes a really deep intention, otherwise we get seduced,
and we have to do it over and over; I didn't just do one round this week
I'm not telling you about one time that I happened to say: 'Oh, hatred never ceases by hatred' - and paused.
It was over and over again, because I listen to the news every day,
I'm pretty addicted these days to it, and I have to listen and then I have to breathe
and see where I've gotten smaller, and reopen again.
What I'd like to do is read you something I read from Gandhi
years ago, that really stayed with me
and this is him describing his own spiritual unfolding in this realm, he says:
'I hold myself to be incapable of hating any being on earth;
by a long course of prayerful discipline, I have ceased for over 40 years to hate anybody.
I know this is a big claim, nevertheless I make it in all humility.'
40 years, okay? 40 years; but what I love about this
is that that was the center of his prayer: 'Please may this heart awaken to love,
may I wake up out of hate'; and that's what's possible for us,
that we can evolve, we can evolve this heart and the society's heart.
[bells]