People in the United States are starting to become aware of racism, slowly, slowly, and violently. There has been racial violence on the North American continent since the moment Europeans arrived. They came as a monoculture with guns and swords, what could you expect? As European descendants tend to write the history learned in the United States, we were taught as children that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. What most American’s don’t know is that he “discovered” it following charts originally created by Chinese explorers from 1421.
At that time, while Europeans were busy burning witches, the Chinese enlightenment was in full swing. Buddhism was around 2000 years old by then, and the Zen tradition, the delightful mix of Taoism and Buddhism had been proliferating throughout Asia, from China, for about 1000 years. The word “Zen” is from the Japanese word, zazen which means meditation. In China, the tradition is called Chan. Now, zen has spread throughout the world and has enlightened people of all races around the globe. Its central teaching tells us to protect one another.
The main reason it gives to convince us that we should look out for each other is that we are all fingers on the same hand. We are all parts of the same body. Like an autoimmune disorder, this body has a way of attacking itself. Individual, ignorant bodies and antibodies, working against each other to bring down the whole. The 2020 pandemic has been a time where our bodies and antibodies need to work together to protect each other.
Unfortunately, in this pandemic, they way people have been asked to protect each other has been to stay home and be apart from each other. We have to go to great lengths to keep our bodies from interacting other bodies, where our shared air, and shared physiology make us vulnerable to the same ailment that travels in our bodies and spreads through our shared air.
The meditation techniques passed down to us from the ancient Chinese masters teach us to sit quietly, holding our bodies still and observing what comes up in our minds. No matter what comes up in our minds, we notice it and let it go. With that kind of technique, we can see the kinds of things our minds tend to do. Our personal ignorance is on plain display as we observe the full spectrum of thoughts and ideas that cross our minds.
Like meditation, staying home and staying apart from each other during the pandemic has afforded us a new perspective on the world. Suddenly, with everybody cooped up and looking out, we saw the same things we have always seen in American culture, racial and sexual violence.
Even before the pandemic, the former president of the United States, by condoning sexual violence against the bodies of women, boosted the antibody response that took form as the Me Too movement. Empowered women, who knew what had always been happening, helped to point out what was happening. People noticed and some high profile, powerful men were held accountable. Slowly, slowly, violently, people became more aware.
Then, as people were “locked down”, protecting each other from COVID-19, they noticed that American police officers, those with a duty to serve and protect, were killing black people, those they had sworn to protect. When George Floyd was murdered, on camera, people noticed. The Black Lives Matter movement, gained some momentum. Slowly, slowly, violently, people became more aware.
As COVID-19 shut down the world, the American President, a powerful, ignorant, racist, began blaming China for infecting the virus. Americans, ignorant and racially violent began attacking people of Asian descent. Now, when an ignorant, racist American, shot several Asian women in Atlanta, people noticed. Slowly, slowly, violently, people became more aware.
The slowness and violence is painful. Now as vaccines roll out and our bodies get injected with the information to produce the antibodies we need to let us safely breathe the same air as each other again, we need to embody the antibody to racial and sexual violence in this world. Turning our bodies into antibodies can happen with the help of the ancient Chinese masters, who taught us how to pause, observe what is happening, right now, and respond to it with compassion. We all need to be antibodies, that can teach other bodies how to awaken from ignorance. In each moment we have the opportunity to act, and if we can remember to act with compassion, looking into the source of the problem and doing what we think can help, then we will learn to be the antibodies, needed to dispel the ignorance of our bodies. Act wisely, peacefully, quickly, to serve and protect all the people you encounter, please.
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