I can't breathe.  I can't breathe.  

Picture
​On May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, George Floyd, a 46 year-old unarmed Black man, cried out "I can't breathe" as a white police officer knelt on his neck and two other officers held him down while another looked on.  After 6 minutes of pleading for his life, in broad daylight, and crying out for his mother, Floyd  became non-responsive. Two minutes and 46 seconds later an officer finally checked his pulse. No pulse. No breath.  George Floyd was dead. 

Our nation's painful legacy of systemic racism took George Floyd's last breath, and for many of us his tragic and violent death  has left us breathless as we have  been awakened  to the suffering, injustice and deadly violence that has long been endured by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in our country.

Laughing Rivers Sangha is a community of mindfulness practitioners in the tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, a peacemaker who was nominated for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King and Thich Nhat Hanh met in 1966 and again in 1967, just months before Dr King was assassinated. Together they spoke of building  " the Beloved Community".  
Laughing Rivers Sangha seeks to understand more fully this moment of profound sadness, but also of potential transformation, and to explore together how to better Be the Change and Be the Action that Dr. King and Thich Nhat Hanh were envisioning. To that end, this page will continue to offer Awareness and Healing Practices; Insights and Understandings on Systemic Racism and how we can help transform it; and specific opportunities for learning, deep listening and engagement.  
​Contemplations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings*:  A New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic
* The Five Mindfulness Trainings are the contemporary expression of the Buddha's original core precepts for living an ethical and compassionate life.  This offering below is in no way an attempt to replace the original Five Mindfulness Trainings from Plum Village. 

Meeting suffering where it is – a path to freedom.

Centering the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in our practices meets the suffering where it is and offers a path to freedom.  "A New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic” is an offering by Marisela Gomez and Valerie Brown, leaders in the ARISE Sangha Initiative. We encourage all Order members to read and practice these Contemplations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings. 

By Marisela Gomez and Valerie Brown: 

Let us open to a new and deeper way of understanding the Five Mindfulness Trainings, guiding principles for mindful and ethical living, which call us toward individual and collective awakening, compassion, and peace.  We are aware that we are interconnected.  What happens in Wuhan, China affects people in New York City. What happens to the Black body affects all bodies.  We are called forward.

The global pandemic is a gateway to suffering worldwide, disproportionately impacting Black people, indigenous, and people of color, who face poverty, sickness, displacement, and death.  They, we are not alone. Our lives and livelihood are interconnected. We are called forward.

We cannot exist independent of low wage workers, health care workers, un-housed people, single mothers, undocumented people, the unemployed and underemployed.  If one such person lives on the knife edge of racial, ethnic, social, structural, and systemic oppression and discrimination we are all affected.  We are called forward.

The practitioner dwells in the now, recognizing equanimity and instability, discrimination and non-discrimination, ill-being and well-being, practicing right view and engaged through compassionate action.  Aware of the cycle of racial, ethnic, and social inequities and discrimination, we courageously turn to practice wholeheartedly.    We are called forward.

Lighting a stick of incense, listening to the sutras, sitting upright and solid, palms joined, the practitioner looks within and in concentration the path and fruit of skillful action is revealed.  We are called forward.

Speak aloud these words with the sangha voice, a true river of understanding:

Acknowledging Beauty as Reverence for Life

Aware of the suffering caused by oppression and  generational harm based on racial,  cultural, social, and ethnic  inferiority and superiority and its resultant structures of injustices and harm, I acknowledge the beauty and violence inherent in life. I vow to resist being complicit in systems and structures that continue to perpetuate violence and hatred instead of reverence of life for marginalized groups. I recognize that  each person contributes to my individual and our collective awakening, and the co-creation of a world that celebrates  and affirms differences and similarities. All living beings can teach me something,  when I remember to pause, breathe, listen deeply  with a calm and open mind and heart, and ask myself: ‘is there more’ or  ‘ what else is here with me’’?’ I  honor  and respect  all life guided  by Right View and Right Energy.

Belonging and Connecting as True Happiness

Aware of the suffering caused by ignorance and aversion of my own and other’s racial, ethnic, cultural, and social history, its legacy and how this affects me whether I am aware of it or not, I am committed to connecting to these histories. I know that turning toward these histories with an open heart is my journey of awakening to true belonging. I will take the time to learn the history of the racial and ethnic group with which I identify as well as for other socially constructed racial and ethnic groups. Aware that there is no genetic or biological difference between different racial and ethnic groups, and that these identities were constructed by one group to establish dominance over others, I will turn toward racial and other forms of othering with an open heart and compassionate action. I know that this history has led to fragmentation inside and outside body and mind and brought much suffering to all beings. I vow to transform this suffering through the practice of connecting with an open heart. I will notice when emotions of belonging and othering arise and I will ask myself ‘why’? Whatever feelings, perceptions, or mental formations arise, I will embrace and when needed engage with love in action. I am committed to practicing Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood so I can help relieve this legacy of racial and social suffering.  I will practice looking deeply to see that true happiness is not possible without true connecting leading to belonging and understanding.

Cherishment as True Love

Aware of the suffering caused by discrimination and oppression, I vow to understand its roots within my consciousness and my body and the collective body of the sangha and larger society.  I vow to recognize the ways in which I have benefitted or not-benefitted explicitly or implicitly from systems and structures that foster discrimination and injustice.  I am aware of the legacy of violence, especially unlawful police violence, perpetrated against Black people, indigenous people, people of color, differently abled people, people of various gender identities and expressions and sexual orientation, and others who are marginalized. I acknowledge the lived experience of all people to deepen my capacity for understanding and for greater compassionate action.  I am aware that narrowly constructed, prevalent interpretations of intimate relationships constrain how we cherish each other in our expression of love, leaving many further isolated and alienated. I am committed to looking tenderly at my suffering, knowing that I am not separate from others and that the seeds of suffering contain the seeds of joy.  I am not afraid of bold love that fosters justice and belonging and tender love that seeks peace and connection.  I cherish myself and my suffering without discrimination.  I cherish this body and mind as an act of healing for myself and for others.  I cherish this breath.  I cherish this moment.  I cherish the liberation of all beings guided by the wisdom and solidity of the sangha. This is my path of true love. 

Vulnerability as Loving Speech and Deep Listening

Aware that vulnerability is the essence of our true nature, our humanness, I vow to risk listening and speaking non-judgmentally with understanding and compassion to alleviate suffering and support peace in myself and others.  I vow to live with empathy, compassion, and awareness and to listen for understanding rather than disagreement. When I’ve hurt others through my unskillful action or speech, I vow to practice making a good apology that acknowledges what I have done and offers sincere regret, knowing that this supports the other person and me. I am committed to speaking that aligns with my highest aspiration and encourages honesty and truthfulness.  I am committed to generous and courageous listening that bridges differences and supports understanding of others who may be different from me.  I am committed to taking meaningful steps to become a true instrument of peace and to help others to be the same. When I am not able to understand the experiences of others, I vow to come back to my breath and my body, and to offer myself gentle patience while learning to support myself in developing greater awareness and skill.  I vow to practice awareness of my beliefs, perceptions, and feelings, aversions, and desires and to take refuge in mindful breathing and in the sangha to support greater stability, peace, and understanding.  Through my practices of vulnerability, patience, forgiveness, and deeply listening, I know that my speech will be guided by love and understanding. Practicing in this way supports Right Speech and Right Action and guides me to Right Insight.

Welcoming as True Nourishing and Healing

Aware of the suffering caused by the consumption of an inadequate history of racial and ethnic forms of social segregation, I am committed to healing myself and the world by welcoming, and practicing with this awareness. I will notice how my thoughts, perceptions, feelings, words, and actions may have been influenced by this inaccurate history. I will look deeply to understand how both physical and mental health, for myself, my family, and my society have been influenced by embracing and denying this racial, social, and ethnic history of inferiority and superiority and its legacy of inequities and injustices. I will cultivate joy to support me toward individual and collective wholeness. I will practice mindfulness of the Four Kinds of Nutriments to become aware of how edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness are all influenced by this history. Practicing with Right Energy and Right Resolve, my Right Action of consumption will include awareness of certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations and how they continue to foster wrong perceptions of racial, ethnic, and social injustices. My understanding of interbeing supports my conscious consumption that sustains a healthy understanding of differences, one that does not oppress or discriminate. This Right Insight will preserve peace, joy, and bring healing in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth. To assure that my descendants do not live in a racially, ethnically, and socially unjust world, I commit to diligently practicing with true welcoming on this path to nourish and heal myself, the sangha, and society.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings keeps us centered in life’s storms and joys and reminds us that life is a precious gift. The Trainings are a path to liberation and transformation.  Practicing these Trainings supports us toward racial and ethnic reconciliation and social change and heals deep suffering. The Five Mindfulness Trainings  helps us cross this shore of suffering and brings us to the side of true awakening and love

We are called forward.
 PictureCongressman John Lewis - click to enlarge


















            Congressman and Civil Rights Leader,  John R Lewis, who died of pancreatic cancer at age 80 on July 17, 2020,  exemplified the embodiment of peace, compassion, non-discrimination and true love  that were the tenets of his Christian faith even as he was being beaten and cursed throughout his life-long heroic work for racial justice and equal rights.  Through it all, he continued to challenge the darkness, while also remaining open and forgiving, inviting even his persecutors to learn and become part of the larger Beloved Community that both he, and Thay , had spoken of directly with Martin Luther King, Jr.   

Lewis' life was a teaching, about the courage to stay open and to act, closely mirroring what Thich Nhat Hanh had written as a young monk in the mid 1960's amidst the pain of war in his homeland of Vietnam: 

​“When we discover something to be true today through our own direct experience, we will see that our previous assumptions were wrong, or at least incomplete. Our new way of looking transcends yesterday’s desire, prejudices, narrow-mindedness, and habits. We see that to use the golden molds and emerald yardsticks of yesterday’s understanding are nothing less than slavery or imprisonment. It is impossible to accept things we know to be false when we attain a new understanding of reality. Our actions will be based on our understanding. We will follow only those rules we have tested through our direct experience. We will discard the false rules and conventions of the current social order. But we have to expect that society will turn on us with a vengeance. Human history is filled with the tragedies caused by that vengeance. History teaches that we die if we oppose the system. Yet, many individuals continue to challenge the darkness, despite the danger in doing so. Those who pursue the truth are members of the community of truth-seekers and reformers throughout time and space. They do not resign themselves to a collective fate that offers no laurels.”

        Thich Nhat Hanh, from Fragrant Palm Leaves
Thich Nhat Hanh - Color of Compassion: Non-Discrimination  Mar 2014

Additional Resources for Understanding and Action