Which context would you rather organize in? Election reflections…
Dear dharma family,
A few weeks ago, I participated in a series of meditation + action conversations around the upcoming presidential election in the US, along with a couple of organizers and a Buddhist meditation teacher I deeply admire.
Just before one of our sessions, entitled “Practicing Hope,” I learned that over a hundred Lebanese civilians had been killed in US-backed attacks launched by the state of Israel earlier that day. We had been told that a ceasefire was on the horizon, and instead, the war of annihilation was expanding before our eyes.
During the conversation, I offered a reflection I’ve heard from people who’ve spent much of the past year calling for arms embargo, an end to apartheid and a liberated Palestine:
A lot of folks I know aren’t inspired to get involved in this election, to canvas or even to vote, because they have significant, meaningful policy differences with the candidate who is closer to their values, but still so far away... What do we do when the “better” candidate still isn’t good enough?
The response of one of the organizers has been ringing in my ear ever since:
In this election, she said, we’re not voting for a person. We’re voting for a context. Societal transformation will always come from the grassroots. So then… what is the context we would rather be organizing in?
Which context will bring us closer to the end of this genocide?
When we say BPF is not here to tell you who to vote for, it’s not just a matter of compliance with our nonprofit status. It reflects our deeper commitment to supporting individuals and communities to make decisions rooted in their own wisdom and values, and of creating spaces where people can explore the dharma and engage in the political process from a place of authenticity.
What we can say for sure is that there’s an opportunity to lean into the dharma in these election times, as a way to expand the range of possibility when it seems like we’re faced with only binary choices.
Because there is something fundamentally spiritual at play when we’re longing, praying, and working for a better world, all while grappling with the constraints of the world as it is. This is where the theme of “Practicing Hope” comes in.
Weirdly enough, “hope” is an unpopular word in some Western convert Buddhist spaces. Euro-American Buddhist nun Pema Chodrön even offers a critique of hope in her classic book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.
The word in Tibetan for hope is rewa; the word for fear is dokpa. More commonly, the word re-dok is used, which combines the two. Hope and fear is a feeling with two sides. As long as there’s one, there’s always the other. This re-dok is the root of our pain. In the world of hope and fear, we always have to change the channel, change the temperature, change the music, because something is getting uneasy, something is getting restless, something is beginning to hurt, and we keep looking for alternatives.
In a nontheistic state of mind, abandoning hope is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning. You could even put “Abandon hope” on your refrigerator door instead of more conventional aspirations like “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.”
Now, I don’t actually think that Chodrön was saying that hope is inherently bad. I think she was saying, in her provocative-dry-humor-Buddhist-nun-kind-of-a-way, that hope as it’s commonly practiced in the West is actually really similar to what’s called thanha in the ancient Indian language of Pali.
She is critiquing the kind of hope that is really a mask for craving, insatiable desire, literally “thirsting” for things to be different that is, at its root, driven by hatred and fear. That kind of up-and-down hope, that fueled-by-terror-hope, is completely understandable given the horrific conditions we are currently facing and witnessing. And. It is also a set up for suffering.
You may be able to see it in your own heart and mind as they ride the news cycles. I can certainly see it in mine. Yes, they’re winning! No, they’re losing. They will stop it! They won’t stop it. Yes we can! No we can’t… From a political perspective – we know that the grasping kind of hope can get us mobilized in the short term, but is unsustainable for the long haul. We go hard, then we burn out. We put all our hope in a candidate winning, and then they lose, and we think all is lost, so we stop working for change. Or worse – they win, and they disappoint us so bitterly that we don’t have the heart to fight for a candidate ever, ever again.
Luckily, there are other kinds of hope available to us in the dharma. The “hope” I find myself bringing to these final days before the presidential election is really more similar to what might be called a “wish” in our practice.
Wishing is what we do when we engage in lovingkindness – metta in Pali. It has more openness and curiosity in it than the “hope” that Chodrön warns us against. And it is driven, not by fear, but by the acknowledgement of our own and each other's inherent fundamental goodness.
This wishing kind of hope comes from reflecting on what the Buddha referred to as our bodhicitta, the awakened heart that every human being is born with. It can be covered over, but it can never be extinguished. And it is but one of the many reasons that every human life is precious.
My understanding of bodhicitta includes a confidence that we humans will always bend toward justice, given the right conditions.
I think that’s why the question of what is the context you would rather be organizing in? hit the way it did.
Because as someone who has been so deeply influenced and nourished by the Buddhadharma, facing the choices presented to me in the upcoming election, the question becomes not which candidate do I want to reward with my vote?, but rather what conditions might give our collective, inherent, fundamental goodness the best chance to build the power to heal this broken world?
In other words, it’s not about placing hope in any one candidate or party. It’s about placing hope in each other, and doing our best to bring about the conditions we believe will support us to be the best of who we can be together.
One way to practice metta is to focus our awareness relentlessly on our bodhicitta, that seed of wisdom and freedom inside, and offer wishes of goodwill to help that seed grow.
In our meditation, we can use phrases like:
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings be safe, happy and know liberation in this lifetime.
And maybe, at least for the next 12 days,
May the context that is most workable from an organizing perspective, the context that will get us closer to end of genocide and the dream of democracy, come to power this November.
Ok, too wordy for an actual metta phrase, but you know what I mean ;-)
Wishing and working toward change is a practice, today and everyday. It requires so much discomfort, and so much patience, and there is so much disappointment along the way.
The news is not good. It has not been good, and it is getting worse. And it serves as a constant reminder that no individual one of us can transform the conditions we face.
All the more reason to also remind ourselves what we can do when we resist the culture of individualism, resist the myth that any one leader will save us, and remind each other that humanity at its core is not the violence we currently see. Because it's the heart of metta that acknowledges the limitations we face, and also sees the possibility of liberation, and the path leading from here to there. And it’s not even the experience of liberation, but simply the wish for it, that actually purifies and strengthens the heart.
So in that sense, it is also a healing kind of hope. One that can light our way forward, to the next opportunity to make change.
May we remember that Election Day is but one of those opportunities. And because there are those among us who simply cannot vote, for moral or for legal reasons, we remember that the path to liberation does not hinge on one action or one day.
May we know who and what we are fighting for, and with — no matter who our next president is.
Yours, in love and struggle,
Kate Johnson
Co-Director, Buddhist Peace Fellowship
