From Suffering to Peace

by Mark Coleman

  Hafiz could not have made his case more clear. Helping others is both the grit and the fruit of spiritual practice.

  • PRACTICE •

  Cultivating Generosity

  Generosity is a beautiful expression of a loving and caring heart, and you can cultivate generosity through intention. This practice is very simple: take a few minutes to reflect on one way you would like to express generosity, then do it.

  Try to follow through on this intention immediately if you can or as soon as it’s appropriate. There are endless ways to give, but listen to your heart and trust the first impulse of generosity that arises. Then be aware that fear can arise in the mind that may cause you to second-guess or doubt that impulse. For this time at least, try to put that doubt aside and follow the original urge.

  As the chapter describes, you might focus your generous act on a friend or family member who needs help, even if that help is simply emotional support and being a kind listener. You might help a stranger on the street, or you might support or join a service organization. You might offer money, time, or particular skills.

  After completing your act of generosity, reflect on how you felt while helping and how you feel once it’s done. Observe if you experienced any gladness in the moment or if your spirit feels uplifted. Generosity is a mutually beneficial process, and sometimes it can be hard to know who is the giver and who is the receiver. Be curious: Did the act of giving soften a sense of separation or isolation you may have had?

  To extend this practice, try to do it daily. Then notice how small, everyday acts of service not only cultivate your own well-being but bring happiness and joy into the world.

  • • •

  Chapter 34

  Waking Up to Unconscious Bias

  It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

  — AUDRE LORDE

  We are all conditioned by and subject to a host of impressions from our culture, family, and society as well as from the vast tapestry of our personal experience. Such influences inevitably affect the ways we see the world and one another. Mindfulness practice teaches us to see more clearly the reality of experience. This means becoming cognizant of the various filters that can occlude our perception. These filters are like glasses we don’t realize we are wearing that color the world and make it seem a certain way. Filters are the implicit bias we develop, and this affects our understanding, perceptions, and decisions. How do we become aware of such biases, particularly if they are unconscious and implanted at an impressionable age?

  One answer is by simply being aware that everyone develops bias, and then, through mindfulness practice, paying attention to how we are influenced by such predispositions. This is an ongoing process, one that never fully ends, since distortions of perception will always arise. For instance, in a well-known study by Daniel Simons, participants were asked to watch a video of a basketball game and focus on how often players in white shirts passed the ball. Participants became so engrossed in the task that over 50 percent of viewers failed to see a large gorilla walk across the field of play in the center of the screen! We see what we either want to see or are conditioned or told to see. I watched the same video and was amazed that I also did not see the gorilla on first view. Only after I knew to look for the gorilla did I actually see it.

  While bias develops with all sorts of things — age, gender, social status, fear of strangers and people from different cultures, and so on — one of the more insidious distortions is conditioning around race and ethnicity. Becoming aware of our own racial bias is a necessary part of practice and essential for avoiding unconscious racism, unintended discrimination, and the immense pain this can cause. For example, I have been conditioned to see race from the perspective of my upbringing as a white male in northern England. Growing up, white Anglo-Saxon culture was considered the norm against which all other ethnicities were unconsciously measured, often negatively. Because of my conditioning, even when I moved to London, which is a very multicultural city, I was barely self-conscious of my race and my identity as a white person.

  On the other hand, in the 1980s, I was in a relationship with Yvon, a black woman of Caribbean descent who wore a large afro. Her experience was almost the opposite of mine. Traveling around London, she was constantly aware of race, as barely a day went by when someone didn’t look at her in a derogatory way or express some insulting racial remark or gesture. Though today there is more awareness and education of these issues, people of color today still experience the negative bias and racism inherent in white-dominant cultures.

  In America, the Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted how such racist conditioning negatively influences the way the police and the courts treat men and women of color. For example, minorities and black people are killed by police at disproportionate rates. In 2012, while black people made up 13 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 31 percent of people killed by police; meanwhile, racial minorities made up about 37.4 percent of the general population, but they accounted for 62.7 percent of unarmed people killed by police. Similarly, African American men are more likely than white men to suffer mistreatment by police, and innocent black men are far more likely to be selected for committing a crime by witnesses. These are just a few of the innumerable ways racial bias continues to distort perception and thus influence actions with grave consequences.

  Waking up to such bias means paying attention to how our perceptions are influenced by conditioning. In America, longstanding cultural and media stereotypes persist that black men are more violent and more likely to commit criminal acts, and this can condition people to discriminate even when such stereotypes are proved false. Unearthing these distortions can be like trying to see one’s own shadow or like a fish trying to see the water it swims in. It takes ongoing work, study, and help from others, since the roots of such prejudice run deep, but the negative effects of unconscious bias are real.

  For instance, an African American acquaintance of mine was on a silent retreat at a meditation center in Oregon, and he decided to take a walk in the nearby forest. When he returned, a staff member confronted him and asked what he was doing at the retreat center. The man said he was attending the meditation course and wished to not have his silence interrupted. The woman apologized, but after the course, the man confronted the staff person and asked whether she would have accosted him if he had been white. She admitted it was unlikely, and in fact, the staff person had recently undergone training about undoing bias. This is just a small example of how our filters can influence us even after we become aware of them or been educated about them.

  Undoing internalized racism, bias, and conditioning is an ongoing process. We must be vigilant and maintain awareness of how it emerges in small and insidious ways. Of course, our personal bias depends on our particular conditioning and circumstances. Such bias is not limited to how we perceive race. It affects how we perceive gender and gender identification, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, and economic status. It also impacts how we perceive others who may have a different mother tongue, lower level of education, a different body shape, a different home country, or a different religion.

  For instance, when you go for a medical exam, do you doubt the competence of your physician if they are not the gender you expect? If you walk past a group of people from a different socioeconomic class, do you relate to them differently? What assumptions do you make when you see people of different physical ability? What arises when you see two men or two women holding hands in the street or when a transgender person is elected to public office? If someone trains you who is twice your age, or half your age, what thoughts or feelings arise? How we think, feel, and react to such circumstances indicates how much conditioning or bias is alive within us.

  From a mindfulness perspective, the key is not to judge our conditioned responses but to become aware of them and see how they affect our perceptions, thoughts, and actions. With awarenes
s, we have the power to choose to act differently. We can recognize our own bias and the distortion it creates and avoid causing unintended harm. And we can start to educate ourselves about our own conditioning and the limitations it places on our perceptions. We can also learn to become an advocate and ally for those groups and people who are routinely discriminated against or marginalized because of their differences and who may not have had the privilege of being part of a society’s predominant cultural group. This is the beginning of undoing the suffering of bias in ourselves and in the world.

  • PRACTICE •

  Mindfulness of Bias

  Being mindful of what we do not ordinarily see is not easy. This practice asks you to look at your life as you are living it right now and identify how your conditioning creates implicit bias in all sorts of ways. Consider the people in your life, the places you feel safe or comfortable, the place of worship you attend, the type of neighborhood you live in, the kind of school your kids go to, and the activities you like or engage in. Reflect on the following questions and observe what they bring up for you:

  •Are your closest friends the same ethnicity as you?

  •What is the racial makeup of your neighborhood or your kids’ schools, and do particular populations make you comfortable or uncomfortable?

  •If you are followed in a store by security, what assumptions might you make about why you are being targeted?

  •Does race factor into your thinking when it comes to who to befriend, date, or hire?

  •Does the gender or race of a doctor, teacher, or lawyer make any difference to you when you seek their help?

  •How would you feel if your new next-door neighbors were a gay couple, if you were to work under a manager who was transgender, or if one of your children or grandchildren told you they were gay?

  •How do you feel toward a child who feels they are a different gender than their own physical body?

  •Do you ever consider how someone who is less physically able may navigate the obstacles, stairs, or other challenges in your office or home?

  •What effect does it have on you when you hear that one in five children lives in poverty in the United States?

  •When you buy Band-Aids or bandages, do you ever think about whose skin color they are most likely to match?

  •If a traffic cop pulls you over, do you ever wonder if you have been singled out because of your race?

  Reflecting on these and similar questions can help unearth our unconscious bias toward people. Once you discover possible bias, reflect on what steps you can do to understand the limitation or distortion of this perception or conditioning. In what ways can you educate yourself so that these distortions can be uprooted? Commit to learning about the perspectives of people who are not part of the dominant culture or who don’t fit the cultural norms and stereotypes of the society you live in.

  • • •

  Chapter 35

  Waking Up to Nature as Teacher

  When the eyes and ears are awake, even the leaves on the trees read like pages from the scriptures.

  — KABIR

  Nature is a supreme support for developing mindfulness. Mystics and meditators for millennia have sought refuge in the mountains of the Himalayas and in desert caves, in the serenity of lakes and streams and in the stillness of forests. These are places that help awaken our minds and hearts. People tend to naturally be more attentive when outdoors. Nature allures our curiosity. Our sensory awareness becomes more awake in an aromatic rainy forest or by the crashing waves of the ocean. Nature is one of the few things that can pull us away from our screens, out of our thinking minds, and into the present moment. Think about the last time you were really present. Did it involve nature? Perhaps you were watching a beautiful sunset, listening to morning birdsong, swimming in a lake, tending to flowers in the garden, or playing with your cat. It becomes easier to cultivate mindful presence when our attention is allured fully in the natural world.

  The body and its senses are always in the now; sensory stimuli are portals to present-moment awareness. Our homes, offices, and cars are designed to reduce external stimuli. They temper the extremes of heat, cold, wind, and rain. Living indoors, our sensory awareness can go to sleep, since there is minimal input from fragrance, breeze, movement, or sound. To compensate, we watch action movies and high-drama TV to stimulate our deadened nervous system.

  How different it feels when we step out of our air-conditioned office and take a walk in a park. The fresh oxygen literally wakes our brain cells. We inhale the fragrance of the trees after a recent rainfall and feel the humidity moisten our skin. A north wind blows, ruffling our hair, and we feel a refreshing cool breeze on our face. The sun peeks out from behind the clouds and drenches us in warm light. We step out onto grass and feel the soft ground underfoot. A cacophony of chirping arises as a flock of starlings takes flight in unison. A gray squirrel busily scurries around oak trees collecting acorns. How easy to pay close attention to this rich tapestry of experience.

  Not only does nature support awareness, she offers a doorway to insight and understanding. It is hard to walk for more than a few steps without seeing signs of the reality of change. Plants, grasses, and trees are emerging, flourishing, decaying, and slowly becoming nutrients for the soil. A hillside of flowering lupines includes some in full bloom and others already withered, full of their own unstoppable decay. Impermanence, the truth that every living thing is transient, broadcasts loudly as we stroll outdoors.

  In nature, no two moments are the same. Something always changes: a shift in sunlight, a breeze rustling leaves overhead, a bird’s song rising and falling. We are often mesmerized by changing landscapes, gazing for hours at the restless ocean as waves perpetually crash and recede on the shore. We can lose ourselves in the vast cloud-filled sky. I personally relish watching the rain sweep across the hillsides or the wind blow tall grasses in the valleys of Northern California. With intimacy and insight, we dwell in the naturalness of transience, part of the fabric of life, and are invited to release rather than hold experience, which continually slips through our fingers.

  Similarly, we encounter the naturalness and beauty of death everywhere we go. Even in death, an old oak tree, leafless, its dignified, sturdy trunk soaring to the skies, retains its gracefulness. Perhaps we encounter a bleached deer skull lying in tall grasses and are reminded that death’s hand is never far away. Similarly, when I teach retreats in Baja, California, the coastline is littered with the skeletons of crabs and starfish, a graveyard of bones from countless sea creatures. Life’s transience is everywhere, inviting us to wake up to each precious and passing moment.

  As we live our individual lives, cut off from one another in our cars, cubicles, and condos, it is easy to feel distant from the truth that our lives are intimately interconnected. In the outdoors, however, we can sense the matrix of life, in which everything is interwoven with everything else.

  When I take groups to Alaska on a kayaking retreat, we swim in an intact ecosystem, where humpback whales, herring, bald eagles, spawning salmon, and black bears interact as they have for millions of years. We are at risk of destroying such ecological balance through pollution, the use of chemicals, and countless other human impacts. In our ignorance, we risk harming all life. We must understand and honor just how intricately our lives and the consequences of our actions affect the web of life. Immersion in nature helps wake us up to the delicateness of this balance and reminds us of the necessity to live in harmony with all creatures.

  Nature can also teach us about simplicity and peace. In his poem “The Peace of Wild Things,” Wendell Berry writes of being stressed about his children’s lives and how nature is a salve for that anxiety: “I come into the presence of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief.… / For a time / I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” When surrounded by the natural world, we see how preoccupied we get with future thoughts and worries. Nature reminds us of the peace that is avail
able when we orient to the present rather than get lost in a swarm of future concerns. Immersing ourselves in such landscapes strengthens our ability to abide in the grace of the present.

  Bringing mindfulness outside can also help us step out of clock time and into natural rhythms. We get so caught up in busyness and a lack of time, which causes us to rush anxiously through life. Outdoors, we adjust to nature’s clock, which moves slowly, organically, everything happening in its proper time.

  Along Utah’s Green River, the high canyon walls are up to three hundred million years old, which provides a different scale of time entirely. Rafting the river on a nature meditation retreat, I realize how silly and unnecessary all my rushing and angst about deadlines are. Our hurry creates so much extra stress and burden. Instead, nature invites us to slow down, to sense the vastness of time and the intimacy of this moment, if we are present enough to notice.

  Perhaps the most significant lesson is how nature can take us out of our myopic self-centered absorption. Indoor living can accentuate a self-focus and a preoccupation with the details of our life. The further we roam from our human-centric world, the more we foster a sense of spaciousness and perspective. Immersing ourselves in nature, absorbing its rhythms, distancing ourselves from egocentricity, our sense of self naturally softens and relaxes. It is as if our psyche can breathe.

  On my nature meditation retreats, many students report how the constricted sense of self easily dissolves while spending quiet time outdoors. It is like shedding a tight-fitting suit, and without such constriction, a natural sense of peace emerges. This easing of the tightly wrapped sense of self can be both insightful and life-changing. We see how the self, to which we cling so tightly, is like all things transient and ephemeral. With that we can access a natural lightness and freedom that can profoundly transform how we live in this world.