I spend a lot of time reflecting upon and seeking out patterns of thought and beliefs I’ve internalised from the culture in which I was raised. It’s a practice of working with ignorance — known as one of the ‘three poisons’ in Buddhism — and I’ve found it to be the most difficult. This isn’t surprising, of course. It’s a practice of cultivating awareness of what we don’t know we don’t know. But this is a crucial practice because ignorance plays out in the other two poisons of passion and aggression, perpetuating all three to our personal, cultural and social detriment.
Passion is how we cling and grasp. It’s our attachment to things in a fixed way. And often, ignorance prevents us from seeing how we are attached, or more importantly, why. Why would changing our mind when we received new information feel threatening? What systems does it benefit for us to remain blind to the suffering caused by social constructs that dehumanise others? Why are we so quick to defend these beliefs that cause harm?
Clinging to the ego is not simply about our identities as individuals, but about our collective cultural and social identities. If we have an idea about who we are based on the social group we belong to, and we learn that such a belief is causing harm, it feels threatening because of the ideas we have about being ‘good’ people. For example, as a white Canadian, I have been taught that Canadians as a group are really nice, friendly, and welcoming. This cultural identity is deeply ingrained from a very early age, and feels pretty good — especially when our nearest neighbour has a reputation for being loud, domineering, and racist.
But Canada’s history is just as colonial, patriarchal, and racist as the United States. There are many Indigenous folks who will not acknowledge themselves as ‘Canadian’, preferring to view all of North America as Turtle Island, as it was known to many of the folks living here pre-colonialism. And there are plenty of folks living in Canada, regardless of identity, who will point out, for a country known for being so apologetic, Canada has done little to show accountability for the many atrocities committed against Indigenous folks and immigrant populations.
When we insist on willful ignorance to defend hurt feelings, we perpetuate the larger system that causes harm, all for the sake of clinging to our idea of being ‘good’ people. But the point isn’t about being ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Our capacity for care is no more static and fixed than our tendency to be an asshole when our ego feels threatened. We can always be better, and at this point in our collective human history, our implicit biases have a long way to go to catch up with our explicit beliefs of equality.
Understanding how ignorance plays a part in my attachment to being ‘good’, I can learn to let go of the defensiveness that might come up when someone points out a racist comment I make. Growth is not comfortable, but I would rather be made uncomfortable on the path of becoming a better person than defend something indefensible in the face of new information.
Aggression is expressed in many forms, of course. From verbal and physical violence, to the ways we impose our beliefs on others, or deny the legitimacy of experiences that differ from our own (ie. cultural gaslighting). And just like passion, aggression is often perpetuated in the name of ignorance, when our ego feels threatened and attacked. We are ignorant to the multitude of factors that cause another person to act in a particular way, and so we justify our hatred and vitriol towards them. When we demonise someone we ignore their humanity so we can justify injustice — cruelty, a lack of care, indifference.
Fortunately, when we bring our attention to anything, we become better and better at noticing it. I have learned to see how often my aggression towards others comes from separating myself from them, seeing my suffering as special and theirs as either non-existent or not as worthy of being addressed.
I can recognise the wisdom in aggression as a clear sign a barrier has been crossed, but I can also see that it does not justify my crossing a barrier in return. I think on a very global level to give gravity to this practice. In the name of going after terrorism, the persecution of entire groups of people because of their religion or place of origin only fuels the fires of of this form of aggression. I have spent time reflecting on what kind of injustice and hopelessness I would have to experience to justify killing myself and others in the name of a cause. By choosing to look at aggression and see it for what it is, instead of ignoring it and blindly justifying it, I am able to understand it, and see that the acts of an individual speak to a larger social and cultural narrative.
In doing this work, I am incredibly grateful to Rev. angel Kyodo williams for the teachings she gives on the nature of mind. She speaks about how we don’t get to have our own mind; we only have a collective mind. This is a statement of interdependence. She is reminding us that cultural and social conditioning is at play for every single one of us.
Our mind is influenced by a multitude of factors, both implicitly and explicitly. Beliefs are learned, passed on, internalised. In the West, the influence of colonial, patriarchal, capitalist, white supremacist thought permeates the fabric of our society. This is why women can be misognynists, Black folk can be racist, queer folk can be homophobic. It’s also how we can belong to a group that is marginalised and also be complicit in the marginalisation of another group — white women who are racist, Black folk who are homophobic, gay or lesbian folks who are transphobic.
But then Reverend angel goes on to teach that we are only responsible for our own minds. This is to say, within the collective conditioning, the only part of the collective mind we can change, is our own. What other folks do with their minds is none of our business, but by owning our part in the collective—by doing the work of cultivating awareness of the three poisons—we are absolutely contributing to a shift in the collective mind-set, because just as we are influenced by culture, culture is influenced by us. Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form. What we think matters. What we are aware of shifts the larger social awareness. By committing to our own mind, we are committing to owning our part in the collective consciousness, both implicit and explicit, for the benefit of all.
As I work on bringing awareness to my own ignorance, I am embodying what it is to bring awareness to our collective ignorance. It might seem a small thing, but it’s the only way. I can offer guidance, tools and wisdom to others, but I cannot walk the path for them.
I want to embody the work of waking, and in doing so, offer an example. Whether or not another person chooses to live by that example is up to them. It’s not my responsibility or my business to change other people’s minds, and when I really feel that and trust in it, my practice focuses more intensely. When I’m not giving my energy to upholding expectations of how others should be or need to change, I can focus that energy on my own potential to change — and I have much better results.
The examples we make of our lives matter, even if it’s not up to us what others do with it. It is through seeing the examples of others that I have taken up this work. It was listening to every talk by Ani Pema I could get my hands on, reading The Way of Tenderness by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, and studying the many talks and articles by Lama Rod Owens and Reverend angel that have inspired me. They model the possibility I see in my practice, the potential any of us have to choose a life of cultivating awareness, compassion, and love for the sake of liberation for all beings.
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Originally published on Medium
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