Oakland Protests, the Paramis, and Creative Practice

The post I offered earlier today was fairly cranky, and the sound byte format probably irritated a few people. That's fine. I think it's interesting to notice how you react to critical statements made about a group or groups you consider yourself a member of. Along these lines, the New York Times reported that protests in Oakland turned violent following the sentencing of a white officer for the killing of an unarmed young black man. Contrast this to the following post, made by Katie Loncke, a member of the Buddhoblogosphere, and who was amongst the arrested during the same protests. Katie took the opportunity to consider the Buddhist paramis, and how they might be applied to a situation as tense and uncertain as a protest about police brutality being broken up by police.

She writes:

I found myself thinking about the Paramis throughout a long Friday night and Saturday, when I was arrested, along with 152 others, for “unlawful assembly”: marching in the streets of Oakland to protest police violence and impunity. I was held in custody for about 20 hours; some people still haven’t been released. (Please consider donating to legal aid for protester defense.)

A concrete detention cell might seem like a strange setting for reflecting on the attributes leading to Buddhahood. A far cry from the bucolic campuses of well-funded meditation centers. On the other hand, many people have famously developed their spiritual practice while incarcerated, or even while being tortured. I’m not saying that every setting is equally optimal for developing every part of dhammic practice. But once you’ve learned some of the basics in a more controlled, safe environment, it’s interesting to see how they can manifest in non-stereotypical situations.

Katie has multiple posts about what happened, as well as a vision she and others out in Oakland have for a radically different way of being together as communities. Even if you don't agree with everything she offers, please go over and take a look at her blog posts. I find both her willingness to be on the front lines, and the dedication to grounding her actions in Buddhist teachings, inspiring.

Some of you might dismiss what Katie is doing as some "activist" appropriation. To which I'd offer the Sutra on The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala, which is one of the sutras that points to Buddha's social teachings. There's also the Sikkha Sutta, pointing to four different kinds of practitioners in the world. And then there's the Mahanama Sutta, on being a lay practitioner. All of these sutras seem to suggest that involvement in social affairs is compatible with Buddhist practice.

Beyond the social action question, though, is simply the matter of diversity of practice. Once you stick your head under the canopy, it's pretty clear that what Buddha taught 2600 years ago has been taken in many, many directions, and will be taken in many more in the future. I don't consider this a bad thing. It's actually pretty cool. Creativity is, in my view, a hallmark of finding one's way to the heart of the great matter.

Challenges of Generosity

The paramita of generosity is a great teaching for our time. (Or any time, but let's stick with our time for now.) Whether one gives material goods, deep listening, or a few words of dharma, the ability to share with others in a non-attached, open way is one of the most underrated qualities I can think of in the wild and crazy world of ours today.

And yet, I think it's important to examine both how we define generosity, and also the differing levels of impediments that hinder people from being giving in their lives. It is commonplace, at least in my country, to immediately link generosity with money and other material gifts. This doesn't mean people totally ignore non-material gifts, but from what I have seen, material gifts tend to be highly privileged. For example, the IRS provides tax breaks for people who donate money or valuable material goods to non-profits and other charity organizations. If I give X number of hours to the same organizations, I cannot expect to receive anything equivalent, unless, perhaps, if I work for a large corporation that offers incentives to its employees in exchange for their service, which is considered a "gift" to the corporation's public image.

Now, here's one of the rubs. Everything I described above seems to be giving that has some attachment laden in it. Wanting tax breaks for donations isn't freely giving. Corporations wanting good public images, and more profits as a result, taints the giving being done in their name. And beyond all of this, there is a continued emphasis on some sort of material value to giving, which is not in line with the depth of the teachings on generosity in Buddhism.

Khentin Tai Situ Rinpoche offers a short teaching on the paramita of generosity, beginning with this:

The practice of generosity is to give what is worthwhile and to give it with non-attachment. This can be studied through three main aspects: giving things, giving loving protection and giving loving understanding. The teaching on the first of these, material generosity, explains what is proper generosity and what is improper. We should abandon improper generosity and practice the proper one.

Motivation is very important when we give. If we give with a wrong motivation, such as making gifts which we hope will harm others or which we intend to bring us fame, or if we give with an inferior motivation such as through fear of future poverty, then that is improper. What we actually give is also important. A Bodhisattva should never give what is harmful, for instance, when he gives something suitable it should be generously, not meanly. To whom we give to is important - always pandering to the wishes of the crazy and the gluttonous would not be proper generosity. Finally, how we make our gift is important. The Bodhisattva avoids reluctant giving, angry giving, disrespectful giving and scornful, derisory giving, all of which are improper.

When it comes to living in societies that obsessively link giving with material value, and by extension with power, I think it's pretty challenging to tease out proper giving from improper giving. In fact, I'd argue it's challenging for many of us to actually see generosity when it's occurring because we have accepted a certain definition of giving, and any action that falls outside of that definition isn't even considered. In other words, generosity is happening all over the place, but our conditioned minds just leap right past it, over and over again.

Consider these lines from a recentpost on the blog Feministe:

Which brings us to the idea of a gift economy. [Seth] Godin suggests, and I think he means well, that a gift economy is something like an exchange of acts of great art and generosity without expectation of return. He suggests that it creates a virtuous circle of gift exchange that turns the givers into indispensable people who, in the natural course of things will eventually be rewarded.

What would a gift economy look like? What does it have to do with women’s pay?

In 1995, the United Nations estimated that women around the world generated work for which they were not paid to the tune of $11 trillion, or $15 trillion in 2007 dollars, as Raj Patel notes in his book, “The Value of Nothing.” Patel says that in 1995, “The daily work of rearing children, maintaining a household and engaging in civic work … [was worth] more than half the world’s total output.”

Godin suggests that offering wonderful, useful work as a gift will eventually draw a reward. Yet women’s gifts of necessary work, often microtargeted to the exact needs of a particular family, not only bring little compensation, they’re often barely noticed.

Now, certainly in these days, some men have joined the ranks of extensive family caregiving. However, women still do by far the majority of this kind of work, and yet how often do you hear people speak the word "generosity" when it comes to raising children, for example? There are, by extension, a whole array of activities that are either ignored or downplayed by societies which are, in fact generous. Deep listening to another who is suffering. Helping neighbors with basic chores. Telling funny stories to sick children. All hospital volunteer work or caregiving to sick folks. Offering kind words to stranger.

And it goes beyond gifts to people. Liberating animals, planting trees on formerly damaged lands, and simply limiting your general impact on the planet - all of these, too, can be acts of generosity.

Materially driven societies, however, aren't apt to uphold these kinds of actions because frequently have no "value," don't add to the "bottom line," and in some cases, actually hinder the all mighty "productivity and growth" that are seen as keys to a successful nation.

So, for many of us, cultivating true generosity requires that we run against the grain of our entire society. It requires that we break through the conditioning we have around what it means to be generous, and how such generosity looks. And it requires that we let go of getting anything in return.

At the same time, I believe we have to be more engaged about generosity on a social level. By doing what? I'm not sure exactly. But maybe a good place to start is to be more generous with what you see as generous. Second, be willing to call out acts of generosity that are normally ignored or downplayed. Third, it might be helpful to recognize that women, for example, probably have more of their generosity ignored collectively than men do. Or that acts of generosity by poor folks are often rendered invisible by the current social standards and mores.

At the end of the day, wanting to be recognized for acts of generosity is an attachment, and thus a hindrance to actually being generous. However, that absolute perspective must be balanced by paying close attention to, and working with, conditions in the relative, everyday world.