This Monday night, Magda and Annie will facilitate.
Dear Friends,
The teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh that speak most to my heart are those that remind me of an experience I had with one of my students.
This student was incarcerated between the ages of 14 and 17 years old, and I corresponded with him throughout his sentence.
The decision to continue our teacher-student relationship was not easy for me since that school year I was serving a dual administrator/teacher role and was due to a big promotion. My principal was not happy when I opted to testify in court when I was subpoenaed and was furious when she found out that I was corresponding with my student without letting her know.
This was my chance to decide to either treat this young man as ”someone else’s child” or as if he could have been my own. The teacher in me saw his redeeming qualities, his capacity for Buddhahood. This experience and my continued relationship with this young man for the last 12 years have deeply influenced my dedication to restorative justice and advocacy for youth.
A few days ago, he texted me after reading about my recent advocacy work: “Wow, Ms. Cabrero that’s amazing. You are making a big difference for kids who grew up like me. Wow.” After I answered, “Thank you. You influenced me,” he replied: “That’s great to hear, I’d never think I would influence others about my experience.”
My correspondence with this student began before I discovered Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist teachings. As I reflect on that experience, I feel extremely satisfied about the choices I made. Nevertheless, had I discovered Thay’s teachings earlier, the energy of mindfulness would have helped me better navigate, release, and heal the strong emotions I felt at the time. To read the whole story at my blog, click here.
Some of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings that have or might have affected my choice to continue to support this young man include:
· The perfection of giving or “dana” is like a plant that belongs to the onion family, “well known in Asia that grows back in less than twenty-four hours every time you cut it. And the more you cut it the bigger and stronger it grows.” Supporting this young man has had a positively expansive effect in my life.
· “A lotus for you, a Buddha to be”; “the nature of awakening” – I saw and wanted to cultivate this young man’s seeds of goodness and greatness.
· “When I saw those babies being born and growing up with no help, I knew that I had to do something so that they would not become pirates.” Abandoning this young man to his own fate while in prison would likely have contributed to his further criminalization.
· “The practice of peeling away all the labels so that the human being can be revealedis truly a practice for peace.” Children’s suffering often increases when they are labeled; labeling prevents interbeing for a more peaceful world.
· Metaphor of banana leaves that inter-are: “When I teach a friend to practice meditation I don’t call myself ‘teacher’ and my friend ‘student’. There is no transmitter and no receiver. We are one and the same. Together we help each other grow.” My student was my teacher, “my noble messenger”.
· “Even we cannot grow without sunshine.” We adults are supposed to be the sunshine for ALL children. The more light we shine for other people’s children, the more light will be engendered inside of us.
· “Understanding is the source of love.” Research about youth like my student helped me understand him. Most importantly, through mindfulness, one looks deeply in order to understand. The more I understood about his experiences the less I could judge him.
· “When we are in the grips of fear, we close down and can’t be compassionate or generous”; “If you are inhabited by the energy of compassion, you live in the safest of environments”. Because I did not fear this young man, I did not view him as ‘the other’.
· We often inherit fear of ‘the other’ from our ancestors: “…if you have suffering in you and you don’t know where it comes from, looking deeply you may see that this is the suffering of your ancestors, handed down from one generation to another, because no one knew how to recognize, embrace, and heal it. It’s not your fault, not is it their fault. Holding our suffering, looking deeply into it, and transforming it into compassion, we find a way to happiness.” Mindfulness can help us bring down those inherited fearful walls and move towards more love and interbeing.
· The energy of compassion: “Understanding and compassion are very powerful sources of energy. If you think that compassionate people do not resist and challenge injustice, you are wrong. When you act on the basis of nonduality, you have to be very strong. Compassion grows constantly inside of you, and you can succeed in your fight against injustice.” The energy of compassion helped me persevere in my non-dualistic karma. Caruna leads to Mahacaruna (Compassion leads to Great Compassion)
· The mindfulness of loving kindness or “metta”: “Just as a mother loves and protects her only child at the risk of her own life, cultivate boundless love to offer to all living beings in the entire cosmos. Let our boundless love pervade the whole universe, above, below, and across. Our love will know no obstacles. Our heart will be absolutely free from hatred and enmity. Whether standing or walking, sitting or lying, as long as we are awake, we should maintain this mindfulness of love in our heart. This is the noblest way of living.” I wish I had understood the mindfulness of love during the hardest periods.
· “No mud, no lotus”; “Suffering and happiness are not separate”; “We cannot create happiness in a place where there is no suffering, just as we cannot grow lotuses without mud. Happiness and peace are born from transforming suffering and pain. If there was no mud, how could a lotus grow? Lotuses cannot grow in marble.” My student’s suffering and mine were the mud that generated our happiness.
· Ethical behavior or “sila”, “right livelihood”: “Second Mindfulness Training True Happiness: I am committed to working in a way that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth”; “We will do our best to select a livelihood that helps us realize our ideal of understanding and compassion.” Choosing to do what is right vs. what will guarantee the next promotion.
· Actions or “karma”: “My actions are my only belongings”; “I inherit the results of my acts of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation. Karma is the ground on which we stand. We have only one foundation, and that is our karma. We have no other ground. We will receive the fruits of any act we have done, whether wholesome or unwholesome. All the thoughts you have thought, all the words you have spoken, all the actions you have done with your body - these are your karma that follows and continues you. Everything else you leave behind.” The energy invested in a more interconnected, compassionate, caring world – not in seeking promotions or financial gain - is what makes us immortal.
· The energy of mindfulness: “With mindfulness, you can recognize the presence of the suffering in you and in the world. And it’s with that same energy that you tenderly embrace the suffering. By being aware of your in-breath and out-breath you generate the energy of mindfulness, so you can continue to cradle the suffering. (…) With mindfulness we are no longer afraid of pain. We can even go further and make good use of suffering to generate the energy of understanding and compassion that heals us and we can help others to heal and be happy as well.” Mindfulness would have helped me a great deal during my experience.
· “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free”. By helping my student gain some degree of freedom, I found my own.
In Learning True Love, Sister Chan Khong writes about a young Catholic man named Pierre Marchand whose wealthy father became very upset when he found out that he was trying to raise money for the Buddhist effort to end the Vietnam War. Sister Khong writes: “Looking at him with tenderness, Thay Nhat Hanh gave him the medal that Pope Paul VI had given him in 1966. Born a Catholic, Pierre was so moved that he said ‘With this medal, I have enough strength to cope with any difficulties. From today on, I will not be afraid of anything or anyone, and I will devote my life to service.’” Pierre and Thay would form a close bond, and Pierre converted some of Thay’s poems into songs. This is an example of Thay’s energy of interbeing with a young man he could have otherwise regarded as someone else’s son.
The compassionate exchange between Thich Nhat Hanh and Pierre reminds me of the ubiquitous compassion of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion who, with her thousand compassionate hands, tends to the needs of anyone, no matter who, no matter where.
My questions for us to explore are:
1. Can you think of a time when, thanks to mindfulness, you felt more connected to someone who could fit the description of the other?
2. Can you think of a time when acting ethically was a difficult choice, but your ethical action brought you happiness in the end?
3. Can you think of prisons you or someone you know have lived inside of - because of fear or lack of understanding - and how you (or someone you know) have broken out of them?