Gun Violence, Trauma, and Wholeness

Gun Violence, Trauma, and Wholeness

David Ketchum
January 29, 2023

Watch the video HERE


        While I was working at Peace Bridges in Cambodia, my friend and colleague Mony once explained how terrifying it was to live through the civil war. One description particularly stuck in my heart: it was cheaper to buy bullets than rice. 

        I spent a very busy weekend last week welcoming the Lunar New Year with my Buddhist community. It was a great joy. We chanted and meditated, packed emergency meal kits for a local shelter, drank tea, shared delicious meals, sang karaoke, gave and received new year dollars and oranges and red envelopes, bowed in gratitude, took group photos, cleaned up after ourselves (more than once!), and generally celebrated the joy of sharing life together. I felt at home and safe. And yet, in the back of my mind, I was aware of the grieving communities in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, California. Then, on Monday, two high school students were shot and killed at a charter school in Des Moines, Iowa in an apparent feud between rival gangs. Three days, three shootings, three settings: community dance center, workplace, and school. As Stephen Collinson observed on Tuesday, “Everyday life is a soft target. Anywhere can become the venue for the next preventable tragedy.” 

        Everywhere we go, whatever we do, there is a background sadness that, in our society, bullets may not be cheaper than rice, but life is cheaper than bullets.

       We are not even through the first month of 2023, and yet we have already had thousands of reminders of how violent, desperate, and afraid we feel, living in this society. As of the morning of January 26, 2023, the Gun Violence Archive had documented 3,030 gun violence deaths in the first weeks of of January (1,314 due to homicide, accidents, and defensive uses; 1,716 from suicide). We already have witnessed 40 deaths from mass shootings and 6 deaths from mass murders. 21 children (age 0-11) have already died, alongside 102 teens (age 12-17). Again, these statistics are from January 1 to January 26, 2023. 

We talk pretty frequently about gun violence because, unfortunately, we have to talk frequently about gun violence. When we experience violence on this scale, you can’t go far without encountering it. The reminders are nearly constant, as are the justifications. One of the criticisms I heard most often in response to my last reflection on gun violence, for example, was that I didn’t talk about all the lives that guns had saved. To be honest, that’s not a conversation I’m very interested in having. At the most, it seems to me that we are simply proving that we have managed to create a very dangerous, desperate society where we must be constantly hypervigilant, always aware that violence can break forth anywhere, at any time. It simply affirms what has been apparent to those who have lived as part of a marginalized community, or to those who have studied history, or to those who have the courage and empathy to step into solidarity with those who suffer: our society is sick.

        Gun violence is obviously a problem, but there is at least one glimmer of truth in the terribly callous and ubiquitous response that “guns don’t kill people; people do.” Gun violence is a symptom of our collective dis-ease; it both perpetuates and is sustained by social norms that have blossomed out of a history of shared trauma and violence. What is it about our society that so effectively waters the seeds of violence in us?

         In the case of the shooter at Monterey Park, a person who spoke daily with the man said that

“his whole life was going down, … . He had no job, he sold his property, very few friends, and I believe that he had no close friends, … . No family, no kids, no job, no money. He was hopeless and desperate.”

        And in Half Moon Bay, the San Mateo County Sheriff explained that “There was nothing that would have … raised us to have any concern with [the shooter] at this time, prior to this incident,” that this was just one of those times where someone “snaps.” But the man had at least some history of workplace violence; one situation even resulted in a restraining order that included a restriction from owning or buying a gun for a short period of time. That was about a decade ago.

        In the case of schools, the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments makes the connections clear: 

  “For students to learn, they need to feel safe.  It is essential that all students be able to attend schools that provide a safe environment where they can thrive and fully engage in their studies without the distraction and worry about physical safety concerns.
      • Physical safety is essential for a safe and supportive learning environment in which students and staff can thrive.
             o Physical safety is related to higher academic performance, fewer risky behaviors, and lower dropout rates.
      • Risky behaviors, such as acts of violence, imperil safety for students and staff, and undermine the teaching and learning climate.
             o Students who feel safe are more likely to stay in school and achieve academically.
     • Physical safety is important for students’ feelings of connection and belonging to school and their educational experience.
             o Students who are not fearful or worried about their safety feel more connected to their school and care more about their educational experience.”

       These things are well understood and supported by both research and pedagogical wisdom. But we also all know the reality. The 2022 State of School Safety Report (a project of Safe and Sound Schools) reported that “Only 68 percent of students reported feeling safe at school.” This means that about a third of our children do not feel safe at school. There are many more details to this experience, and the entire study is important and worth your time. However, for the moment I want to simply bring attention to the public safety concerns that are included in the research, including: active shooter/attack, intruder/unauthorized visitor, bomb threats, bullying/cyberbullying, aggression/discrimination (“toward a minority individual/group”), sexual assault/abuse, substance abuse, gang activity and recruitment, youth trafficking, food insecurity, neglect/abuse, and homelessness. These are all real problems, and the report is very correct in addressing them in this study. But lurking behind their reality is, again, the question of why these public safety concerns are so commonplace that we need to address them like this? 

Meanwhile, three more communities have joined the already thousands of US communities in processing the trauma of a mass shooting and the heartbreak of losing loved ones. Everywhere we look, we see the indications that our society is very ill. As a nation, we hold space, tending these open wounds, these seemingly unending cycles of violence. And we are back to that question: What is it about our society that so effectively waters the seeds of violence in us?

        There is not just one answer, but, over the years, we are gradually understanding ourselves and the conditions that make both violence and wholeness more likely. To take just one example, in 2003, Steven Wineman was asking some very similar questions, resulting in a wonderfully helpful book titled Power Under: Trauma and Nonviolent Social Change. Reflecting on how Sandra Bloom and Michael Reichert described the USA as “a traumaorganized society’ in which people are routinely exposed to ‘traumatogenic environments,” Wineman pointed out that social justice movements, especially “since the women’s movement began to unmask childhood sexual abuse,” have helped us have more awareness and understanding of how violence causes trauma and how unhealed trauma can create conditions where we are more likely to choose to act violently. Oppression, he wrote, 

“is generically traumatizing. Racism, patriarchy, homophobia, and economic brutality all routinely violate people’s integrity and repeatedly render people powerless in the face of overwhelming personal and institutional forces. The social experience of people of color, gay people, women, workers, poor people, children, and disabled people is saturated with abuse, humiliation, violence, and negation of personal worth.”

 

        Building on the insight that Aurora Levins Morales offered, that “abuse is the local eruption of systemic oppression, and oppression the accumulation of millions of small systematic abuses,” Wineman pointed out that no one can “emerge unscathed” – “ours is a sickening society — a society in which toxic social conditions create psychological and physical illness by routinely traumatizing people.” I’ve come to understand this as a kind of generic oppression, where we learn from an early age to accommodate injustice. We internalize the notion that injustice, and the trauma that goes with it, is inevitable if not natural. It is simply normal, the way things are. And so we consider it unsurprising, for example, that it is possible for our co-workers, friends, and family members to one day “snap” and murder others. That the notion of “snapping” in this way is a common concept should bewilder and shock us. It should not be an explanation; it should be understood as a symptom of our society’s illness, an indication of our need for healing and change. 

Having an environment – at home, school, work, and in the community – where we both feel and are safe is a major component of social and personal well-being. It feels like this should go without saying, but our constant exposure to violence and collective inability or unwillingness to do anything substantive about it makes it important to say these things aloud. Take, for example, last Monday’s school shooting in Iowa. Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek explained that :

"These are supposed to be our safe spaces, and this school in particular, it's one that the police department works very closely with, … . The school is designed to pick up the slack and help kids who need the help the most, the ones who aren't getting the services they need for a variety of different reasons. To have it happen here, it's going to be a horrible impact on the community."

        Part of that horrible impact is, to return to Wineman’s words, the way in “which toxic social conditions create psychological and physical illness by routinely traumatizing people.” This includes both acute stress (such as directly experiencing or witnessing a violent act) and chronic stress (such as living with the anxiety that violence is always a possibility). These stressors undermine our wellbeing and limit our ability to thrive. Combined with our broader sociopolitical contexts and histories, and we are also increasingly vulnerable to what Wineman described as "mass scapegoating" - 

"People's sense of victimization is commonly played out politically through the mobilization of fear, hatred, and scapegoating of targeted groups (or institutions or nations) who in various ways are identified as threats to their well-being and as sources of their victimization. The major actors on the right surely understand the vulnerability of traumatized people to populist appeals for mass scapegoating - though undoubtedly they would not describe their politics in these terms. The manipulation of traumatic victimization into political expressions of rage and hatred downward at stigmatized and relatively powerless targets - rather than upward at power elites and at structures of domination and oppression - is one of the lynch pins that sustains the status quo." 

I have friends and acquaintances, on both the right and the left, who passionately believe the solution to these problems is for more people to have more guns. They have told me, more than once, and often quite passionately, of how naïve I am to disagree with them. But I remain unconvinced, and not least because many of these same folks view the other as their enemy. Their guns are, at least in part, to protect themselves from each other. It appears much more likely to me that this faith in violence, and the guns that both embody and symbolize the power of this violence to impose their will on others, is naïve. At the very most, violence is a short-term solution that, if left unhealed, creates more long-term problems. Even the protection that guns promise come at the expense of the threat of violence, and often with violent acts. We cannot heal ourselves with guns, but we can traumatize ourselves with gun violence. 

So many of our solutions focus on ramping up threats, stockpiling weapons, training more and more people to be prepared to use violence, and generally reinforcing our habits to reach for violent solutions. I understand this. I understand that we have created a society where these things feel like the best options available. But I cannot see any way in which these are healthy long-term solutions. At the very least, I urge you to consider these as short-term measures to help us deal with the constant, crisis-filled emergencies we have come to accept as everyday life. At the very least, let’s increase our support for developing and funding trauma healing for wounds that already exist, and social programming for addressing the injustices that marginalize and traumatize people in the first place. 

This approach may be especially hopeful for all of us who belong to oppressed communities and felt torn between the hope for a healthy, healing, whole life and world, and the helplessness mixed with an often overwhelming rage that simmers in our traumatic grief. As Wineman noted, 

“When we view trauma from a political perspective, two truths emerge which stand in stark tension with each other: that trauma can psychologically debilitate people in ways that help to perpetuate domination and oppression; and that trauma can help to spark personal and political resistance to domination and oppression. I believe that it is critical to develop our understanding of both sides of this tension. It is in the push and pull between the ways that traumatized people are damaged and defeated by oppression and the ways that traumatized people stand up to oppression that our prospects for mobilizing effective social change movements rise or fall.” 

As another day begins in the USA, always potentially filled with violence, I choose again for my grief  “to spark personal and political resistance to domination and oppression.” I dream of a day when my friends no longer feel the need to carry a gun to a grocery store. I dream of a day when someone “snapping” and committing acts of violence is unheard of and bewildering. I dream of a day when we’ve learned to live together in such a way that no one has to depend on marginalizing, exploiting, or traumatizing another human being to try to meet their own needs. And I dream of a day when no one feels the need to harass me into buying a weapon, because we have made it possible to live together with compassion and wisdom, where everyone feels and is safe. 

Claiming Space, Disrupting Structures

Claiming Space, Disrupting Structures: Communities of Resistance & Social Determinants of Health 

David Ketchum
January 22, 2023

Watch the video HERE

        The tragedy was set in motion in August, 2020, but, like probably many of you, I didn’t learn the story until last week. That was when the family of Larry Eugene Price, Jr. filed a civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit after he died in solitary confinement in 2021 in an Arkansas jail. The 2020 arrest wasn’t the first time Larry had encountered the police. After all, he was a Black man with multiple mental health issues who was often homeless. 

As Newsweek reported, “Price’s hometown police knew him well,” “mostly for criminal mischief, squatting in buildings, disorderly conduct and for wellbeing checks when he, for example, would hurt himself.” But when Larry wandered into the Fort Smith police station on August 19, 2020, and pointed his finger like a gun, “threatening and cursing,” police “arrested him on a state felony – terroristic threatening in the first degree.” 

Bond was $1,000, but Larry did not have the $100 he needed for bail, and so he languished in a cage – for more than an year. Please note that no one was injured during the mental health crisis that provoked his arrest. Please especially note that Larry Price wasn’t convicted of any crime; he was awaiting trial. And while he waited, he drew closer and closer to death. When emergency services arrived and tried to help him, Larry, who normally weighed around 200 pounds, weighed only 90 pounds. And though the Sebastian County Sheriff insisted that staff provided food and water each day, Larry’s official cause of death was malnutrition and dehydration. The details are horrifying, so much so that, when the Fort Smith police spokesman learned the actual circumstances of Larry’s death, he replied, “Oh dear God, that's horrendous

State inspectors making compliance checks had already noted more than once that this jail was overpopulated and understaffed. The lawsuit connects these audits with an inability of the jail to adequately meet the needs of inmates, especially those with disabilities and mental illness. From the information available, this seems to be tragically true for Larry Price. The lawsuit focuses on Sebastian County Detention Center, where Price was imprisoned, and Oklahoma City’s Turn Key, the health care provider contracted with the jail. The suit notes that staff did not properly monitor and document Larry’s mental health, medications, or nutrition. He was also not allowed his daily hour outside of solitary confinement, because his behaviors were erratic. 

        Despite obvious signs of deteriorating mental health and dramatic weight loss, staff “did not even alert a higher-level medical or mental health provider.” And please remember that this was happening over the course of an entire year. Staff were required to check him every fifteen minutes, resulting in tens of thousands of basically meaningless log entries. According to the suit,

 "Between August 1 and August 29, 2021, … jail guards logged over 4,000 consecutive wellbeing checks of Mr. Price, and each time they made the exact same entry: 'Inmate and Cell OK.'...In the last 48 hours of Mr. Price's confinement alone, they made this entry more than 300 successive times. They continued to log these same words, at least four times an hour, even in the hours and minutes leading up to his death — when Mr. Price was visibly malnourished, dying of starvation and dehydration. … Shockingly, … they made at least ten additional entries, 'Inmate and Cell OK,' after Mr. Price was pronounced dead." (Newsweek)  

It settles in me as a gruesome mantra to the horrors of our status quo: 'Inmate and Cell OK.' 'Inmate and Cell OK.' 'Inmate and Cell OK.'

        Larry’s death was a preventable, terrible tragedy. As the attorney representing Price’s family put it, 

"I have never seen a case where a pretrial detainee, innocent in the eyes of the law, was held in solitary confinement for a year, without ever having his day in court, and was so neglected that he wasted away and died looking like a starving prisoner of war." (Newsweek)  

        This loss is also in stark contrast to the love and joy Larry shared with his family and friends. They are now left to grieve both how he was treated and the shocking failure of the system. Larry’s brother, who works in corrections, believed the jail could even be helpful: 

“Price was homeless and in need of mental health help. I thought the jail would at least provide a roof over my brother's head where he would be fed and watched over and where he might get some psychiatric help and treatment. And the family was kept in the dark about what was happening inside the jail. No one would provide answers when I called. And the jail would not allow anyone to visit."

Another friend lamented not being more active to help Larry, feeling like she could have done more. She tried to visit him many times, but was not allowed. She never learned that he could have been released by paying $100 bail. “They could have told me...I would have given up $100 to get him out of there so he didn't pass away like he did." (Newsweek)  

There are layers and layers to this tragedy, and Larry’s death is part of a larger story of how unsafe and unjust life is for countless human beings. He was criminalized and marginalized in so many ways: he was a Black man, developmentally delayed, mentally ill, and destitute. But instead of being met with compassion and given the resources and support he needed to enjoy a full life, he was criminalized and locked out of sight, left to die. 

The painful reality is that we have managed to create a society where these kinds of tragedies happen with shocking regularity. The settings change: prisons, hospitals, schools, workplaces, religious institutions, homes. The relationships between the inequities and oppressive systems shift emphasis: race, gender, class and poverty, disability, age, sexuality, and more. And each person’s story is unique. But these experiences also form a pattern. External factors, such as our living and working conditions, make it more difficult for many people to enjoy a full life. 

       Although we’ve been talking about aspects of the concept for hundreds of years, a useful framework for helping us understand this dynamic is called the Social Determinants of Health. The World Health Organization explains that social determinants “are the non-medical factors” that impact our health. These include issues such as income protection, access to education, food security, access to housing and basic amenities, “social inclusion and non-discrimination,” structural conflict and issues of justice, and access to affordable healthcare. 

“They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. These forces and systems include economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies and political systems. … In countries at all levels of income, health and illness follow a social gradient: the lower the socioeconomic position, the worse the health.” 

Importantly, research has demonstrated that social determinants are often even more influential than individual health and lifestyle choices on a person’s health. Studies put the impact of social determinants between 30% and 55%. The good news is that these social determinants are almost entirely within our collective sphere of influence. The bad news is that, though we’ve made progress, we still have a long way to go. The WHO explains that - 

“Such trends within and between countries are unfair, unjust and avoidable. Many of these health differences are caused by the decision-making processes, policies, social norms and structures which exist at all levels in society. / Inequities in health are socially determined, preventing poorer populations from moving up in society and making the most of their potential. / Pursuing health equity means striving for the highest possible standard of health for all people and giving special attention to the needs of those at greatest risk of poor health, based on social conditions.”

Social determinants give us one practical toolkit for both understanding the realities of social and health inequities and why it is essential for us to transform them. And its framework can help us link our actions in the community with larger policies and movement. But the scope of the social determinants can also be overwhelming; it is easy to feel powerless, both in the wake of devastating injustices we witness and experience, and in the face of monolithic systems that make these tragedies mundane. Even the most effective framework becomes useless if it cannot be translated into meaningful action. 

David Lewis, analyzing the concept of civil society, encouraged exploring concepts “along two dimensions: “on the one hand, the concept … may be ‘useful to think with’ in the sense of supporting analysis which can help to make sense of political and social realities, while on the other it may be ‘useful to act with’, by helping to inspire action on the ground.” The joining of these two things is key. If we only have understanding, we may just make ourselves more miserable. Understanding oppressive systems, for example, is vitally important, but only if we do not stop with understanding. That understanding must also empower us, to know how best to act. 

 

       Kristi Heather Kenyon and Regiane A. Garcia made this point again in 2016, that “social determinants can and should also be understood as processes of participation and engagement whereby individuals are able, through their own knowledge and actions, to improve health outcomes for themselves and others.” Their table of “Types of Health Activism” is a great example of translating theory into practice, and a good model for how we can reflect on how our own actions can become part of powerful movements. This is what empowerment looks like: “claiming space and, in doing so, disrupting existing structures and the power they reflect and reinforce.”

        And even at the most mundane levels of daily life, we can also be paying attention. Social determinants can help us become more aware of the gaps in our own lives and communities. They can also help us become more aware of the things that are going well, where we find support and our needs are met. These supportive factors then can nourish our gratitude, teach us how to build community and social capital, and become sources of learning and strength to empower our activism and social change. If you live with others and get along with them, that is a great happiness. If they encourage you in establishing a practice that brings well-being in yourself and others, that is a great happiness. If they practice with you, that is a great happiness. Living with mutual care and support is both what keeps us going now and makes a pathway for greater wellbeing, equity, and justice in the future. 

        Instead of becoming passive and powerless, we can learn to be more collectively aware and intentional about how we interact with, resist, challenge, and transform the social forces that otherwise dominate our lives and deaths. It may be premature to say that we can make avoidable tragedies impossible, but we can keep working together to make them increasingly improbable. It’s a change that will take all of us. It takes what Daniel Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hanh called “communities of resistance” in The Raft is Not the Shore. Thich Nhat Hanh remarked that:

“It is a resistance against all kinds of things that are like war. Because living in modern society, one feels that he cannot easily retain integrity, wholeness. One is robbed permanently of humanness, the capacity of being oneself. … And there are so many things like that in modern life that make you lose yourself. So perhaps, first of all, resistance means opposition to being invaded, occupied, assaulted, and destroyed by the system. … communities of resistance should be places where people can return to themselves more easily, where the conditions are such that they can heal themselves and recover their wholeness.” (129)

  We have inherited a long history of tragedies, and we are witnesses to, and too often complicit with, a society that manufactures new tragedies every day. If we are not to lose ourselves, we must be intentional about facing those tragedies. But that is not enough. We must also transform the witnessing into understanding. But that is also not enough. We must transform understanding into action, so that there will always be communities of resistance, places where we can return to ourselves, places where we “can heal [our]elves and recover [our] wholeness.” 

Thinking about CRT and MLK

“Thinly Veiled Attempts” – Thinking about CRT and MLK

David Ketchum
January 16, 2023

Watch the video HERE

        On January 10, newly inaugurated Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed seven executive orders. One of these banned teaching critical race theory in Arkansas schools, continuing a trend we’ve consistently seen over the last two years. EducationWeek has documented that:

“42 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Eighteen states have imposed these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues.”

Arkansas’ ban extols the virtues of education over indoctrination, insisting that educators “should teach students how to think—not what to think.” It then states that: 

“Critical Race Theory (CRT) is antithetical to the traditional American values of neutrality, equality, and fairness. It emphasizes skin color as a person’s primary characteristic, thereby resurrecting segregationist values, which America has fought so hard to reject; … .” 

        For anyone who has followed the ongoing and surreal journey, you might not need an explanation of why this pushback continues whenever we attempt a fuller reckoning with our racist past and present. But it probably is good to remember at least some of the reasons why CRT has been targeted in this way. As EducationWeek points out, CRT simply 

“refers to a decades-old academic theory that holds that racism is systemic, perpetrated by structural forces rather than individual acts of bias. But over the past two years, the phrase has been warped from its original meaning, used by opponents to refer to anything that makes race or gender salient in conversations about history, current events, or literature.” 

To put this another way, this is an overt attempt to discredit and erase a set of ideas and practices that helps us understand how racism works in the world. And it replaces CRT’s analysis of how racism operates within structures and cultures with an emphasis on individual bias. This very conveniently allows discussions about racism to focus on individuals, shielding the true engines driving White supremacy from view or change.

        This is why, last year, the ACLU rightly observed that “At their core, anti ‘CRT’ laws are thinly veiled attempts to silence discussions of race and gender amongst student and educators.” The language is often vague, creating confusion and putting teachers in stressful situations, uncertain about what they are and are not allowed to say and teach. For example, in 2021, a group of Tennessee parents appealed to the state’s anti-CRT law to remove books from the curricula that teach about the Civil Rights Movement. The books labeled as offensive included a children’s book about the March on Washington, two books about Ruby Bridges and school desegregation, and a picture book about the integration of southern California schools in the 1940s. The basis for the appeal is that: 

“the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students ‘feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish.’ / [One parent explained that] the Williamson County curriculum makes students feel bad about their race, meaning the law should invalidate it.”

The practical result is that teachers are pressured to self-censor, in order to avoid any controversy. And children are robbed of the opportunity to learn about how humans have hurt one another, how they have stood up for what is right, and how they have healed those wounds and created – or tried to create - communities where we learn to live with justice, equity, and compassion. 

This all feels particularly relevant on the annual observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The King Center at Stanford University identified “Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change,” “based on Dr. King’s nonviolent campaigns and teachings that emphasize love in action.” These bans directly undermine and attempt to disempower the approach that King championed and that was a vital part of the Civil Rights movement. We can observe this especially in the first two steps, “Information Gathering” and “Education”: 

• Information Gathering
“To understand and articulate an issue, problem or injustice facing a person, community, or institution you must do research. You must investigate and gather all vital information from all sides of the argument or issue so as to increase your understanding of the problem. You must become an expert on your opponent’s position

• Education
“It is essential to inform others, including your opposition, about your issue. This minimizes misunderstandings and gains you support and sympathy.”

To counter these troubling trends opposing free access to information and education requires more than outrage. Another of King’s six steps is Direct Action, “taken when the opponent is unwilling to enter into, or remain in, discussion/negotiation.” We intentionally try to bring “a ‘creative tension’ into the conflict, supplying moral pressure on your opponent to work with you in resolving the injustice.” The bans on CRT strike me as a collective unwillingness “to enter into, or remain in, discussion” on the continued issues of racial terrorism in the United States. And they represent another instance in a long history of deflection, of those in power seeking to silence the voices and the histories of Black liberation in the face of White supremacist violence. 

In whatever way you honor Martin Luther King, Jr., I hope you can add a few commitments that last longer than this one day. Especially for White folks, please study, listen, and learn. Read history books, listen to podcasts, study Critical Race Theory. Do the work to gather information and educate yourself, so you can more intentionally and strategically support and participate in anti-racist efforts. And link this to your conversations and community actions. Locally, we continue to be engaged in actions to support our educators dealing with these issues. But alongside these efforts, since history and critical thinking are being banned from our schools, wouldn’t it be great to see more and more of these classes being offered in churches, libraries, after-school clubs, bookstores, and cafes? And wouldn’t it be great if you helped make that happen? 

And while doing so, let’s keep in mind the wisdom that a very young Martin Luther King also shared, that: 

“To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction. / The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals. … We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”

This is exactly the kind of education we need for this time, joining compassion together with wisdom, and refusing to be distracted or discouraged by the “morass of propaganda” that would keep us from living more fully into the Beloved Community that MLK so passionately described and so determinedly pursued. 

Making Friends that Make us Better (Discourse on Happiness 2)

Making Friends that Make us Better
(Discourse on Happiness 2)           

David Ketchum
January 15, 2023

Watch the video HERE

In one of the most often chanted Buddhist teachings, there’s a stanza that simply says:

“Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful.” (“Setting the Wheel of the Dhamma in Motion”)

I find it a helpful reminder, and I use the formula as a way of bringing my awareness into focus. But it rubs some people the wrong way, and I can understand that. After all, a very common solution that our society offers to addressing stress and suffering is simply to distract yourself long enough, until the problem (hopefully!) goes away. If that doesn’t work, then we often default to using coercion. Neither of these strategies are generally healthy or happy over the long term, but we become accustomed to them. It may eventually feel normal for our needs to go unmet, our emotions to become suppressed and repressed, and our suffering to simmer underneath the surface. When we don’t have adequate tools to manage our stress, let alone transform it, it’s natural to turn away from things that remind us of that suffering.

        This even became a running joke for one international organization I worked with in Cambodia. The staff was a mix of local Khmer folks and Americans on fixed length contracts. Whenever an American didn’t quite fit and there was conflict, the first question the organizational leaders asked was: how much longer is their contract? If the person was leaving in a few months, it was considered easier to just let things slide and ignore the problem. Only if the troublesome person was going to be around for quite a bit longer did leaders seriously consider addressing the situation. It made for a lot of funny jokes but also supported some unhealthy organizational habits. Maybe the most prominent of these was to create a sense of powerlessness when it came to conflict. Ultimately, we were encouraged to put everything aside and endure unhealthy relationships, because that was easier than giving our time and energy to learning to skillfully navigate those inevitable ups and downs. 

This is impractical because relational stress and suffering is part of the human experience. And it includes the Buddha’s simple observation: “association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful”. We end up spending a fair bit of our lives around people that we’d rather avoid, wishing we were spending time with other people that we find easier to like and love. It’s not exactly a recipe for happiness, and it can nourish resentment and isolation. Oppressive systems and cultures intensify this, too, and the resulting suffering perpetuates both the harm and the systems that benefit from it. There’s a lot in this dynamic that deserves our attention, including the ways we form healthy relationships, or get stuck in unhealthy patterns. 

One of these patterns is our tendency to attach so strongly to a group identity that we become unaware of how our relationships shape and influence us. Especially in our collective isolation and loneliness, we can be so desperate for other people’s company, that we lose the practice of community and discernment in community. Going along with the group, whatever they believe or do, becomes an expression of our belonging. Protecting our group identity gives us some feeling of safety, and we can’t risk losing that. But we’ve discovered that this is a recipe, not for wisdom, but for getting lost in our confirmation biases and even falling prey to conspiracy theories. Without reflective tools and critical thinking, anyone who agrees with us appears wise, and anyone who disagrees appears foolish. And we often don’t think about it any more deeply than that. When a group identity is being preserved, thinking about it can actually feel like a threat.

        It’s harder to take the time to really discern how our actions impact one another. It’s not automatic to practice with the insight that our relationships train our minds. Whom we spend time with is also a question of how we spend our time. What activities do we do together? What do we talk about? Where do we go? The people in our lives both reflect and influence what we think is important, how we treat one another, how we understand life and the world, for good or for ill. Being intentional about community helps us create habits that help and heal, instead of harm. The Buddhist Discourse on Happiness reminds us that, though this takes time, energy, and effort, it is worth it, because the way relate with each other is a spiritual and reflective practice: 

 “Not to associate with fools,
But to associate with the wise,
And to honour those worthy of honour:
This is the greatest good fortune.” (tr. by Bhikkhu Brahmali) 

In the Buddha’s teachings, the difference between a wise person and a fool is their behavior. As the Buddha said (in the Lakkhana Sutta), “a fool is characterized by [their] actions. A wise person is characterized by [their] actions. It is through the activities of one's life that one's discernment shines.” A fool is someone who causes harm by what they do, say, or think. A wise person is someone who knows how to restrain themselves from doing hurtful things, and instead is skillful in saying, doing, and thinking things that relieve suffering. They act with understanding and compassion.

        A basic framework for discerning this foolishness and wisdom in the Buddhist tradition is found in the Five Precepts. These precepts are a basic moral code popularly expressed as: don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t commit sexual misconduct, don’t lie, and don’t consume intoxicants that cloud the mind. But as a living tradition, the precepts are a reflective practice. An example of this comes from the Plum Village tradition. As a community under the leadership of the Most Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, and beginning during the war in Vietnam, they reimagined each precept as a reflective practice. They explain that: 

  “The Five Mindfulness Trainings have their root in the Five Precepts offered by the Buddha. They have been expanded and updated so that they represent a way to bring mindfulness into every area of life. Rather than hard and fast rules, they offer us a framework to reflect on our actions, speech and thinking so we can create more happiness for ourself and for the world around us.”

We can look at the second precept to see this. It’s often presented as a prohibition against stealing, and it is that. But the literal wording already reveals a rich reflection on how we relate to what we think about as – or want to be - our possessions: “I undertake the precept to abstain from taking what is not given.” The Second Mindfulness Training brings a more direct awareness of how those relationships operate today: 

 “Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. I will practice looking deeply to see that the happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible without understanding and compassion; and that running after wealth, fame, power and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering and despair. I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy. I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and stop contributing to climate change.”

This is a concrete example of what the Buddha was speaking about when he said that “It is through the activities of one's life that one's discernment shines.” In the Bala-pandita Sutta, (“The Fool and the Wise Person,” using the same words as in the Discourse on Happiness), the Buddha notes that both foolish and wise people deal with the same conditions of life, “obstructed by ignorance and conjoined with craving”. We are “sensitive to pleasure and pain.” The difference is in how we respond to these conditions: “The fool has not practiced the holy life for the right ending of stress. … The wise person has practiced the holy life for the right ending of stress.” (tr. by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) It is in our actions that we can discern foolishness and wisdom.

Looked at in this way, we recognize our foolishness in whatever leaves us caught in a cycle of unhappy and harmful behavior and our wisdom in that which brings increasing wellbeing and freedom. This practice isn’t a get-better-fast kind of cure. It doesn’t magically make oppressive systems disappear. But it can help us understand those systems and both our suffering from and our complicity with them. And it reminds us that the wise person is always paying attention to how our decisions impact ourselves and others. Bringing what is out of awareness, into awareness, we can ask: what happens when I do it this way? Does this lead to more suffering in my self, others, and the world? Does this lead to more well-being, inclining toward Awakening? This is how we care for our practice and one another, cultivating wisdom and compassion. And the more of us who practice like this, the more space we make for happiness can actually be possible. 

This is a long-term practice. Wisdom cannot be rushed because it grows over time. We build trust in our practice and with one another, and this takes time. In the Thana Sutta, the Buddha taught that:

 "It's through living together that a person's virtue may be known, and then only after a long period, not a short period; by one who is attentive, not by one who is inattentive; by one who is discerning, not by one who is not discerning. / It's through dealing with a person that his purity may be known, and then only after a long period, … . It's through adversity that a person's endurance may be known, and then only after a long period, … . It's through discussion that a person's discernment may be known, and then only after a long period, not a short period; by one who is attentive, not by one who is inattentive; by one who is discerning, not by one who is not discerning.” (tr. by Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Our willingness and commitment to practice like this for “a long period, not a short period” is part of the practice itself. My Teacher will often say, “I’m watching for the practice.” This is part of developing trust and deepening friendship. When we take the long view of our practices, we give ourselves a real opportunity to learn. What are our strengths? Where do we have room to grow? Do we see patterns that show some growth in wisdom? Where do we see weak points, where a habit could grow into harm? How do we handle those tough times, and where did we find support and help? When have we felt like quitting, or even quit? If you could eavesdrop on your conversations, what would it tell you about your discernment? By paying attention like this, over a long time, we develop our skills of discernment. We come to better know what is foolish and what is wise, because we have taken time to better know what has harmed and what has helped. 

Where it is possible, then, we want to spend as much time with others who encourage these kinds of skills that create conditions for wisdom. Over time, we naturally change our habits and pastimes to align with what we’ve learned. The more we pay attention, the more we notice these changes. This isn’t to say that some habits and situations resist change. There may be many reasons, and not all of them are in our control or easily influenced. For today, we can acknowledge these limitations. But it’s also important to remember that they make it even more important to prioritize our relationships with those who are wise. As much as possible, we want to make choices that give us that opportunity. 

And this brings us to that final part of the stanza, an awareness and appreciation of the connection between “honoring those worth honoring” and happiness. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu teaches us: “Respect is the attitude you develop toward the things that matter in life.” Practically speaking, this connects with how we learn, which supports the cultivation of wisdom:

“If you truly love yourself, you have to pay close attention to the way reality really works, and act accordingly. Not everything you think or feel is worthy of respect. … you can't simply indulge in the pleasure or resist the pain coming from your own actions. You have to learn from both pleasure and pain, to show them respect as events in a causal chain, to see what they have to teach you.” 

Practicing in this way, honoring others who have cultivated this kind of wisdom and compassion comes easily. The better we understand the effort and energy required to stay on the path, the easier it is to recognize and honor it in others. This isn’t the unhealthy, naïve trust that comes from delusion, but the healthy, heedful trust of recognizing someone who compassionately understands. When we stop ourselves from doing something harmful, the primary motivation is not fear or shame of being caught, but the compassionate understanding of how to cultivate happiness and wellbeing. 

Dishonor and disrespect close us off from learning what we need to learn. Sticking with a wise person who can help us understand and transform the greed, hatred, and delusion within us takes our own virtue, purity, endurance, and discernment. It’s a virtuous cycle, and gratitude arises with the discernment. Honor and respect arise naturally out of our own wellbeing and happiness: 

 “Not to be associated with the foolish ones,
to live in the company of wise people,
honoring those who are worth honoring —
this is the greatest happiness.”  (tr. by Thich Nhat Hanh)

Discourse on Happiness 1: The Real Questions

Discourse on Happiness 1: The Real Questions

David Ketchum
January 8, 2023

Watch the video HERE

        Looking back through 2022's headlines is not easy: the continued challenges of COVID-19, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, monkeypox outbreaks, so many mass shootings, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the January 6th Committee hearings, and continuous natural disasters filled our headlines, just to name a few. We typically spend our weeks and months bringing these challenges into our awareness, because we want to act and live intentionally. We commit to continually working together to know how to respond with both wisdom and compassion to the urgent needs we face, and to take care not to harm one another or the earth. The new year is a natural time to recommit to this, to name our resolutions and aspirations. In the sermon Roger shared last week, we remembered:

“If we want a healthy society that doesn't abuse the poor, always fall back into warfare, while killing the planet, and taking away basic human rights from minorities, then we have to choose to be responsible, informed, thinking, moral people. The whole business of New Year's resolutions can be like spitting into the wind if you don't take into your very soul the factual realization that you can change who you are through your own conscious choice.”

         So we continue to face head-on the suffering in the world, because honestly engaging with that suffering is essential to change. But this emphasis alone can also be disheartening and exhausting. Our aspirations need to be grounded in our personal and collective wellbeing. If we are going to have the energy to carry us through, to keep working together to help birth a beautiful, caring, and just world, then we must be equally committed to cultivating our wellbeing in the present moment. At the very least, we need glimpses of a world where justice and joy are what is normal, otherwise it is easy to burn out and give up. So we try to also hold these aspirations in mind.

        In my own reflections, I’ve been returning to a Buddhist text called the Discourse on Happiness. It's been described as "a gentle reminder of the common human values and endeavours that are often forgotten in daily life, and reminds readers of the happiness derived from simple things." That seemed like just the thing that would be good for me to think about, so I'm spending my sermons in January and February reflecting on topics inspired by this discourse. I hope it can help us explore ways we can encourage each other to cultivate happiness and wellbeing right now, even as we continue to engage with and transform the injustice and cruelty of the world.

        The discourse begins in a garden, when a deva sought out the Buddha and made a request:

“This is what I have heard. At one time the Blessed One was staying at Sāvatthī in the Jeta Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Monastery. On that occasion, as the night was coming to an end, a certain god of great beauty approached the Blessed One while illuminating the whole Jeta Grove. After bowing to the Blessed One, they stood to one side and spoke a verse:
     ‘Many gods and humans,
     Desiring well-being,
     Are seekers of good fortune:
     Please tell me the greatest good fortune.’”
          (tr. by Bhikkhu Brahmali)

     In Buddhist cosmology, the devas include several varieties of celestial beings that live in what we might generally describe as blissful states or heavens. Oversimplifying a little bit, we could say that the devas have it all. And yet, a deva was still seeking advice from the Buddha. The fact that they were still seeking good fortune and happiness is telling. Not even living in a celestial realm, characterized by pleasant experiences, had brought about a complete end to suffering.

        Similarly, many of us hold on to the idea that getting everything that we want, having everything go just so, would mean an end to suffering. There is some important truth in this, especially when it comes to looking at poverty and injustice. We need our needs to be met, and meeting our needs is generally pleasant. Chronically unmet needs undermine our happiness and wellbeing. Oppressive systems (that systematically exploit and marginalize people) undermine our happiness and wellbeing. The unhealed trauma these systems so efficiently produce undermines our happiness and wellbeing. The happiness we are trying to cultivate does not turn away from this suffering or accommodate injustice. The happiness that springs from wisdom and compassion heals those wounds and makes true community possible.

        But the deva reminds us of something simple and important. The devas, who had it all, were still seeking some certainty when it came to good fortune. How much more, then, for us humans? Life, even the very best and most pleasant life, includes pain and disappointment. For us, even the most pain-free of lives will include sickness, old age, and death. We’ll experience separation from those we love, and we’ll have to spend time with people we dislike and would prefer to avoid. Rather than getting lost in either the pleasant or unpleasant, the pull or push of desire, the Buddha taught another way, transforming our relationship with what we experience. Looking at the deva, we are reminded that even having everything pleasant all the time does not mean we no longer have any suffering. Pleasant things inevitably come to an end, and we can get swept away in our fear of those endings and our determination to hold on to impermanent things. If we do not come to terms with this reality, we are much more likely to get caught up in greed, hatred, and delusion, than we are to know happiness and peace.

        But how we come to terms with this reality is also important. The name of this discourse is the Maha Mangala Sutta, often translated as the greatest or highest (maha) fortune or happiness (mangala). As Dr. R.L. Soni has pointed out, a mangala in popular usage often referred to a lucky charm, an omen, or a protective blessing. In the face of all the uncertainties of life, the mind can crave some assurance that things are going to turn out the way we want them to turn out, giving rise to what Soni called a superstitious and selfish “pattern of mind which interprets objective and subjective happenings in life as forebodings of personal weal and woe.” He wrote that, “In Indian society in the Buddha's time (as in our own), people were addicted to superstitions about omens of good and bad luck,” but were “divided on their nature and implications”. We can understand why, even if we also understand why that impulse may not meet our long-term needs. Our happiness and wellbeing is not something we want to be wrong about. We seek omens in an attempt to find some certainty in the face of uncertainty. 

        So humans and devas sought that certainty in the form of a blessing from the Buddha. In popular usage, you might think of it like asking for a lucky charm. A mangala offered protection, something to rely on, especially when the world felt unreliable. Today, it is common to think about a blessing like this as merely superstitious and, for many, to dismiss it with a laugh. But it is important to not so quickly deride the impulse before reflecting on how it remains alive in us today. What we might call superstitious was, in the past, often considered the best knowledge that was available. Framing it in this way invites us to reflect on our own longing for certainty. What is it that we have come to rely on and consider protective, the sure path to happiness and good fortune? 

All of us have our unique experiences of this, but our broader cultural context has some common features. To take one example, most of us are trained our whole lives to believe that we can consume our way to happiness. Psychological research has demonstrated that this kind of materialism is bad news for most people. If you have less money than you want, conflicting desires commonly leads to unhappiness. And even the very wealthy are not typically happier than nonmaterialists; their wealth just allows them to stockpile pleasant experiences and catch up with the happiness of the nonmaterialists. As a society, we carry that dissatisfaction with us, even as we carry the constant craving for more. Tori DeAngelis observed,

“As with all things psychological, the relationship between mental state and materialism is complex: Indeed, researchers are still trying to ascertain whether materialism stokes unhappiness, unhappiness fuels materialism, or both. ... In simple terms, a strong consumerist bent--what William Wordsworth in 1807 called ‘getting and spending’--can promote unhappiness because it takes time away from the things that can nurture happiness, including relationships with family and friends, … .” 

Yet it is still easy to fall into that trap. And while it may not be the sort of thing we are used to calling superstitious, our consumer obsessions operate in much the same way. An unjustified confidence in consumption as a pathway to happiness keeps us from connecting with the real causes of happiness, while unwittingly fueling social disparities and ecological devastation.

        In contrast, the Buddha emphasized that it is our spiritual and reflective practices, and the resulting habits, that actually protect us and make happiness and wellbeing possible. This was the Buddha’s response to a question that was often answered with amulets and good luck charms. Dr. Soni wrote that the Buddha

“was opposed to anything that fettered the healthy growth of the human mind he raised his voice against such superstitions. He denounced ‘luck’ or ‘fortune’ or ‘auspiciousness’ and proclaimed instead human behavior, associations and activities as the real origins of ‘fortune’ or ‘misfortune.’ Thus the emphasis was shifted … to individual responsibility, rational thinking, social obligations and self-confidence. This had far-reaching effects in improving both human relationships and the efficiency of the human mind.”

        This emphasis on practice can be empowering. It can free us from passivity, waiting for someone or thing to make everything okay, and invite us to consider what we can do in this very moment to make wellbeing and happiness possible. As Ajahn Chah taught,

"It’s like this: you study with a spiritual teacher and he tells you to give up greed and anger. He tells you they are harmful and that you need to get rid of them. Then you may practise and do that. But getting rid of greed and anger didn’t come about just because he taught you; you had to actually practise and do that. Through practice you came to realize something for yourself. You see greed in your mind and give it up. You see anger in your mind and give it up. The teacher doesn’t get rid of them for you. He tells you about getting rid of them, but it doesn’t happen just because he tells you. You do the practice and come to realization. You understand these things for yourself." (Everything is Teaching Us)

This is what the Discourse on Happiness is all about. In each stanza, the Buddha shares a practice or commitment that helps us minimize suffering and harm, and that makes wellbeing, joy, and peace more possible. The practices themselves make a space for happiness to become something real. They offer a measure of protection, too, both for ourselves and others. These protective factors arise because we are actively finding ways to live together thats is founded in generosity, kindness, and wisdom, instead of fueled by greed, hatred, and delusion. When we practice this kind of happiness, we are less likely to harm others. We are also less likely to be set off balance by the vicissitudes of life, chasing after pleasure, praise, fame, and gain, while running away from pain, blame, disgrace, and loss. We don’t have to chase anymore, because our happiness is already something real. We don’t have to run away anymore, because we know how to handle our suffering.

        This is something we can do right now, without having to wait for the world to get everything right. We do not have to postpone our happiness. Instead, we can learn to practice in whatever ways are possible in the present moment. We don’t try to skip ahead. We don’t try to pretend there is no pain, no injustice, no grief. But we also do not get lost. We practice here, in whatever conditions we are in, and make a space for wellbeing to arise. Gradually, we find the compassion and wisdom suffusing our life, creating opportunities for Awakening.

        This is where all this happiness ultimately leads us. The poem ends with a vision of what human life can hold:

“A mind that remains unshaken
By the ups and the downs of the world,
Sorrowless, stainless and safe:
This is the greatest good fortune.
“Having performed these things,
Nowhere can they be conquered—
They are secure wherever they go.
This is their greatest good fortune.”
     (tr. by Bhikkhu Brahmali) 

We’ll spend the next weeks reflecting on how we can help make wellbeing and happiness possible inside and around us, always with this focus on what we can do. As I mentioned earlier, our aspirations need to be grounded in our personal and collective wellbeing. If we are going to have the energy to carry us through, to keep working together to help birth a beautiful, caring, and just world, then we must be equally committed to cultivating our wellbeing in the present moment. At the very least, we need glimpses of a world where justice and joy are what is normal, otherwise it is easy to burn out and give up. So instead of escaping the ups and downs of the world, we learn to navigate them. It's work, but it can be joyful work. As Ajahn Chah put it, "The real questions for those who want to know the truth, are questions about how to practise." (Everything is Teaching Us)