being black: Zen… excerpt ~Rev angel Kyoto williams, sensei
Lewis BrightHeart Headrick
December 25, 2016
Koshin & Kyoto
BEINGS ARE NUMBERLESS, I MAKE A PROMISE TO SAVE THEM.
There are a lot of people and animals and insects living on this big floating ball together.
We may think of the planet as fixed in size, but we know that everything is relative. Even if the planet is not shrinking, the fact that there are more and more of us on it has the same effect as if it were growing smaller. You know that when you live with people, it is very important to get along. If not, no one ever rests well. it’s the same when you live in. a house with someone that you have conflict with or dislike. You may have separate rooms, but you never really relax because you’re busy thinking about how much you don’t like the person. Just carrying those negative feelings can wear you out. Maybe you’re even thinking some harsh thoughts about them, wishing they didn’t have the right to live there too. But they do and so you feel like you just have live with that. How awful! That’s what that word “tolerance” feels like to me. You just kind of put up with someone because they are there and you don’t have much of a choice.
Well, it’s true, we are all here. But it’s not true that we have to tolerate people because they are here. They are not just here. Nobody is a “just.” We are here sharing space. We are sharing resources, the air that we breathe. So rather than “just here,” we are co-existing, co-living, co-being here. And as the planet gets smaller, it becomes more and more clear the none of us are free-floating and inconsequential. That maybe the way we feel some times, but it really isn’t so.
One of the major dilemmas that so many of us face is a sense of separation from the rest of the world. We have either lost never really had a sense of intimacy, with one another. I don’t mean sexual intimacy, or even the intimacy that comes from actually getting to know people and becoming familiar with them. It is intimacy with the entire world that we are missing. This is what makes us feel distant and separate. When that happens, we stop noticing what is in our environment and everything becomes part of the background. In this way, we miss the details of our lives. We do, not see the brilliance of the setting sun or the glory of the full moon. We forget our childlike fascination with the colors of a butterfly. Everything seems just like everything else because we’ve stopped really looking.
Somehow we believe, even if subconsciously, that random meaningless people are everywhere, living, their random, meaningless lives. We do not have the energy to pay them any attention until they enter our lives. That is when they become noticeable to us. When they affect us they become important only because we think we are important. It perfect sense that when someone or something disturbs our decidedly important lives, we can become angry. We are angry because we have a set way of seeing life and have decided how it should function. When it does not meet our expectations, we feel that our plan, has been upset. It works like this in our subconscious minds: “I have certain perceptions about life, and how dare you not operate by them and present your own way instead? You ‘are not behaving according to my set of concepts. Because l cannot accept that there are different ways of being other than what I expect, I am now angry with you.” Our anger then makes us feel hostile. We see the person or thing that has upset us as separate from us. She, over there, rolled her eyes at Me, over here. We think of ourselves as completely separate beings so it is okay for us to be angry or hostile. We are not aware of how incredibly connected we all are.
What makes, us angry is that we cannot see the infinite number of ways there are for the world to present itself. We believe only in our own reality. We see our own individual selves as the center of the universe. Many, many times, the anger is not even directed at an “other.” It is really intended for ourselves. We become angry with ourselves when we do not know what to do with our fears. We impose the same set of expectations about the way things should be on ourselves. When we are not able to meet our own expectations, we can become especially angry. It is very, very difficult to face ourselves when we find we cannot meet our own expectations.
We respond to our disappointment in different ways, depending on our personal experience, how we are raised, and the models we have for handling things. Some of us are very obviously angry with ourselves. We complain and beat ourselves up. “There is just no excuse for not getting that promotion. There must be something wrong with me. I am a loser and I must not deserve to have it.” We may punish ourselves in the same way that we try to punish people that we feel angry with.
On the other hand, we may not show our anger with ourselves outwardly at all. We may be the type that holds the self-anger inside because we are so afraid of what it means to be very angry with ourselves. Instead, we move around in the world stuck in our anger. We carry it on our faces. It reveals itself in the stiffness of our bodies. We may speak through clenched teeth. Our behavior toward other people may be terrible because the anger is stuffed down inside us and we don’t want to see it, so instead it directs itself outwardly. But we can’t wish it away. When anger is there, it is there. To ignore itis futile because it will reveal itself in some way. If it must show itself in a forceful misdirected way in order to be seen, it will do that. That was apparent to me when I struck out at my partner. I was hurt and angry and unable to give those feelings the attention they needed, so instead, they presented themselves in an uncontrolled, misdirect way.
It is possible that we don’t realize that the anger is really meant for ourselves. This can create the most fiery, unpredictable, harmful anger there is. Because you are afraid to meet face-to-face with the anger inside you, you avoid it. You avoid dealing with your own inner self. You see the anger as separate from you in the same way that you see people as separate from you. Instead of “me, here” and “them, there,” you feel “me, here” and “that anger, there.” The anger is not you, but it is not separate from you. If you try to remain separate from the anger, you will only create separation from yourself. The most intense feeling of separation you can have is the feeling of separation from You.
The vow to save everyone acknowledges that you are not alone here. When you take this vow you agree to participate in the collective effort for a better life for everyone, for saving every one of the numberless beings. We save our children and lovers from our anger by being clear on where the anger comes from and not allowing it to control our actions. We do not let our anger define how we interact with other beings or even with ourselves. We do not allow the anger to create a false sense of separation. We start to practice being more aware. And it isn’t even very hard.
Beings are numberless. With practice, I promise to notice them and see that there is no separation between us. In this way, I contribute to saving them all.
