Tag: How Can I Help?

How Not To Be Good

How Not To Be Good

I got the greatest compliment ever at The Gathering Place Friday. Our lovely Sister was leading discussion, using idioms as a jumping off point for participant opinions and experiences. I was sitting next to L, the older (but not that much older) Native guy who has become one of my favorite parts of The Gathering Place. He’s full of wisdom and teasing and bullshit and generosity, and is clearly a model of stability and decency for many of the folks who hang there.

The idiom was “don’t judge a book by its cover.” A few folks offered their agreement (I objected only on the literal topic of books, since I’ve found several favorites that way.) L raised his hand. “Yeah, I totally believe that. Because this one next to me, when she came in, I looked at her and thought she was what we call a do-gooder. But I got to know her these months, and she’s a real person. She thinks about things and listens to people.” I tried not to tear up and briefly touched my head to his shoulder in gratitude. “Hey, now she’s head-butting me!”

I know why this was such a big deal to me, but in case you haven’t struggled with this dichotomy, I’ll try to lay it out for you. In Buddhist dharma (and, certainly, elsewhere), donating your time, money, talents, skills should never be an act of charity. If you’re not doing it for your own benefit, you probably shouldn’t be doing it at all. Give til it hurts doesn’t fit in this philosophy. You may give everything you have, but if it hurts, you’re doing it wrong.

You may peg this uncharitable charity as (White) saviorism, or noblesse oblige, or do-gooderism. One of the best descriptions does not come from Buddhism (though it has been promoted in contemporary Buddhist circles: https://ny.shambhala.org/2018/05/20/rev-angel-kyodo-williams-why-your-liberation-is-bound-up-with-mine-podcast-194/) but from the Aboriginal Rights movement in Queensland, Australia.

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

delivered by Lilla Watson at the UN Decade for Women Conference, 1985

You can see parallels to Dr. King’s “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” I deeply believe that as well, but I feel the first quote speaks more intimately to our personal, rather than political or economic, connection. It’s not only that we are dependent on each other, it’s that we are each other, or rather that there is no other. It’s the Buddhist-inspired closing of a recent novel that made me weep: The core delusion is that I am here and you are there.

No person can save another, and none of us is deficient or in need of fixing. (That illumination came largely from the disability justice movement.) Providing for the needs of others should be like your left hand scratching your right: you aren’t debating whether your left hand should waste its energy, or thinking of how benevolent you’re being towards your right hand, or expecting thanks or praise from it. You’re just doing what needs to be done, doing what comes naturally.

I mean, that’s the goal.

I’m not even within shouting distance of that yet. Despite the words of my buddy.

The Gathering Place presents me with a particular dilemma, because it’s the only volunteering I’ve done in which there is no particular task that needs to be accomplished, no thing I’m supposed to do. I may help clean up, or restock supplies, or try to answer questions, or dish out or hand out lunches, but my “job” is to talk to people. It took me a while to accept that interaction as my primary task, but once I got comfy with it, I was faced with another quandary.

I love going to The Gathering Place. I mean, I love going to The Gathering Place, even though that love is not unaccompanied by less salutary feelings. Most days, it feels like Cheers. People greet me as I walk in each week, and seem genuinely happy to see me. Some hug, some elbow bump, some wave from across the room. Someone might engage me in intense conversation for an hour, or I might shoot the shit with 4 or 5 people on the patio during lunch. The problem is, it doesn’t feel like volunteering; it feels like I am the one being cared for.

I’ve had similar dilemmas at other volunteer gigs. I love the time I spend doing food prep for the meal delivery nonprofit – the kitchen is bright and sunny, everyone’s almost always in a good mood – but I see the results of my work. I’ve cut this many veggies, sealed this many meals, labeled this many cookies. There was no doubt I was accomplishing something. I could check that off the list. When I edit loans for Kiva, it’s almost nothing but checking off the list – I’m asked to edit 40 loans a month, and I do.

Completing the assignment clearly does not fit in with the philosophy I supposedly ascribe to, but as a citizen of capitalism it is the language I understand. It’s hard to shift to a different idiom. I struggle both with the purity of my intentions and the worthiness of my feelings of belonging and joy. If I were ascribing to the strictest Buddhist teachings on volunteerism and the like, I would not engage in any of these activities at all, not until I had reached some stage of enlightenment – the idea that the best thing you can do for the world is to work on yourself. I can hang with that to a point. I do believe that there are massive amounts of harm done when people engage with social or political causes out of anger or self-righteousness or ego. (Look at the racism of various Feminist movements, the violence of some people who stand in opposition to violence, the infantalization of group after group of exploited people that we seek to “help.”) But let’s be realistic: there are, what, 7 or 8 enlightened people in the world? And so much work that needs to be done.

For me, it’s a matter of continually checking in on my motivation, and trying to adjust when it veers into icky territory. The work that I value and enjoy the most is also the most emotionally risky. When I first started at The Gathering Place there was an encampment across the alley, and a lot more fights and antagonism and overdoses. Even now, it scares me to some degree to engage with people I don’t know, because of the ego hit if they don’t respond or respond with disdain; and I feel helpless and useless in the face of others’ pain and delusions. When I participate in Restorative Justice conferences (elsewhere), I always have to prep by telling myself I can only do the best I can, I’m not going to ruin anyone’s life, etc. But I still have that fear that I won’t really contribute to their personal or community healing, that I’ll sound preachy or out of touch. I’ve learned to simply accept my apprehensions and dive in.

A recent Restorative Justice participant shined a light on the purpose beautifully. He said that in all the months since he’d been arrested and interacted with his lawyer and made trips to court and paid fines, this was the only Human element of the process. He felt seen and heard for the first time. I think that’s the point of The Gathering Place, too. It doesn’t seem like much, but for some people – poor people, incarcerated & post-incarcerated people, addicted people – their humanity is undermined daily. Somewhat ironically, loosening my grip on the ego that sets me apart from these folks is the path to helping them get a better hold of their own individuality and humanity. Not so ironically, when they can see their own value, they may be more likely to value the humanity in others.

books: I am a fan both of How Can I Help? by Ram Dass & Paul Gorman, and, for different reasons, How to Be Good by Nick Hornby.

The Perfect Definition (Perfection, pt 4)

Let us first acknowledge that any idea of perfection was made by humans: specifically, almost always men, and usually White, European man. I’ll start with one of the most influential men: Jesus. (Depending on what culture and century you live in, he may or may not be White.) The religion founded in his name has had an immeasurable influence on European-American culture, though I’d argue that his actual message (even the distorted, subjective transcriptions of his message) is far more universal, far less anthropocentric, and far less judgmental than what Christian, European culture has chosen to latch onto. Still, there is definitely some judgey stuff in the New Testament. This one was occasionally thrown at me when I was a kid, from Matthew 5:48. This translation from the King James Version of the Bible:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Since I took up with Buddhism, I find echoes of that same nonbinary and compassionate worldview hidden in secret pockets all over Jesus’ rags. So what did he mean by perfect in that quote? It’s difficult and perhaps pointless to parse language in the Bible – the flaws inherent in multiple translations (in this case from Aramaic through however many versions before the English), the inaccurate memory of the people recording his words, their own bias that led them to that memory, etc. But I still think it’s valuable to interrogate the choices in the translation. From my beloved Shorter Oxford Dictionary, at the time the Bible was translated into English (1611), perfect had many different meanings, including

  • Completed; fully formed; adult
  • Having all the essential elements, qualities, or characteristics
  • Not deficient in any particular
  • Being an ideal example of
  • Of or marked by supreme moral excellence
  • (Rare, but thanks to our buddy Shakespeare): in a state of complete satisfaction; contented

All sorts of stuff going on there, but only one aligns with what I, and many of you, have hanging over us: the goal of being exceptional, without flaws, and lacking in nothing. Perhaps older definitions shunned that, because only GOD could be perfect. In our contemporary, more secular language, we have these Google-ready definitions:

  1. being entirely without fault or defect : flawless a perfect diamond
  2. corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept a perfect gentleman

Who decides when to apply those adjectives, and how? If we take a moment, we can surely all recognize that an ideal standard or abstract concept is a construct, that there is no universal, objective ideal. But the idea of without fault or defect is just as fraught, inviting all kinds of ableism. Who decides what a defect or fault is? If it’s a variation from the norm, would that also include instances of what we might consider excellence? What if someone is exceptionally fast, intelligent, or beautiful? Is that a defect? If perfect is ideal, what is ideal? Standard? Doesn’t that seem like a low bar? I’m starting to think there are at least two clear problems with the idea of perfection: the burden of the unattainable goal, and the limitations of the standard of ideal. Both too much and not enough.

The World English Bible translates Matthew 4:28 passage as:

Therefore you shall be perfect, just
as your Father in heaven is perfect.

I know I’m a word nerd, but this reads very differently to me. First of all, the structure seems to imply a precursor, something that led to the therefore, whereas “Be ye therefore perfect” stands more easily on its own. The prelude is the Sermon on the Mount, which is filled with mostly groovy stuff, the grooviest of which comes right before this statement. Matthew 5:38-5:47 is all about loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, giving to those who ask and those who don’t. I particularly like his critique of “love your neighbor,” which basically says: any asshole can love their neighbor; that’s amoral. Loving your enemies takes work, and is generative. Stop picking sides: God shines on everyone and rains on everyone. This is how you get to perfect – loving everyone and treating everyone without prejudice. Shall (all you lawyers out there know this) means will. It’s a commitment from Jesus, not a command. It’s already there. If you care for others as you would for yourself, you are already perfect.

Let me circle back to the “complete” definition of perfect. It could be the most fucked up or most forgiving option of all of them. In my monkey mind I have used complete as a standard for a painfully long time. Particularly when it comes to writing. I had to keep editing, keep refining, keep proofing until a work was complete, and despite never getting there, I never abandoned the quest. I was so thankful for deadlines in school or work, because I would eventually have to stop writing, imperfect as the piece always was. But as hard as it is to complete an essay, or painting, or symphony, it is exponentially insane to think of achieving completeness as a person. If at some point one becomes complete – when they have the spouse, home, and child/ren perhaps; or when they break the world record while winning gold in the Olympics, how do we characterize everything after that? Who are you post-perfection? We see people struggle with this all the time. What do you do when you’re “past your prime”? How do you find meaning if meaning is tied up in perfection/completeness and you’ve reached your destination with nowhere else to go? How much more liberating would it be if we held onto no ideals at all? Is that absurd?

In the Buddhism I hang with everything you need, including enlightenment, is available to you at all times because Buddha nature already exists within everyone, and perhaps everything. So we are already Complete, already perfect, with just a wee bit of really fucking calcified artificial frosting hiding all that nutritious goodness.

Ram Dass keeps returning to Completeness in How Can I Help. That is, recognizing that every person on the planet is already complete. When we seek to help people, we may be serving them food or companionship or understanding or shelter, but not because they are lacking in some way; rather because we have or have access to a thing that they need, so it’s only natural to transfer the resource to the area that requires it, like putting lotion on your own dry skin. In a sense, both giver and receiver are just fulfilling our parts as members of the ecosystem, and in that way we are perfect. If we approach others as lacking, imperfect, incomplete, we are not really serving them, we are serving ourselves and our own judgment and rules and fears and ideologies. That kind of help may give someone the calories they need to go on another day, but it can leave them with a feeling of inferiority, of insufficiency, and it doesn’t actually serve us as individuals or us as members of a human and ecological community, because it is reinforcing separateness and contributing to inequitable thinking and behavior. Recognizing everyone’s completeness, everyone’s perfection (as I can so easily do with Vicious) is a path to an equitable and multifarious world.

To be continued. Again. I could go on and on… and I do.

Next time: Creative Imperfection