Last night, I watched the poignant, compelling cinematicrendering of Long Walk to Freedom,
Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. The film traces the iconic world leader’s childhood
as a cattle herder in rural Cape Province, legal career as one of South
Africa’s first black lawyers, period of armed revolutionary acts with the ANC,
trial, long imprisonment, eventual release, and successful leadership of South
Africa’s transition from minority rule to a multicultural democracy. It does an
excellent job of insinuating the considerable emotional toll of Mandela’s
18-year imprisonment on Robben Island, his shelter an 8-foot by 7-foot cement
cell. He was cut off entirely from his family for years, initially allowed only
one highly censored letter every six months. We see Mandela receive news of his
mother’s terminal illness and passing; his only son’s death in a tragic car
accident; his wife, Winnie’s, imprisonment. In between, there are glimpses of Robben
Island’s prisoners engaged in body-breaking labor – mining lime and crushing
rocks into gravel – and enduring various degrading acts wrought by Afrikaaner guards.
And yet, we also hear Mandela engage in conversation with these same guards
about their families, watch him circled around a negotiating table with apartheid
government leaders who have been charged with planning the transition to a new
form of government. Time and again, we witness Mandela’s unwavering commitment
to his ideals, his ultimate renunciation of violence as a viable strategy, his
rise to Presidential status on the shoulders of a resoundingly successful
popular vote.
Mandela’s trial and the window onto his 27-year imprisonment
moved me especially. I sat mesmerized by his eloquence, captivated by his
single-minded focus on freedom for Black South Africans, and thoroughly
inspired by his desire to be an instrument for realizing that, even at the cost
of his life. I marveled at the immense personal resolve; his mastery of anger,
grief, disappointment, and longing; his capacity to harness negative energy in
the service of much nobler ideals. Most importantly, I observed that his life
experience honed rather than degraded his dignity. It was, in part, this
dignity that enabled him to command the respect and attention of Black South
Africans during the closing days of the apartheid era, when Black-on-Black
violence tragically threatened the possibility for democracy.
Throughout the film, words of author and media persona Krista
Tippett echoed in my mind: “I am emboldened by the puzzling, redemptive truth .
. . that we are made by what would break us.” While the truth of that resonates
with me, on a far humbler level, I see parallels between Mandela’s
life experience and my own experience as a meditator, and also lessons that
apply for each of us as we navigate the complicated, at times divisive and
violent reality of current events.
I embrace the practice of meditation at least partially as a personal
quest for freedom, albeit internal freedom. I seek strategies for freeing
myself from ego absorption, which threatens to narrow my world, constrict my
heart, and curtail my capacity to love, forgive, and extend myself in ways that
foster healing and growth.
I practice out of a sincere desire and felt duty to be the
most sane, open hearted, curious, humble, and loving human being I can be,
because our trouble world and my own frail human body demands it.
I practice to remind myself of my connection to the expansive
web of life, to acknowledge the truth of the South African concept of ubuntu – that my humanity is
inextricably connected to yours and every other human being’s . As well, I
meditate to cultivate the awareness necessary to fulfill my role as a steward
of every particle of creation, each a gift and expression of generous love.
I practice in order to weather the gnarliest periods of
conflict, self-doubt, depression, confusion, and anxiety in my own life. I rest
in the spaciousness of silence and breath, and trust these as a lifeline back
to peace, confidence, clarity, and joy.
Finally, I meditate in order to shore up my ability to see
the pure heart in my fellow companions on this journey of life. I lean into the
vastness of love and communion experienced in meditation in order to strengthen
my resolve to see the good in everyone or, when that proves inordinately
difficult, to remember that what most disgusts, annoys, or enrages me about
them also exists inside me, and to find a way to accept it.
It is this latter aspect of meditation that is strikingly
illuminated by Mandela’s life: his
extraordinary capacity for forgiveness, his bold vision and practical
commitment to a new way of being with one another, his willingness to see the
other’s shared humanity and, from this clarity, to lay aside violence, blame,
pettiness, and argument to do the practical work of building a multicultural
democracy in which all might be uplifted.
Writer Parker Palmer addressed these very things in a recentblog post on the topic of our current extremely polarized political landscape:
Trump is a one-man microcosm of much
that’s diseased about American culture . . . and its eternal need for “an
enemy,”its racism, and DNA-deep commitment to white supremacy. The more he rubs
our noses in our own pathologies . . . the more it becomes at least possible that his
campaign will strengthen our resolve to make America confess and repent, again
and again and again. Of course, nothing of the sort will happen as long as we
focus exclusively on “him” and “them,” as if defeating “the enemy” will do the
trick. As that great guru Pogo said nearly fifty years ago, “We have met
the enemy and he is us.”
Palmer goes on to ask, “Are
you and I willing to see ourselves reflected in Trump, to say that what’s
repugnant in him finds resonance in us?” I believe that Mandela wrestled
with this same question as he passed more than two and a half decades of his
life imprisoned for acts against white supremacists that he originally believed
to be justifiable in pursuit of freedom. Ultimately, he realized that forgiveness
was an imperative first step on the path to peace; a complex forgiveness that entailed
both willingness to look honestly at the country’s awful, tragic history, and courageous
acknowledgement that it no longer served. Forgiveness swaddled in
reconciliation that demanded that Blacks and Whites labor shoulder to shoulder
to build a new nation on the ugly ruins of the old one. Forgiveness that laid
bare the fact that the only way around
the hatred, fear, violence, blame, and chaos was through it.
The enormity and complexity of this endeavor – an endeavor
that looms dangerously large before us right now - brings to mind a strikingly
simple question posed by Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn: “How can I love you better?” This question seems remarkably relevant
in virtually every moment, however large or small the “you” involved. I find it
particularly useful in this moment,
when violence, environmental catastrophes, damaging laws and policies, and all
types of other human foibles threaten to destroy nature, love, and life.
In meditation, we probe the depths of our own heart-mind;
both its darkest recesses and its brightest wellsprings of love. At the best of
times, we linger in the heart space fed from our silent communion with the
All-Loving. In so doing, we grow in the capacity to touch into the eternal
source of love, forgiveness, and creativity, beginning first with healing and
befriending ourselves. With this inner transformation, we gradually foster the
enormity of heart and immensity of skillfulness and understanding necessary to
extend this love to every human being, as well as each living aspect of this
chaotic and complex, magnificent yet terrifying world.
I’ll close with the words of the sonnet shared by Lin-ManuelMiranda as he accepted a Tony award for Hamilton
just hours after a mass shooting spree took the lives of 49 people at a gay
night club in Orlando. It anchors me in the place from which I strive to drive
my own life.
My wife’s the reason
anything gets done.
She nudges me towards
promise by degrees.
She is a perfect symphony
of one.
Our son is her most
beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that
seem to find us
Until they’re finished
songs and start to play.
When senseless acts of
tragedy remind us
That nothing here is
promised, not one day
This show is proof that
history remembers.
We live through times when
hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and
light from dying embers
Remembrances that hope and
love last longer.
And love is love is love
is love is love is love is love is love;
Cannot be killed or swept
aside.
I sing Vanessa's symphony;
Eliza tells her story.
Now fill the world with
music, love, and pride.
