As members of the Insight Dialogue Community Anti-Racism Education and Action Team (AREA), we are committed to support our community to become an antiracist, multicultural organization. As an evolving global community dedicated to spiritual freedom and ethical action, we see that our freedom is linked to the freedom of all beings.
With this intention, we commit to evolving antiracist practices across our community, including all sangha gatherings, Insight Dialogue retreats, and in our organizational structures.
In each newsletter issue, we will invite you to engage in reading, reflection, and contemplation about issues of white supremacy that may be alive and thriving internally and externally in our biases, our privileges, and our conditioning. In our previous newsletter, we invited you to read this article by Ruth King, “Being Mindful of Race,” Ruth noted:
“We must be clear in our intentions regarding what we want to wake up to, and then attend to them mindfully. We all need an intention beyond righteousness. Ask yourself, what is your vision of racial healing? Why is this important to you personally? What do you need to face up to and own in order to stay awake to racial suffering? How would this benefit all beings?”
We also suggested that you explore any intentions about what we want to wake up to about racial suffering with yourself and a meditation partner. Please re-read the article if you feel it would help your reflection.
This time, we invite some inquiry questions from Ruth King’s book Mindful of Race for you to find time to dialogue – with a meditation partner, and with your own conditioning. Before engaging these questions, we suggest you bring in the Guidelines
PAUSE – to restore a sense of mindful presence; and RELAX (Receive, Accept, Allow as best one can) – to bring ease to any racial tension that exists or arises.
Ruth King asks: When did you first discover you were a race? What were the childhood events that solidified you as a racial being?
- What views did your parents, caretakers, ancestors, or elders have on race?
- How did they impact you?
- How has your racial conditioning, past or present, impacted your perceptions, attitude, and response to racial distress and injustice?
As you reflect on what arises in the body and the mind with these questions, we invite you to contact a spiritual friend and engage the following contemplation:
OPEN. What is noticed internally, externally, and both, about what is present in sensation and thought forms?
LISTEN DEEPLY. What did you notice arising in the body and the mind as you explore each question?
SPEAK THE TRUTH. Discomfort, unease, resistance, shame, anger, numbness, and disinterest are human responses to societal conditioning. How might the voice and presence of another help us find ways to hold our experience in compassion, kindness, and resolve?
With care,
Anita Bermont, Beth Faria, Holly Nelson-Johnson, Judy Bernstein, Mary Burns, Patricia Fontaine, Ruby Phillips, Susie Clarion, Nancy Zegarchuk
The AREA Team is a group of Insight Dialogue Community members currently located in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Global South. The team has a culture of consensus and spiritual friendship, and we incorporate Insight Dialogue practice into our meetings. We are actively engaged in this important work and welcome new voices and perspectives. If you are interested in joining us, please email info@3.wilder.one.