Turning to the Present Moment of Racism
May those who are in danger of being threatened or killed by kings, thieves, or scoundrels, who are troubled by hundreds of different fears, may all those beings who are oppressed by the advent of troubles be delivered from those hundreds of extreme very dreadful fears. May those who are beaten, bound, and tortured by bonds … distracted by numerous thousands of labors, who have become afflicted by various fears and cruel anxiety … may they all be delivered; may the beaten be delivered from the beaters, may the condemned be united with life … May those beings oppressed by hunger and thirst obtain a variety of food and drink.
—The Sutra of Golden Light, translated by R. E. Emmerick
(Luzac and Co., 1970)
THIS IS OUR WISH as practitioners. It is what we extend out to the suffering of the world. It is what we extend to our own suffering and to all beings suffering. It is how we hold dukkha.
Santikaro Bhikkhu writes, “In the Buddha’s original formulation … he neither spoke of ‘my dukkha’ nor of ‘your dukkha.’ He spoke simply of dukkha—‘there is dukkha.’” There is no “my” suffering, no “my dis-ease.” Only dukkha, its causes, and the path to relieving it.
So the four noble truths were not personalized in this sense. Yet we have a way of externalizing them, then internalizing them, and getting caught in that dualism. We may hear of the teaching of interconnection and maybe even say things like, “We’re all in this together.” But we’re not. On some level, yes, it’s true—we are all, without exception, one body, one reality. We share this life, this world, this universe in the ten directions. And yet, we cannot sink into this oneness as
