Speaker 1: It's important to notice when we're too focus on that
Speaker 1: sense of our bounded ego based separate identity, and you know,
Speaker 1: to be in engaged in a kind of set of
Speaker 1: practices that can deliver us when we're getting stuck. Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. In this episode, I
Speaker 1: talked to law professor and mindfulness leader Ronda McGhee about
Speaker 1: her book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we discuss our innovative approach to healing racial divides using mindfulness.
Speaker 1: Randa argues that when we bring awareness and compassion to ourselves, relationships,
Speaker 1: and the environment, we invite healing and connection. We also
Speaker 1: touch on the topics of education, spirituality, liberation, democracy, and community,
Speaker 1: so that further Ado I bring you Ronda McGee. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to talk to you today, and I
Speaker 1: thought we could just dive in because I you know,
Speaker 1: let's just have an informal chat, you know, yes, let's do.
Speaker 1: Thank you and thank you for the invitation to have
Speaker 1: this chat. I'm a fan of your work and really
Speaker 1: just appreciating what you're offering right now in the world
Speaker 1: that needs who you know, so many different sources of
Speaker 1: support and I see you as definitely offering that, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate that very much, you know, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for saying that. And I feel the same way
Speaker 1: about you. At your name just kept coming up among
Speaker 1: so many people that I follow and that I love,
Speaker 1: like Sharon Foldberg and my friend Corey Mascara and who
Speaker 1: are meditators, and your work just kept cropping up, and
Speaker 1: I love it. I absolutely love it. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought a really good place to start would be a
Speaker 1: little bit about your your early childhood experiences. This is
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast, after all. Would you feel comfortable talking
Speaker 1: about that a little bit? Yes, Yes, I was born
Speaker 1: in North Carolina to you know, to parents who you know,
Speaker 1: have their own heritage and legacy in the soil and
Speaker 1: social and cultural context of the Southern United States. I
Speaker 1: was actually born in North Carolina. My parents, my mother
Speaker 1: is from North Carolina. My father was from the Gulf
Speaker 1: coast of Mississippi, you know, which has some you know,
Speaker 1: Biloxi in this part of Mississippi is known as a
Speaker 1: place that has at least some appeal for those who
Speaker 1: delight in gambling, I guess, and just coastal living. But
Speaker 1: to be a black man growing up in that part
Speaker 1: of the country was not so much filled with that.
Speaker 1: In fact, when he was growing up in the you know,
Speaker 1: the forties and fifties, it would have been illegal for
Speaker 1: him to enter into the water actually in many parts
Speaker 1: of the coastline. And so my father actually kind of
Speaker 1: left Mississippi and joined the Marines during a time of war.
Speaker 1: He served in the Vietnam War. And my mother really, yeah,
Speaker 1: was he My dad was in the Marines. He was
Speaker 1: in the Air Force, in the Air Force. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, I mean service, Yeah, during the time of war. So,
Speaker 1: you know, and my mother had, you know, worked for
Speaker 1: a shirt factory and done done other kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: low skilled working class you know employment, and none of them,
Speaker 1: neither of them had gone to college. And so I
Speaker 1: say all that to say, you know, I'm like so
Speaker 1: many people in the United States. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody who's benefited from all of the ways
Speaker 1: that prior generation or two more have struggled to open
Speaker 1: up opportunity more broadly for people whose whose backgrounds don't
Speaker 1: afford them a lot of opportunity. We were, you know,
Speaker 1: relatively poor growing up. You know, all of the ways
Speaker 1: that the history of enslavement and segregation, impact of family
Speaker 1: were present. So impoverishment, you know, alcoholism was something that
Speaker 1: my family experienced and I witnessed, and then also some
Speaker 1: of the follow on effects that can happen from that,
Speaker 1: including physical abuse, domestic violence in my home. And then
Speaker 1: subsequently my mother and father divorced, married a stepfather who
Speaker 1: also another military veteran, this time in fact the Air Force.
Speaker 1: And nevertheless, we saw we saw similar patterns of alcohol
Speaker 1: abuse and abuse in the household that impacted me as
Speaker 1: well directly as well. So you know, I, you know,
Speaker 1: I at the same time, I had the good fortune
Speaker 1: of being somehow well suited for or you know, the
Speaker 1: way we study in public schools. And and and I say
Speaker 1: that intentionally. I mean it's not to say that there
Speaker 1: aren't other ways we could be doing education that could
Speaker 1: bring more of us along. But I certainly had the
Speaker 1: kind of capacity for patients for you know, long term
Speaker 1: commit you know, sort of persistence and all of the
Speaker 1: sorts of things that can coupled, when coupled with some
Speaker 1: kind of ability, which I think we all have to learn,
Speaker 1: can make one excel. So school was a place where
Speaker 1: I actually did find validation and found a relatively safe
Speaker 1: place for me to to grow and develop. And certainly
Speaker 1: without the teachers and the community that I found there,
Speaker 1: and the you know, the affirmation of my abilities and
Speaker 1: my value that I found consistently through my own personal
Speaker 1: public school experience, I wouldn't be here with all of that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a little bit of my path. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sharing that. I hope it wasn't
Speaker 1: too painful to talk about. Well. I have thought about it,
Speaker 1: and you know, done some work on this, right, So
Speaker 1: it's actually not terribly painful, but I and it is
Speaker 1: something that I think is important for us to look at,
Speaker 1: for all of us, because those difficult things, as you know,
Speaker 1: are part of who and how we are wherever we are. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I was wondering, you know, just personally in school, did
Speaker 1: did you have many experiences of racism that impeded your
Speaker 1: ability to learn and grow? Well, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: good question because I think it implicit in that is
Speaker 1: this question of what do we think of when we
Speaker 1: think of the term racism? I think sometimes answer the
Speaker 1: question too right, right, what we tend to think of
Speaker 1: it as like these explicit So we think of racism
Speaker 1: as like a personal characteristic. We've been sort of trained.
Speaker 1: Many of us are working with this broadening of our
Speaker 1: understanding of what racism might be to include more subtle, systemic,
Speaker 1: maybe unconscious or less than explicit manifestations of it. But
Speaker 1: I think for many of us at a certain age,
Speaker 1: we really imbibe this message, and most I think most
Speaker 1: of us in the US still today are working with
Speaker 1: a kind of a core definition of racism that is about,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a personal commitment to an ideology
Speaker 1: and practices that reflect it, that are committed to an
Speaker 1: idea of categorized humanity, right, putting place in human beings
Speaker 1: in these categories of race, being placed in a category
Speaker 1: of ourselves, and then rank ordering groups and therefore individuals
Speaker 1: who fall within those groups based on notions of implicit
Speaker 1: values culture, sometimes religious, sometimes languages. There are lots of
Speaker 1: different inputs of the ideas we have imvibed about race
Speaker 1: and racism, and so there are many dimensions of that.
Speaker 1: Of course, there certainly can be this Again, the traditional,
Speaker 1: I think, kind of core paradigm that we still work
Speaker 1: with is like an individual who was committed to these
Speaker 1: ideas and pervade, you know, put promulgating them and maybe
Speaker 1: performing a certain kind of like outsized with the hood
Speaker 1: and the you know, the swastikas. Maybe an explicit commitment
Speaker 1: to these values and ideas is kind of, I think,
Speaker 1: still the core hope you think of when you think
Speaker 1: of racism and what it looks like. But of course
Speaker 1: more subtle forms and systemic collective forms are the ones
Speaker 1: that are you know, the water in which we swim,
Speaker 1: the air that we breathe. And so when I think
Speaker 1: about your question of like did racism impact me, I
Speaker 1: would say that there are just a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Well, first of all, you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up exactly like I grew up in desegregating Virginia,
Speaker 1: I mean North Carolina and Virginia. And I say desegregating
Speaker 1: just to underscore that it was an active aspect of
Speaker 1: my experience, that we were in process. And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that that process was ever fulfilled. In fact, I
Speaker 1: you know, we could talk about some of the ways
Speaker 1: that the efforts were dismantled, even in the latter part
Speaker 1: of my experience of public school in the South, but certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, I was a child who was bussed across
Speaker 1: town to help accomplish these goals of a more integrated
Speaker 1: public school scenario, and you know, what are the impacts
Speaker 1: of being a part of that social experience? Positive and negative.
Speaker 1: But what I'll say is one of the things that
Speaker 1: I saw, certainly most of us who grew up in
Speaker 1: desegregating circumstances saw, you know, public schools that were very
Speaker 1: sensitively constructed to maintain appeal to white body families. So
Speaker 1: teaching staffs that were disproportionately white not integrated in the
Speaker 1: same way as maybe the classrooms. Evenmore so, most of
Speaker 1: my teachers were white, and most of of course the
Speaker 1: things that we learned in ways that were not always obvious,
Speaker 1: were shaped around a kind of white Southern sensibility. That
Speaker 1: means that certain books were not taught available. These were
Speaker 1: things that I had to find on my own. So
Speaker 1: for me, racism then showed up in those much more
Speaker 1: subtle ways of yeah, of like what was available, what
Speaker 1: I was able to learn, what I was able to study,
Speaker 1: what I wasn't and by whom you know with them,
Speaker 1: what kinds of teachers and what kinds of experience experiences
Speaker 1: did they bring. But with all of that said, you know,
Speaker 1: I can think of and I want to say this explicitly. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: you know, the teachers, the white body teachers who were there,
Speaker 1: most of whom in my experience, were at least making
Speaker 1: an effort, you know, to to do what they came
Speaker 1: to do, which is to help identify and you know,
Speaker 1: move through or support students with some potential in the
Speaker 1: conventional sense. And so I can certainly think of and
Speaker 1: have in my like pantheon of teachers that I really appreciate.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of white teachers who were I
Speaker 1: can think of, you know, a couple in particular, who
Speaker 1: were very, very instrumental in terms of their manifestation of
Speaker 1: let's say, some sort of a racial equity commitment such
Speaker 1: that they whatever they may have been raised with, because again,
Speaker 1: these were people who were disproportionately raised in the South,
Speaker 1: and with racist ideology and teachings having formed them, many
Speaker 1: of them, you know, nevertheless, were some of my you know, mentors,
Speaker 1: and you know, help help identify opportunities for me and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. So I think it's it's not.
Speaker 1: And then when going to university it was, I would
Speaker 1: say I saw more explicit examples of racism impacting me.
Speaker 1: For examples just in my first year at the University
Speaker 1: of Virginia, lovely school, but having examples of things like
Speaker 1: you know, instructors not having a negative reaction to me
Speaker 1: wanting to write about For example, I had a paper
Speaker 1: topic that I proposed comparing an analysis of segregation in
Speaker 1: the southern United States with apartheid in South Africa. Today,
Speaker 1: I don't think people would think of that as like
Speaker 1: a shocking proposed experiment or you know, intellectual inquiry. But
Speaker 1: the particular teacher that I had, of teaching assistant that
Speaker 1: I had was just a gast How could they even
Speaker 1: be considered even remotely similar? Again, a white bodied male
Speaker 1: teacher who was just coming from a perspective where something
Speaker 1: that was normalized in the US, as you know, part
Speaker 1: of our culture could not possibly be you know, this
Speaker 1: was in the eighties when we were in that anti
Speaker 1: apartheid struggle. It was quite you know or you know,
Speaker 1: seeing the seeing apartheid as a certain kind of evil
Speaker 1: that we needed to all many of us, you know,
Speaker 1: who were at all progressive, were thinking, we must that's
Speaker 1: an evil. But we're on the other hand, Southern segregation, well,
Speaker 1: there's so many justifications. So that's an example, you know,
Speaker 1: being sort of having my own education and my intellectual
Speaker 1: interests sort of filter through that lens of a kind
Speaker 1: of orientation toward whiteness that I think is a legacy
Speaker 1: of our you know, our racism and our white supremacy.
Speaker 1: So those are you know, the more subtle ways. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until I came to California actually and heard the
Speaker 1: inward hurl that me the first time. Oh well, no,
Speaker 1: that's once maybe once before that when I was in Richmond, Virginia,
Speaker 1: but San Francisco, Richmond, Virginia. So it's when it comes
Speaker 1: to those experiences whereby personal racism in the form of
Speaker 1: you know, the the epithets and the you know, the
Speaker 1: kinds of physical threat. This can happen in Richmond, Virginia
Speaker 1: or Hampton, Virginia as well as Half Moon based California
Speaker 1: or San Francisco. This is American culture. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: for all those differentiations and for telling that story. I
Speaker 1: actually do see value in differentiating between personal racism and
Speaker 1: systemic racism and acknowledging that both exist in lots of
Speaker 1: complex ways. So I really appreciate you telling that story.
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Speaker 1: a part of the Transcender community. Okay, now back to
Speaker 1: the show. When you were young, did you were there
Speaker 1: any mindfulness gurus that you liked. I'm curious, like, when
Speaker 1: you're kind of inroad into mindfulness for us? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I write coffee like, hey we should pause? Yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I know, there are some, you know, people
Speaker 1: who grew up with parents who were meditated. Not No,
Speaker 1: I grew up in a kind of a Southern Christian context,
Speaker 1: and uh so I will say that, you know, a
Speaker 1: kind of a center in prayer, kind of meditation was
Speaker 1: very much a part of, you know, kind of the
Speaker 1: context within which I grew up. I definitely had a
Speaker 1: grandmother who was have been called to the ministry herself.
Speaker 1: And so what I, as a very little girl witnessed
Speaker 1: when I would spend time with my grandmother, which I
Speaker 1: did fairly frequently. My parents were splitting up, so we
Speaker 1: were spending a lot of time there. I'd see my
Speaker 1: grandmother get up, you know, before dawn, well before she
Speaker 1: had to according to the things she needed to do
Speaker 1: for others or to make a living, and just spend
Speaker 1: time in what I later learned. Right first, it was
Speaker 1: a little girl seeing the light coming up from out
Speaker 1: from underneath her closed bedroom door and knowing having been
Speaker 1: taught that like this is Grandma's time right for her
Speaker 1: own cultivation devotion, devotional practices, and later learning these this
Speaker 1: was a time of prayer and centering. She would then
Speaker 1: follow that up with often she would come out and
Speaker 1: we would see her then reading scriptures, more prayer and
Speaker 1: praise and worship, and then you know, from there getting
Speaker 1: everybody up and going, you know, getting us fed and
Speaker 1: getting us off to preschool or wherever we needed to go.
Speaker 1: And so I definitely saw that kind of devoted self
Speaker 1: cultivation practice. But of course it wasn't called my influence, right,
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't until you know, I had gone
Speaker 1: to university and come out to California and was in
Speaker 1: between law school and starting my first job as a
Speaker 1: lawyer when I just realized I had been studying for
Speaker 1: so long. By then, I had also gone into Army
Speaker 1: ROTC and Spay for school mostly and also because it's
Speaker 1: a great way to learn certain things, but not because
Speaker 1: I'm pro military. Let's just say, I'm kind of a pacifist.
Speaker 1: Let's just say at this point, but I did, do
Speaker 1: you know, Army ROTC. I'd studied, you know, undergraduate, I
Speaker 1: had done graduate school and sociology and law school, and
Speaker 1: I'd just been very you know, focused on all these
Speaker 1: you know, ways of developing and conventional ways, like so
Speaker 1: many students and those of us who are trying to
Speaker 1: make it in the us, and here I was, for
Speaker 1: the first time in a long while, maybe the first
Speaker 1: time in my adult life, with I mean, finished one
Speaker 1: major project, finished taking the bar. My job wasn't going
Speaker 1: to start for another few couple of months, and I
Speaker 1: just didn't know what to do with myself. I had
Speaker 1: just been so you know, so trained, my mind had
Speaker 1: been so trained to be constantly doing that I really
Speaker 1: could barely relax. And it just seemed to me something
Speaker 1: inside spoke of a need to like reconnect to some
Speaker 1: kind of nurturing, restorative way of being, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I just sort of had a sense that this was
Speaker 1: not a good way to start my new career to
Speaker 1: be this kind of overwhelmed and overwrought. So I started,
Speaker 1: like many other people, just reading things. My partner is interesting.
Speaker 1: My partner is a His background is in engineering and
Speaker 1: he's a patent lawyer. But his cultural heritage is that
Speaker 1: he has his parents immigrated from India, so he's not
Speaker 1: personally a meditator. But he had a book on his
Speaker 1: shelf that was called the Blagavad Gita for Daily Living,
Speaker 1: and so he you know, and there's a whole another
Speaker 1: story about that about how as a child of immigrants
Speaker 1: from a culture which does meditate coming to the US
Speaker 1: and kind of acculturating and assimilating called forth this sort
Speaker 1: of you know, putting to one side of all of that.
Speaker 1: So he definitely wasn't even reading this book, but there
Speaker 1: it was on the shelf, and I read it and
Speaker 1: found in it descriptions of one pointed meditation kind of
Speaker 1: way of calming and centering the mind, specifically offered as
Speaker 1: a translation of practice for daily living in the Western context.
Speaker 1: So it was being offered by an Indian American immigrant
Speaker 1: whose name was Eknath Estoran, right, So he had written
Speaker 1: this books specifically to support this translation and this kind
Speaker 1: of you know, sharing of these practices to those of
Speaker 1: us in this culture. So and I just name that
Speaker 1: because you know, sometimes when we think about how we
Speaker 1: come to these practices, we can be concerned about appropriation.
Speaker 1: We can be concerned about you know how we often
Speaker 1: don't name the often Asian heritage cultures very diverse in
Speaker 1: amongst themselves. But these you know, cultures that we are
Speaker 1: privileged to have received these teachings from and to recogn
Speaker 1: we'd often you know, often don't recognize the gift nature
Speaker 1: of how we you know how they came to be here,
Speaker 1: and that there was this beautiful conscious inter play and
Speaker 1: interaction of cultures that I think is again part of
Speaker 1: the genius of the American experience experiment, however difficult it
Speaker 1: is for us to hold it. Yeah, So for me,
Speaker 1: it was reading first and really experimenting at home and
Speaker 1: just feeling like, oh, right away, like there was at
Speaker 1: least something here, not something easy for me to actually practice,
Speaker 1: but something that with practice I might from through which
Speaker 1: you know, with practice, I might experience some greater ability
Speaker 1: to calm myself and to support myself on this journey.
Speaker 1: And so that's where that's actually how it started, you know,
Speaker 1: in my twenties, reading books, trying to sort of steady myself,
Speaker 1: save myself in a certain way. And it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: because even though I was raised in a Christian household,
Speaker 1: there was some way in which, probably because of the
Speaker 1: way I've been doing certain kinds of mind training and
Speaker 1: higher education for Salon, I needed a way of entering
Speaker 1: into these practices that specifically spoke to how to cultivate,
Speaker 1: you know, and work with the qualities of the mind.
Speaker 1: And you know that really spoke about, you know, a
Speaker 1: kind of almost psychology of well being. That's what we
Speaker 1: can call it now. It wasn't called that, but in
Speaker 1: other words, something that straight Christianity in the way that
Speaker 1: I had been taught it did not so much explicitly offer.
Speaker 1: So this is how I ended up, I think, just
Speaker 1: feeling a little bit more drawn to these teachings as
Speaker 1: a support. Cool. I'm proud of your uniqueness in the
Speaker 1: space because you've brought together two things that are so
Speaker 1: important in the world today, but I don't see them
Speaker 1: going together as that frequently. So I want to brag
Speaker 1: about you, is my point, because you made this connection,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering sort of so when did that career
Speaker 1: start where you brought you may have this, you had
Speaker 1: your personal awareness that wow, a lot of these mindful
Speaker 1: techniques that you that you're reading about really can help
Speaker 1: heal racial divides, can really help with the inner work
Speaker 1: that we all can do. When did you start to
Speaker 1: form these connections? Because there is something really unique about
Speaker 1: that that that I associate with Ronda McGee, Like there
Speaker 1: is like like I think Ronda McGee when I think
Speaker 1: about that, and that is kind of special. So I
Speaker 1: was worrying if you're kind of comment on that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. You know, yeah, it is challenged sometimes to
Speaker 1: take that in. But I but I work with with
Speaker 1: sort of you know, really just with some people with
Speaker 1: humility being in some sort of right relationship with with
Speaker 1: this journey. And so I thank you for the question,
Speaker 1: and also for the acknowledgment. I really do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I mean it, Yeah, no things, So I would just
Speaker 1: say that, you know, it's hard to pinpoint any one moment,
Speaker 1: partly because you know, these are the sources of things
Speaker 1: that just immerge in a way from one's own life experiences.
Speaker 1: And in eight I think passions, orientations, if you will,
Speaker 1: I think I was drawn always to more deeply trying
Speaker 1: to understand these divisions that we seem to have somehow
Speaker 1: inherited and invested in on so many different levels. And
Speaker 1: we're constantly seeming to try to reinvest in, rearticulate, you know,
Speaker 1: every generation, every generation, right, I know, I always think
Speaker 1: about that. I always think about, like, can we ever
Speaker 1: reach a generation where we just learned from our past
Speaker 1: like completely, like we're all you know, we're like you know,
Speaker 1: what we're done with all that? It seems like we
Speaker 1: have to work really really hard. Doesn't this gutt to
Speaker 1: do that? I mean, because I do think I have
Speaker 1: that saying. I have had this conversation with friends just
Speaker 1: this weekend, like, wow, it looks like we just keep
Speaker 1: things aspects of it was where I come in as
Speaker 1: a psychologists. There a certain aspects of human nature that
Speaker 1: make it likely that certain things will be created each generation.
Speaker 1: But they're also parts of human nature that can allow
Speaker 1: us to override it, right, and that's that's where you
Speaker 1: come in, and that is exactly right where we come in.
Speaker 1: I think those of us who somehow are I don't
Speaker 1: even know how we get here, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: we're certainly drawn to question how we could do things differently.
Speaker 1: And to me, you know, just growing up, it was
Speaker 1: just so clear that there was so much unnecessary pain
Speaker 1: and division and missed opportunity for joy and and just
Speaker 1: like really feeling the miracle of what it means to
Speaker 1: be alive that's coming through all of this sort of
Speaker 1: acculturation to meet us versus them, you know, me versus you,
Speaker 1: and then us versus them, and then you know, fear
Speaker 1: and the kind of machinations around how I can have enough,
Speaker 1: and it just you know, even as a very little girl,
Speaker 1: these questions about who we are fundamentally as human beings,
Speaker 1: the sense that we were all one human family, which
Speaker 1: is something I think my grandmother sort of conveyed in
Speaker 1: interpretations I like, we need a grandmother like these. But
Speaker 1: like there's always a sense that like, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: could we lived in a very segregated, you know, neighborhood
Speaker 1: where I grew up it was like all black folk
Speaker 1: except you know a couple of white men who ran
Speaker 1: some stores that we would go to, right, some of
Speaker 1: the grocer but otherwise, you know, the original neighborhood that
Speaker 1: I grew up in in my kindergarten, completely all black,
Speaker 1: And yet there was this sort of teaching that like, actually,
Speaker 1: we're all guys, children, We're all really one family. You know,
Speaker 1: that's forgotten who we are, And that was something that
Speaker 1: resonated with me in it. It never felt like it
Speaker 1: was just a teaching. It never felt like it was
Speaker 1: some story like a metaphor. It always felt like, well,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, and you could just tell we're
Speaker 1: all so similar in every kind of way, and yet
Speaker 1: we're so deeply trained for division. And so I think
Speaker 1: because of my own being drawn to that question, how
Speaker 1: can we both both try and minimize the harm that
Speaker 1: comes from the legacies we've all, you know, grown up
Speaker 1: in and with. How can we minimize you know, work
Speaker 1: for justice in other words, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: keep our hearts open to the you know, to these
Speaker 1: mini missed opportunities for connection. Keep our hearts open to
Speaker 1: what you're and your writing. I think called the sort
Speaker 1: of existential kind of gratefulness to be a quit, yes,
Speaker 1: existential gratitude right like we're right, you know, how can
Speaker 1: we keep that? Which you know, again to me, always
Speaker 1: seem like an innate like, of course, how can we
Speaker 1: keep those How can we do both those things at once?
Speaker 1: That's the kind of a core koan, if you will
Speaker 1: that I feel like my particular embodiment as a black
Speaker 1: you know, racialized as I call it, because you know,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, I accept these identity terms and
Speaker 1: talk about them and in some ways, you know, brow
Speaker 1: but on the other hand, at the same time, know
Speaker 1: that these are just illusory ways we have of difining
Speaker 1: ourselves and others. And you know, as much as we
Speaker 1: can keep clear that to use those terms is not
Speaker 1: to reduce our entire sense of ourselves to those terms.
Speaker 1: It can help us with this sort of perspective that
Speaker 1: I think is is you know, what's called for when we,
Speaker 1: if we ever, are going to find a way to
Speaker 1: not keep recreating the same pain and hierarchy and work
Speaker 1: up justice every single generation. Yeah, there are illlutionary ways
Speaker 1: of dividing. There are definitely ways of dividing, and like
Speaker 1: people have made those choices intentionally to use that as
Speaker 1: one of the main dividing ways opposed to the million
Speaker 1: other things about a human or an individual that we
Speaker 1: could focus on. You know, so much of the beauty
Speaker 1: of the complexity of being human is just reduced to
Speaker 1: that that one thing. And so yeah, I hear you,
Speaker 1: you know, reading so much of your work. I mean
Speaker 1: we could talk all day, right, I mean there's so
Speaker 1: much you've you know, you've you've talked, You've have this
Speaker 1: this whole five part uh, you know, ground y, I
Speaker 1: can go through the whole thing, grounded. Let me just
Speaker 1: read them so it's on the record. Can I do
Speaker 1: that at least because they're just kind of because for
Speaker 1: so much I want our listeners to hear about your work.
Speaker 1: But so you have you the kind of ground this
Speaker 1: this the stages of the inner work process, with mindfulness,
Speaker 1: with grounding. It's part one. Part two is seeing. Part
Speaker 1: three is being. That's my favorite. From allowed to I'm
Speaker 1: allowed to pick a favorite. I like them, like them
Speaker 1: all three because and I resonate most because of my
Speaker 1: own work, you know, I really, I really love the
Speaker 1: being doing and the existential awareness all that stuff. I
Speaker 1: love that. That's my jam. Part four, yes, Part four
Speaker 1: is doing. I was like, I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: but here you are doing in your own way and
Speaker 1: I'm doing it and I'm doing it. Yeah, exactly totally.
Speaker 1: And then part five although that this part five actually
Speaker 1: might be my favorite, liberating liberating. Can we jump Can
Speaker 1: we just jump right to the liberating because we don't
Speaker 1: have like five hours right to go through all that.
Speaker 1: And I really deliberate, and I really I I do
Speaker 1: bring these up because I want our listeners to least
Speaker 1: get it on the record for them to hear, and
Speaker 1: then for them to want to go and read more
Speaker 1: of your work. For sure, I really recommend people that.
Speaker 1: But in the interest of time, can you kind of
Speaker 1: tell us, you know, what does it take to get
Speaker 1: to that point of liberation and what and how do
Speaker 1: you define liberation? You know, be different. You know, through
Speaker 1: the centuries, through the course of human history, people have
Speaker 1: different thoughts and philosophies and what it means to be
Speaker 1: truly free and liberated. I'd love to hear some of
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that. Well, thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: mean absolutely can jump because even though I have, you know,
Speaker 1: articulated this sort of five part approach, and of course,
Speaker 1: by nature of a book you started at the beginning,
Speaker 1: you end to me in common with people like you know,
Speaker 1: the venerable tick not Han who pass. May he rest
Speaker 1: in peace. May he rest in peace, May he rest
Speaker 1: no liberation? Yeah, may he wrest in liberation. And these
Speaker 1: teachings continue as he would seem, as he taught so often. Right,
Speaker 1: they are here, right in a certain sense, He's not
Speaker 1: wrestling here. But but you know that this idea of
Speaker 1: intervening each of those you know, let's now say aspects
Speaker 1: of the inner work that I described in the book,
Speaker 1: certainly each embeds all the others, and so yes, of
Speaker 1: course you can start liberation. We can start with any
Speaker 1: of them and see different aspects of the others within them.
Speaker 1: And certainly for me, I could well start any in
Speaker 1: some in a certain sense, do begin my own work
Speaker 1: at this point from this place of let's say, liberation
Speaker 1: from some of the the ways I have been taught
Speaker 1: to think of my own self. You see me already
Speaker 1: kind of drawing in the sort of a fist to
Speaker 1: sort of self contained atomize. I'm totally sufferate from you.
Speaker 1: We can't, you know. We got to struggle to understand
Speaker 1: each other and in each other reporters, Yeah, with borders.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's about that hearts beyond right and
Speaker 1: it's and it's to me liberation has really, as you
Speaker 1: lud to it, so many different dimensions. But in this book,
Speaker 1: I am talking about a kind of spiritual if you will,
Speaker 1: you know, a kind of way of being in relationship
Speaker 1: to reality that is more and more kind of open
Speaker 1: to noticing when we're getting caught in ways and limitation,
Speaker 1: in separation, in division, in reduction. It's really about the
Speaker 1: way that the practices of mindfulness or just if you will,
Speaker 1: kind of whatever the term is any one of us
Speaker 1: may have, or how it is that we work to
Speaker 1: disrupt our own delusions about who we are and how
Speaker 1: things are. These practices for me can help with you know,
Speaker 1: to me, liberations from what or for what. It's liberal
Speaker 1: from the temptation, the tendency toward isolation, towards a sense
Speaker 1: of self that to me is a delusion. It's at
Speaker 1: least in part of delusion. Right. There's a way in which,
Speaker 1: of course, we have our own agency and our own
Speaker 1: work to do and opportunities, and we live and we love,
Speaker 1: and there's some reality to that. I think as a
Speaker 1: kind of a metaphor for psychological development in a world
Speaker 1: in which everything is an inter relationship. It's important to
Speaker 1: notice when we're too focused on that sense of our
Speaker 1: bounded ego based separate identity, and you know, to be
Speaker 1: in engaged in a kind of set of practices that
Speaker 1: can deliver us when we're getting stuck. You know. So
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to this idea of stuckness and
Speaker 1: unstuckness and you know, opening up to psychological flexibility, social flexibility,
Speaker 1: existential flexibility. Like the world is constantly always changing, how
Speaker 1: can we notwithstanding all these changes, notwithstanding demographic change, just
Speaker 1: to say one example, notwithstanding technological challenge, or you know,
Speaker 1: the stress around resources that come from climate and other
Speaker 1: you know, issues that we are facing notwithstanding all of that,
Speaker 1: how do we, you know, notice the temptation to sort
Speaker 1: of orient ourselves from a place of fear and anxiety
Speaker 1: and notice what we can do within ourselves to open
Speaker 1: up to a place of spacious realization that we have,
Speaker 1: we always have. Life itself affords us infinite options, infinite
Speaker 1: creative opportunities to respond to the challenges that we face.
Speaker 1: And to me, you know, being in that liberating place
Speaker 1: is about you know, the practices, and I often do
Speaker 1: think of it again, it's like liberating, not liberation, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, how are we actively opening up whenever that
Speaker 1: temptation to close comes to all of us? And it
Speaker 1: can come to all of us, so with humility, this
Speaker 1: is like I'm in this too, you know, I open
Speaker 1: the news the screens and see you know, war mongering
Speaker 1: and saber rattling at the border of Russia and Ukraine
Speaker 1: or whatever, at the border of the local school board
Speaker 1: that's arguing over a critical race something called critical race theory.
Speaker 1: And you know, parents, you know, like those these things,
Speaker 1: like anybody needs to be pitting parents against anything in
Speaker 1: a concept of public school. But that's happening in our neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: So wherever we see these borderlines being redrawn, how are
Speaker 1: we in relationship to that, and how can we resist,
Speaker 1: you know, the bait, you know, not take the bait
Speaker 1: of making someone else an enemy. To me, every different
Speaker 1: way that we practice to minimize the likelihood that we
Speaker 1: do that from which so much human suffering and needless
Speaker 1: bloodshed has flowed over human history, over the eonchs. Everything
Speaker 1: we can do to minimize that is falls within the
Speaker 1: scope of what I call liberating practices and mindfulness and compassion,
Speaker 1: and this existential gratitude, this gratitude and being alive, which
Speaker 1: I think, frankly is kind of the core of mylest practice,
Speaker 1: I really truly do. I don't think of that as
Speaker 1: a separate practice, and it comes from grounding and a
Speaker 1: certain awareness that we you know, life is selected for us,
Speaker 1: so no accident here, and as we breathe, we are
Speaker 1: in connectedness with this thing we call the environment out there,
Speaker 1: but actually it's always has been a part of our being,
Speaker 1: for which again seems to me, the only right response
Speaker 1: is gratitude. And then from there again, so many different,
Speaker 1: you know, opportunities to free ourselves can emerge if we
Speaker 1: keep remembering that these simple facts in our existence beautiful.
Speaker 1: There's something you said I want to just double click
Speaker 1: on because I very much agree with it, and it's
Speaker 1: that liberation, I would phrase, is a direction, not a destination. Right,
Speaker 1: You never have become because what do you what's what
Speaker 1: happens the moment after? If you like I'm liberated, then
Speaker 1: the moment after you're going to be like, wait, what
Speaker 1: do I do now? With the rest of my life?
Speaker 1: It's always a process, right, And it's always it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a north Star goal, right. I kind of
Speaker 1: view like self actualization, right, you know, like we can
Speaker 1: kind of make choices in the course of our day
Speaker 1: to choose growth, but you know we'll mess up because
Speaker 1: we're human, right, Like, it's not like you know, you
Speaker 1: ever reach the liberation there and you're like perfect the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. I like that you emphasize that.
Speaker 1: Something else I want to double click on from that
Speaker 1: chapter is the fact that you say bringing compassionate mindfulness
Speaker 1: into community based engagement. But this is a common threat
Speaker 1: throughout the whole book. So even earlier in the book,
Speaker 1: you say, as I'll see from my as you'll see
Speaker 1: from my story and those of others you'll meet here,
Speaker 1: healing takes place in community. So this is this is
Speaker 1: the theme you keep coming back to over and over again.
Speaker 1: You brought up the critical race theory kind of criticisms,
Speaker 1: and those discussions get so ugly. Regardless of where you
Speaker 1: stand on I don't I want to. I want us
Speaker 1: to step above for a second and not get into
Speaker 1: the way of the debate. I want to say regard
Speaker 1: because I know that's where you're at with this so
Speaker 1: and I love it regardless of where you stand those
Speaker 1: no one's listening to anyone in this right on, everyone's
Speaker 1: just yelling at each other. And so how can we
Speaker 1: all rise above that using your amazing work of mindfulness
Speaker 1: of the community healing and then truly truly listening to
Speaker 1: each other because this is the society I think we
Speaker 1: both want. It's more of this act of listening and
Speaker 1: less immediate knee jerk response, right, right, right, And I
Speaker 1: think of these things on multiple levels. Right, you know,
Speaker 1: there are things that we can do and we will do,
Speaker 1: and we are doing even in this conversation, I would say, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: to offer yeah, right, you know, models and ways of
Speaker 1: kind of practicing listening for understanding and connection, and really
Speaker 1: that's that could be his whole, whole spiritual path I
Speaker 1: think right and whole self development path. How can I
Speaker 1: practice listening and speaking for connection and understanding? What are
Speaker 1: the other goals that people have for listening and speaking
Speaker 1: other than right? Because to practice for understanding and connection
Speaker 1: is to invite inquiry? What are the why? What else
Speaker 1: are we trying to do with some of our communications?
Speaker 1: Are we trying to understand or or are we trying
Speaker 1: to experience power over in some way? Be right? But
Speaker 1: also come across this right, but again even more so
Speaker 1: now the systemic collective piece. All of this is happening
Speaker 1: within a broader environment. It's not just the interpersonal dynamics
Speaker 1: which are so important in which we you know, do
Speaker 1: do we recognize and we take agency for? And yes?
Speaker 1: And right? We live in a world you know, people
Speaker 1: are making money, how making aggrandizing and developing and building
Speaker 1: up power through the manipulations of our emotions, are you
Speaker 1: know our communities? Frankly these so so In other words,
Speaker 1: we're up against a lot right now when it comes
Speaker 1: to this being willing to see more clearly more of
Speaker 1: what we're up against. That isn't just I'm not skillful
Speaker 1: or I'm not being the best person. It is that
Speaker 1: it is part of you know, It's partly like can
Speaker 1: I be more skillful, can I listen a little bit
Speaker 1: more with little less judgment, like a little less judgment,
Speaker 1: and can I put myself in the shoes the other
Speaker 1: a little bit more? But it is also you know,
Speaker 1: recognizing that we on the one hand, have these beautiful,
Speaker 1: lovely devices around us that have enabled so much, including
Speaker 1: us connecting and sharing more richly in the world during
Speaker 1: these pandemic times. Beautiful, absolutely where would I be without
Speaker 1: these devices and the way they have been developed and
Speaker 1: we all now know churns division, right, it's kind of
Speaker 1: is you know, has as a as a profit model,
Speaker 1: the narrowing of minds and the kind of the reinforcing
Speaker 1: of you know, those things that trigger intense emotion, including fear, anxiety,
Speaker 1: that can that lead to this other. So so there
Speaker 1: is you know, so this is where you know that
Speaker 1: strong brought back that sort of you know, how do
Speaker 1: we act in wise relationship not only to how our
Speaker 1: own personal conditionings, our upbringings, right, the things we learned,
Speaker 1: the things we haven't prefigured us to be open or
Speaker 1: not to what we are hearing from another person. That's
Speaker 1: really important, and that's you know, we have some control
Speaker 1: over that. We must make the most of that. And
Speaker 1: I think how we relate to technology and need and
Speaker 1: the different ways that that organized efforts are arrayed at
Speaker 1: kind of keeping us diluted and keeping us at you know,
Speaker 1: loggerheads and at pointed spears at each other. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not just happening, It's not just natural. So
Speaker 1: how how are we in wise relationship with the whole
Speaker 1: array from like my personal what's happening into personally, how
Speaker 1: and where we meet the structures for that, because all
Speaker 1: of those things are part of the I would say,
Speaker 1: the ecology for justice and for connection that we work with,
Speaker 1: like so bringing awareness to every dimension, the personal, the interpersonal,
Speaker 1: the sort of social where we meet and how who's
Speaker 1: in charge and right, how we set up the rooms.
Speaker 1: All of these things matter. But also this you know,
Speaker 1: really hard first world, high level edgy problem of existential
Speaker 1: crisis of how we were with technology more wise, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of that has to be brought into our conversation
Speaker 1: and I think we can though with compassion. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: really glad you brought that up, and I would yes
Speaker 1: end this and say that I see the media, mainstream
Speaker 1: media is a big problem with this, with the silos
Speaker 1: of the very you know, like c and envers Fox
Speaker 1: News for instance, Like you couldn't talk about two completely
Speaker 1: different worlds with two completely different worldviewsut about humanity. We
Speaker 1: need like a different I want to opt out of
Speaker 1: all of that and have like a one a oneness
Speaker 1: news tattle or something that takes into account the principles
Speaker 1: you put forward in your liberation liberating sorry liberating chapter,
Speaker 1: things like expanding the circle of compassion, deepening healing for ourselves,
Speaker 1: contemplating all humanity as one family, deepening the path of wisdom.
Speaker 1: Where's that in the news cycle? Exactly? Where's where's the
Speaker 1: pr campaign for? For all that it is? Seriously well
Speaker 1: money is it all about money, money and power over
Speaker 1: There's no money and power over right as opposed to
Speaker 1: power with with right money equally as much money and
Speaker 1: power with How do we have that world? What? There
Speaker 1: is at least some And I think that's part of that,
Speaker 1: That is a part of the reality. Like you know,
Speaker 1: we are finding ways to amplify more of the good.
Speaker 1: But it is true, I mean some of it isn't
Speaker 1: saleable and some of it will never be, you know,
Speaker 1: something that we can profiteer off of and shouldn't be frankly,
Speaker 1: and this is radically counterculture for me to talk about
Speaker 1: like things we should be engaged in that are that
Speaker 1: will never make us money and shouldn't be about making
Speaker 1: us money. But I think that's yeah, it's it's you
Speaker 1: know again, this is where again my heart, I have
Speaker 1: to put a handle of the heart because we are yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we Yes, it's painful, it is. We're all suffering.
Speaker 1: We're all suffering in different ways, right in different ways.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, I don't. I take this as
Speaker 1: like you like healthy inspire each others. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: I you know, we could we could talk about this
Speaker 1: forever and hopefully in a certain way we will, if
Speaker 1: not explicitly, but just nowhere in conversation where we are
Speaker 1: about these these really really important aspects of in a way,
Speaker 1: the dilemma. So, I mean, I guess I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm a law have been trained in
Speaker 1: a law in law and worked as a law professor
Speaker 1: for so many years, you know, I am kind of
Speaker 1: aware that again life law professor and mindful the teachers
Speaker 1: life is multi dimension. My existence is multi It's like
Speaker 1: it's I can at the same time be aware of
Speaker 1: the oneness that interconnects us, all us as as being
Speaker 1: part of one family already who all belong already and
Speaker 1: don't really have to struggle for that, and at the
Speaker 1: same time recognize that for us to work together in
Speaker 1: the world to minimize the harm that we do as
Speaker 1: we go forth, you know, seeking to make the most
Speaker 1: of our own agency in the social realm. We do
Speaker 1: need agreements, we do need ways of working together, and
Speaker 1: we do need ways of trying to find collective consensus
Speaker 1: or non violent ways of resolving conflict. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: there are It's I think therefore, I'm always trying to
Speaker 1: be a student of you know, political science and philosophy,
Speaker 1: and if someone could show me in more effective way
Speaker 1: for human beings to come together than the hard work
Speaker 1: of trying to despite our different backgrounds, despite our different languages,
Speaker 1: despite our different cultures, find the common ground in any conversation,
Speaker 1: in any community, find the capacity to resolve a conflict
Speaker 1: peacefully for today, provisionally we know we may come back again,
Speaker 1: but for today we've agreed this is how we resolve
Speaker 1: will resolve it, and we'll live another day to meet
Speaker 1: and share and maybe come to another result. In other words,
Speaker 1: what we have called the rule of law and democracy
Speaker 1: as opposed to every other kind of way seems to
Speaker 1: be the best approximation we can find for a kind
Speaker 1: of public frame for discourse that allows for you know,
Speaker 1: more free expression, more of these liberating practices, right, more
Speaker 1: of us to kind of find our own way. And
Speaker 1: so while you know, I'm aware that you know, democratic
Speaker 1: rule of law activity political is not necessarily the ultimate
Speaker 1: when I think about, you know, just the basic challenge
Speaker 1: of like living with neighbors who come from different parts
Speaker 1: of the world, and oh it helps to have rules
Speaker 1: by which we drive on this side of the road
Speaker 1: and not that side, and we stop themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: just basic things that keep us from killing each other.
Speaker 1: To kind of arrive at those kinds of that those
Speaker 1: you know, right, we don't need the hat to have
Speaker 1: a provisional consensus, these ways of coming at provisional consensus.
Speaker 1: That's what to me, law has always been, you know,
Speaker 1: at its highest invests, is seeking to help us do
Speaker 1: and so we have to keep investing in the inputs
Speaker 1: of the ability to use language as bad as it is, right,
Speaker 1: as manipulable as it is, but nevertheless, we have to
Speaker 1: resist that cynicism that says, you know, words don't matter,
Speaker 1: and trying to talk to each other and listen to
Speaker 1: each other is just you know, never war. I think
Speaker 1: we have to pull ourselves back always. The temptation is
Speaker 1: to pull ourselves back from the kind of abyss of
Speaker 1: cynicism that can come from this kind of awareness of
Speaker 1: the infallibility of language, or you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: indeterminacy of it. Like you know, the word dignity community thing,
Speaker 1: I can you know, I could use it, Hitler could
Speaker 1: use it. I mean, it's like, nevertheless, if we can
Speaker 1: come together around the circles, around the tables, the campfires,
Speaker 1: in our starting at home, in our community and our
Speaker 1: schools with humility, with love, if you will and say
Speaker 1: that word in this podcast right with love, with care,
Speaker 1: then you know, all we can do is keep meeting
Speaker 1: each other around that campfire with some commitment to care
Speaker 1: and figuring out what language works for today and maybe
Speaker 1: use another language tomorrow, but not missing that we're just
Speaker 1: human beings struggling to find what works to keep us
Speaker 1: from killing each other. Rightly, and keep us thriving in
Speaker 1: the abundant appreciation of the gift of this life beautiful.
Speaker 1: I'm going to end quoting you. You say I have
Speaker 1: suffered enough. You have suffered enough. We have all suffered enough.
Speaker 1: May we bring ourselves into continual conversation with one another
Speaker 1: and with the racial injustices here and now, ending the
Speaker 1: suffering and making things right one moment, one risk, one
Speaker 1: luminous reconnection at a time. I'm really glad to make
Speaker 1: a connection with you. I look forward to a reconnection
Speaker 1: another time. Thanks for the real important work you're doing
Speaker 1: in this world. I really support it. And thanks for
Speaker 1: being on my show today. Oh my gosh, thank you, Scott.
Speaker 1: Same same. I reflect that all back to you. Thank
Speaker 1: you for you really important work. And it's an honor
Speaker 1: to be in this conversation with you. Yes, may it
Speaker 1: continue in some ways explicit and implicit from here. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thanks Rondon, Thank you, thanks for listening to this episode
Speaker 1: of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in
Speaker 1: some way to something you heard, I encourage you to
Speaker 1: join in the discussion at thusycologypodcast dot com. We're on
Speaker 1: our YouTube page the Psychology Podcast. We also put up
Speaker 1: some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well,
Speaker 1: so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being
Speaker 1: such a great supporter of the show, and tune in
Speaker 1: next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.