Dharma Everywhere

Dharma Everywhere
G Sakamoto

I think for most of us awareness of the Dharma may not be a central part of our everyday life. Its there in the background, but normally not a conscious part of how we might engage the world. When something different occurs, that contrasts our everyday way of seeing things, we may think about or be reminded of the Dharma. This is not to say that we’re bad Buddhists, it simply reflects the way we think about religious life; a Buddhist life is a religious life which is somehow different from our normal life.

In a way it may be a good thing. If we think about Buddhism as something special that needs to be incorporated into to our lives, it separates the Dharma from our experience as human beings. I suppose at some point, when we’re introduced to Buddhism or when we begin to study the Dharma seriously, it may feel like its separate. But the Dharma is not about some other place or some other reality, it is simply about seeing, understanding and experiencing the world as it is.

Buddhism is fundamentally about resolving the difficulties that characterizes human life. Difficulties we experience because we do not see things as they are. We have a tendency to see the world through our likes and dislikes. When we do that, we separate the world up, expressing and experiencing preferences and prejudices. The recent story of the arrest of Harvard Professor, and friend of President Obama, Henry Gates illustrates the difficulties that misperceptions can precipitate.

When professor Gates arrived at the front door of his home after returning from trip to China he couldn’t find his keys so he forced his way into his house. I do that sometimes. Not forced my way into the house, but find myself outside a locked house without a key. Its easy to do. I take the car in for servicing, leave the keys with the dealer, come home, no keys. I keep thinking I should plan better. But professor Gates unable to get into his home forced his way in. A neighbor who saw this take place and not recognizing professor Gates, called police to report a break in. The police arrived and found professor Gates in the house. A confrontation ensued and professor Gates was arrested.

The arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, did not personally know professor Gates. When he arrived at professor Gates’ home, Gates identified himself. Officer Crowley was faced with an unknown. Was this person really who he claimed to be? The person officer Crowley was facing could have been professor Gates who broke into his own home. He could have not been professor Gates and was illegally in the house. He could have been professor Gates and the person who broke into the house was still in the house. If he had known Gates the conversation would probably have been quite different. “Hey Henry forgot your keys again? Ok, have a nice day.” But he did not know Gates and had, at that moment, no way to verify his identity so he asked Gates to step out of the house.

Professor Gates had just arrived and broken into his own home. On a typical trip from Beijing to Boston you would probably be in transit for 18 to 20 hours. Beijing to New York, 13 1/2 hours. Then customs. Then New York to Boston 1 1/2 hours. Then baggage claim and drive time home. He was probably tired when confronted by police. He knew who he was and where he was. Demands by police to identify himself in his own home was probably taken as an affront to his integrity.

In the moment in which Gates and Crowley meet there is a world filled with unknowns. Both Gates and Crowley know who they are but Crowley did not know Gates and Gates did not know Crowley. Not knowing became a cause that could have precipitated many different paths of causal relationships and effects. Fortunately one of the paths that could have unfolded did not; an escalation in agitation and confrontation, and the shooting of professor Gates. You may remember a few years ago a San Jose woman was shot and killed in her home by officers responding to a disturbance. The woman was shot because the officer thought she was wielding a large knife. The knife turned out to be a vegetable peeler.

When we encounter an unknown there is risk. Risk is a possible threat to self and the relationships connect to the self. The threat may be physical or the threat may be to identity. The greater the unknown, the greater the threat can be perceived to be.

We respond to threats with what we know. What we know is shaped by our experience. Our experience is a window through which we see and engage the world. That window of experience presents only a portion of the world. A misperception of the world viewed through that narrow window can have terrible consequences. I hope professor Gates and officer Crowley can agree that misperceptions occurred and get to know each other better.

The tighter we hold on to a particular world view, the more entrenched we become. As we become more deeply entrenched, possible world views that exist outside our known experience become more difficult to recognize becoming unknowns that we might perceive as threats.

The importance and value we place on our world view is an expression of our unenlightened state. We believe our view satisfies what we need to understand the world. Those beliefs reenforce our own views to exclusion of other possibilities.

In Jodo Shinshu we understand that Amida is the cause of our enlightenment, the resolution of difficulties we experience as human beings. That understanding allows us to look openly at our unenlightened state. There is no good or bad, no judgement of our behavior. We are, after all, unenlightened beings. When we are willing to look at the limitations of our world view the boundaries of that view can begin to dissipate.

In the encounter of professor Gates and officer Crowley, fortunately no serious physical injuries occurred. As we consider the casual paths that are unfolding, are views becoming more entrenched or is there recognition of the influence of unknowns at the time of the incident? One path can lead to litigation. Another path can lead to an affirmation of a shared humanity.

Examples of the Dharma are all around us. Our life offers many opportunities to test the validity of Four Noble Truths, the core of the teaching of the Buddha.