Mindfulness is evolving back into its original intention of being a practice of liberation. These ancient systems of thought are being deciphered and light is being shined on the liberation theology behind these living principles. Systems like the dharma and Christian tenets were never intended to be excluded from social politics hiding away from the people locked away in a mountain. They were never meant to be pure capitalistic endeavors, but work to improve the lives that we lead. Through the work of beautiful liberation centered teachers spiritual monarchies are dissolving and being replaced with a inclusive language intended to release people from the confines of binary constructs.
A philosophy that recognizes the interwoven lives of all beings but equally recognizes the destruction that has come out of the illusions of race, separation, and etc. Recognizing the economic, racial, social, and environmental issues people go through and having the humility to shift themselves. White practitioners are going to have the courage to examine how they carry whiteness wherever they go. Continuing to carry assumptions and disregard of experiences into spaces that need to be seen the most. This recognition will bring light to our loneliness and most people have a tendency to cover their eyes and ears from societal issues that seem out of control, but when someone helps you understand the power of the community that burden is eased or it develops a belief it can be faced. Hopefully this revolution continues to evolve into a practice that celebrates togetherness during suffering. America has this obsession with the victor, the champion, and unfortunately not every situation has or even requires a winner or loser. Teaching with revolutionary mindsets are introducing a practice of inclusion allowing all genders, codes, men, women, trans, cis and every other facets of the humanity filled spectrum into a space with a language for their experience.
I do not know how much I believe in a liberation from suffering, but I very much value a embracing of life. A liberation from the resentment of suffering. Which means an embracing of every heartbreak, every lost connection, unrequited love, joy, sex, laughter, and loneliness. Embracing means acceptance an allowing of all those moments in life we wish to fast forward. Nothing will ever take away the desire to be held by someone that love you, but masturbation, drugs, prostitutes will not take the beauty of being held. However I believe embracing the moment when you crave touch the most will help us have a deep appreciate for the impermanence of our existence. The fact of the temporality of our situation is always subdued by the permanence of change, and I believe we get that enlighten through embracing every moment especially the ones we run from the most. Ubuntu is a zulu word meant to call attention to the connectedness of human existence. A word meant to mean if you are suffering then I am also suffering. Your health and righteousness enhances mine and we shall be strong.
The rise of Europe and competition has penned brother against brother and the belief in the separateness of the individual. Also, I am not attempting to overlook the positive side of this development, but it has severed our connection to each other. Profit has become our motive for waking up out of the bed, and anxiety about the state of our wealth is revealed in the selfishness blaring from the institutions and politicians we elect. We praise the development of the individual, while relinquishing ourselves to corporations and politicians that completely rampage the world we live and die on. True mindfulness must acknowledge this false separation so we can walk into the light of loving the world around us.
The truth of your experience is exactly what someone needs in the darkness of their private life. We can fill those spaces with laughter, breathe, love, touch and the beauty of vulnerability. The mindfulness revolution is more than a shifting of social media presence it is more than POC making money in the field. We are watching a generation shift in the language of suffering for black people, similar to the work of Richard wright when he expressed our angry, James Baldwin, when he expressed our battles with our sex, and Toni Morrison putting our sexism and our yearning for sexual desire on display. We have an opportunity through the use of story telling entering intimate spaces completely shining a light on our despair. When a story is told and suddenly the realization that we are not the only ones in the world to go through that pain a relief comes. There a some emotions that are so quick but hit so deep there is no time to describe that discomfort, but when you get in a space and someone brings the language to that pain the light can help you clean up that space.
I am because you are, means we share the same pain, the same loneliness, confusion but also liberation. POC activists and revolutionaries entering the spaces of healing with a language that does not remove itself from the world is a necessity. There are intimates to my experience that must be told because I do not contain the language for everything. I ask everyone with an experience that is living a life no matter how silent, how dreary or inarticulable do your best to get into space where light can be shined on something you have not found the language to speak.