Sitting in the cauldron that is spiritual training gives rise to a panorama of experiences.  Some are accompanied by awe and a belief that learning is happening.  Some are accompanied by heart-crushing despair that anything could grow on such hard ground.  But the depth of penetration of Dharma rain is imperceptible to the ordinary eye.  At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

In an ironic twist, what would become the recurring theme of this training began on my drive home from out-of-town work last Thursday, the day before I was to leave for Upaya and the Chaplaincy Program.  I was racing to get home in time to unpack so I could pack again; a comforting ritual before every trip I take.  I drafted in behind a tanker hauling flammable material and tried to keep a good distance as we wound along the two lane highway.  The back of the tanker was a round, silver mirror and my car was reflected dead center of the steel plate.   Stretching out on either side of the reflected car were the dividing line of the highway and the  white line along the shoulder of the road, making the scene a parallax  in a mirror enso.

Viewed from the car I was driving, I realized I was seeing where I had been at the same time as where I was going.  Past in present; present in future.  This theme of convergence played out over and over the following days in training as my biography and biology converged to give different perspectives of each moment, each relationship.  What I believed was my self-story, or biography, often diverted events along lines of loss and lack.  Listening to my body and quietly calming the ramping up of anger, fear or confusion corrected the story arc (there’s always a story arc).  Be careful when it’s appropriate to be careful.  Speak up when likely to be heard.  Offer but don’t take offense at the response and yet notice the heart turning away.

Over the week, ancient themes of connection and loss, protection and wounding, were compiled and re-organized in this anthology I call The Story of Me.  It’s not done.  It will never be done because every moment is an occasion for a different perspective on what is unfolding.  We can’t erase events that make up our history; we can’t reconfigure the past.  But we can take the opportunity to view them from a different angle and in that way know how to understand and adjust our position in the present.

Dharma teacher Cheri Maples (Tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh) led a retreat on ways in which we are lead by our unconscious biases.  She talked about unearned assets; those behaviours and benefits we accrue simply because we belong to a class, race, or other form of an in-group.  I don’t want to say much but offer this to you as an exercise.

What are some of the benefits that come to you simply by virtue of your membership in a socioeconomic class, a race or ethnicity that is the dominant group in your culture, a gender or sexual group, a position in an organization, and/or a religious community of practice?

What are you assumptions about what has accrued to persons in other groups?   This is a tough one so an example would be the assumption I often run into that being Asian means I’m good at Math or am diminutively cooperative.  While the former is true, it’s less about being Asian and more about not being diminutive in any way at all.

These are the unconscious biases from which we make decisions about ourselves and others.

Can you uncover at least one that had fostered a belief in yourself as entitled or unworthy?