The Streets of Minneapolis
Like many of you I watched as the people of Minneapolis responded to 3,000 ice agents flooding their city in what the federal government termed the Metro surge. Community members left their warm homes and walked out into the freezing snow filled streets in the thousands to protest and bear witness to the plight of their immigrant neighbors. What is it about Minneapolis that not only spearheaded the black lives matter movement but came together courageously to oppose ice raids? While exploring this question I had the good fortune to attend a talk given by Ben Connelly, a Soto Zen teacher living in Minneapolis who was involved with community activism in Minneapolis from the start. He described some of the seeds that were planted long before the ice raids, seeds that came to fruit when the community was threatened.
It turns out, Minneapolis has a history of community multi faith organizing. Multi faith communities organized around the murder of George Floyd, were active in support of marriage equality and in indigenous efforts to stop a pipe line from being built under the Mississippi river. An interfaith coalition on migration sat vigil outside immigration court for over 8 years before the raids. Not all their efforts bore visible fruit, the pipeline was built despite their efforts, but the community was developing legs. In all these activities ceremony and song were a part of the resistance. The communities connection before the ice raids enabled them to mobilize quickly when the need arose. Ben Connelly said, “It wouldn’t have worked without a lot of really deep beautiful relationships that already existed.”
Anyone with open eyes can see the surge towards authoritarianism in America and beyond. The actors in these events are using age old techniques, trying to set neighbor against neighbor, playing on a sense of helplessness and fear and promising to take care of our issues if we just cede our power. Meanwhile they empty out our pockets and take away our freedoms. We can see how this movement to control a large population ends in the authoritarian governments of China and Russia. It is naïve to think the same thing cannot happen here. It feels like an impossible situation.
Every morning before meditation I set myself 4 impossible tasks:
Creations are numberless, I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them.
Reality is boundless, I vow to perceive it.
The awakened way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it.
These 4 bodhisattva vows recited by Zen practitioners are not so much a to do list as a way to orient our sights towards true north, to have an experience of not knowing. This is the Zen practice. When Gandhi followed his Hindu teachings in developing the non- violent movement that led to a free India, the idea of a free India was an impossibly far flung vision. When Martin Luther King Jr. followed his Christian faith to call for freedom and dignity for his people there was no assurance of a civil rights act or any Federal support. The courageous resisters put themselves in danger without any assurance that their efforts would bear fruit. They walked in not knowing. As we face the spiritual crisis of rampant greed, fear and hatred our response is not solely Hindu or Christian, Jewish or Buddhist, it is multi religious. Rabbis, Zen monks, priests, Imams and those who are spiritual but not religious are coming together to stand up for love, community and basic human values. The task looks impossible, but impossible has always been the purview of sincere spiritual practice. To stand for love without becoming hateful, to explore the edges of courage and push on those edges, to not see an enemy but a fellow community member acting out of their own pain and fear, to awaken to our true nature.
As a Zen practitioner who is committed to not knowing, bearing witness and compassionate action the people of Minneapolis are my teachers. Their lessons are about the importance of building a strong multi-cultural community network like the mycelium that invisibly supports the land under our feet. Rather than hopelessly trying to change things from the top down the people of Minneapolis have formed a strong grass roots cradle. There is trauma and sadness involved in their efforts, this is a difficult and painful situation, but they continually lift one another up. No one is alone. Coming at life from this sense of abundance and community rather than scarcity and loneliness is the antidote to the greed and fear that is being stoked. It’s so important to remember that resistance to cruelty and divisiveness is not founded on a dark, lonely emptiness. The opposite is true. There is a lot of joy, creativity and juiciness in resisting a dark path. In fact, it’s the best party in town! There is bound to be a party in your area. This is your engraved invitation. Go have some fun and align with what you know, in every fiber of your being, to be a beautiful life!
The above painting is inspired by the winter resistance on the streets of Minneapolis