Where I Least Expect It

I came across this beautiful quote today from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, in a book called The Way of Tenderness. It says, “The way of tenderness appears on its own. It comes when the events of your life have rendered you silent, have sat you in a corner, and there is nothing left to do but sit until the mental distress or confusion about who you are or who you are not passes.” (p.28) This quote interests me because Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is trying to ask whether enlightenment touches upon identity, gender, race and class. Is spiritual work about sidestepping identity to achieve some permanent bliss, or is it about facing that we are all identities in a complicated social matrix, which includes hatred and oppression? Manuel suggests that the heart of enlightened being is in the midst of facing oppression and working with the raw tenderness that undercuts suffering from oppression and hatred. To try to deny this is to try to seek peace in a concept rather than in the lived experience of all beings.

I find it interesting that Manuel chooses tenderness as the way to express enlightened being. When I think of tenderness, I think of a newborn shoot, or an insect that has just shed its old skin. The rawness is so vulnerable yet so connected with all being, mirroring the delicate movements of the world, whether in love or hate. And tenderness also seems both fragile and strong at the same time. To suffer the painful wound and yet be able to bear it and hold it up for others to see, is a display of courage. It is not very often that human beings can have trust in the world that would allow them to face that tender and vulnerable part that feels what the world feels.

As I was reading this quote, I also reflected that there is another kind of tenderness which is not often associated with the pain of a newborn. I think it is the tenderness of uncertainty. I most relate to this tenderness, because it is the kind that often feels close to the surface and accessible to me. It is also hinted at in this quote, when Manual refers to being rendered “silent”, “sitting in a corner”, with “nothing to do but sit.” One of the most painful things I have experienced is the sense that things lie await to happen but there is no clear way of knowing what it is. I think this is the potency of emptiness. Rather than waiting for that realization of emptiness, I go the other way and try to anticipate and control every perceived danger that could happen to me.

And this also seems to be one of the sources of oppression, where one group arbitrarily controls others on the basis of appearances, for resources and for status. But it seems that the roots of that is a fear of uncertainty. Nobody wants to stand naked to the world and having to trust that others are me and me others. It is too unproven, too unconfirmed, and it means that people might suffer the same pain they might have felt when they were very young and exposed to fearful elements. And the times when one does face this fear is the times when, as Manuel suggests, we have no choice but to do so; our ego is ‘in the proverbial corner.’ The reason this practice is so hard and difficult is that it seems to go against the quest for certainty that often begins in school.

Mind does not just seek out blissful experiences. It is also mirroring disconnection and the everyday pain that lies beneath the surface of social being. To give up expectation is to almost risk giving up even the teachings of Dharma, knowing that they are only pointing to that raw tenderness that Manuel describes.

Manuel, Zenju Earthlyn,  (2015) The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender. Boston: Wisdom Publications.