Last week I wrote about the camaraderie and solidarity among the folks who’d sat the silent meditation retreat at Vallecitos. For that time together, we formed a community of shared experience. It made me wonder, how can we create common memory and connection with people who don’t share our views and experience, given how divided our country feels right now? How can we join to face history and ourselves with mindfulness and compassion?
At dinner last night, I was talking with the mother of two high school kids who told me that what they’re learning in history class doesn’t reflect much of the truth of our history. We know that our country owes much of its land and prosperity to broken treaties and slavery, and that many of our greatest founding fathers and mothers were also racist owners of native lands and African slaves. Until we are able to learn, acknowledge and freely share the truth about our history, the present moment will be colored with delusion.
I think of mindfulness as honesty, opening a window to seeing clearly and telling the truth. This is one path I know to healing and reconciliation of our differences and conflicts. At InsightLA you can walk on this path with us, a path of white awareness, equity, and inclusion of all – of all our stories, our past, present and future together. Georges Erasmus, an Aboriginal leader from Canada, said, “Where common memory is lacking… there can be no real community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created.”
Love, Trudy