Deep Diversity

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Deep Diversity. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 10, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Deep Diversity

When I was young, I grew up in four different countries. There was a period of time where we would actually move between them every year, sometimes twice a year. It was a lot of moving and a lot of living in different countries. I was born in Norway, and one of those four places was the United States, so I was a foreigner in this country. I had this strong wish at the time that I didn't tell anyone about; it was just something I thought about in my mind. I really wished I could get a United Nations passport. I had heard there was such a thing. I didn't want to belong to any particular country, I wanted to belong to the whole world. I wanted to just be global, to belong everywhere.

Some of that was born from seeing the divisiveness that happened between countries. I grew up with parents and grandparents who went through World War II. I was young enough in the 60s to really still experience the aftereffects of World War II and the divisions between countries. This idea of choosing your country against other countries was very painful, living in these divisions.

That was my wish. Now I've been living here on the Peninsula for about 30 years—I guess 28 years living here, but 33 years of being here because I started going to school at Stanford in 1990. One of the great delights for me in living here on the Peninsula is how, over these years, it has gotten increasingly cosmopolitan. So maybe I don't need to have an international passport; I just live here. I appreciate more and more the diversity of people from all over the world who come here, and the diversity within this country. I feel like it's much richer, and personally, I feel like it's much safer to live in a diverse community.

The representation of that was in all this jumping around I did. When I was 20, I lived for four months in the biggest hippie commune in the United States. It was 700 people who lived in a place called The Farm in Tennessee. How a bunch of Haight-Ashbury hippies ended up in Tennessee is a whole story. When they were in Haight-Ashbury, or locally in the 60s, LSD was kind of like the sacrament for this group of people. They had a spiritual bent of sorts. But when they went to Tennessee, it didn't really work well to take a lot of LSD back then. When I went there to visit for a few days, the leadership of the community was actually in jail for a year because of such things. They came out while I was still there.

They had to find another way. They realized, "We can't do LSD anymore here; we have to find something equivalent we can do that's legal." The amazing thing they came upon was honesty. Isn't that pretty cool, that honesty is equivalent to LSD? Now there's a resurgence of psychedelic interest in society, but I haven't seen the same resurgence of honesty. But if honesty and psychedelics are equivalent, let's get high on honesty!

I was so impressed by this; it really blew me away. Seeing how this community had developed capacities to have these honest conversations was the reason I stayed more than two or three days. I ended up staying for four months and learned a lot from them. I was inspired. It was actually my introduction to spirituality. I had no background in religion or spirituality before that, but this exploration of honesty was a doorway into the spiritual world.

But the reason I left was that it was a homogeneous culture for the most part. They were all people like me: white, middle-class hippies. I had grown up in so many different cultures that I didn't feel safe being around people who were too much like me. So, I left for that reason. Some people would have stayed because they felt comforted by that, feeling like, "Now I belong, and now we're all right together." But I actually felt it wasn't quite right to do that, because it's very easy to end up with a very strong "us versus them" mentality.

Recently, in a training I'll tell you about, they gave an example of this using sports. Apparently, there's a phenomenon, a double standard, where if a referee's or umpire's call is a little bit ambiguous, but it favors your team, you think, "Well, that must be right." But if it's an ambiguous call and the referee rules against your team, people get really upset. The opposite happens with the other team. If a call is ambiguous but favors the other team, we get upset, thinking the referees have it all wrong and we need new referees. But if the referee penalizes the other team, then we think, "Yeah, of course."

There's a bias towards forgiving or seeing the rightness of your own group and the wrongness of another group. You see that dramatically when watching people watch sports. It's amazing how strong their opinions can be and how outraged they can be about referees when calls go against their own team. That's representative of a deep bias that can operate in people when we have an "us versus them" dynamic.

I kind of feel uncomfortable watching sports. I guess I am kind of weird by societal standards; competitive sports are strange to me. I mostly root for the team that's losing. [Laughter] I like soccer because it can end in a tie, zero-zero or one-one. When I was in college in the 70s, there was a little movement of what was called alternative games that people played. There were books written about these fun games you could play that were non-competitive. That is wonderful, though maybe we lose something in the process too.

Deep Diversity Training

I want to tell you a little bit about a training that about 30 of us did here at IMC, called Deep Diversity. Here at IMC, we've spent a lot of time looking at diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. Some of us here have read a lot about this—some much more than me. We've settled on a particular approach to this work that we feel really fits who we are. We found it through a book called Deep Diversity. The author co-founded an organization called Anima Leadership, and they offer trainings.

Thirty of us did the training two weeks ago, and I thought it was quite wonderful. At various times, we've had book groups here at IMC reading Deep Diversity, with some of our Sangha leaders guiding the discussions. We're going to begin bringing more of this Deep Diversity work to IMC, so I wanted to talk a little bit about this today in the context of our practice and what we do here dharmically.

The Buddha's Teachings on Equality

I want to begin with a sutta—a discourse from the teachings of the Buddha. Someone came to the Buddha and said, "There are these four castes: the nobles, the brahmins, the merchants, and the workers. Two of them, the nobles and the brahmins, are held to be superior. People pay homage to them, rise up for them, accord them reverential salutation, and offer polite services."

Are there people like that in this country? People who are held to be superior, to whom people pay homage and give more respect than others? Do we rise up for them when they come, or listen to them more, treating their voices as more important than others? Are there people in this country who are reverentially saluted, and people who are not? Do some people receive preferential, polite services?

Periodically, I hear from people who say, "I went to a store, and the person there just ignored me. I was there first, I was in line first, and I just felt invisible." Sometimes when people get older, they say they feel invisible in society; people overlook them for that reason. People are ignored racially. I remember going to Costco to get new tires for my car. There was a Black woman sitting there, and I came in later. The clerk came to me first, so I turned to the woman and asked, "Were you here first?" She said yes. She seemed okay with it, and we actually became friends, which was very nice. But to see this kind of thing happen over and over again in our society is quite something.

We might not use terms like "brahmins" or "nobles," but we still have enough of this in our society that I think we can recognize it. So maybe the question is: do these distinctions exist here in our society in a similar way?

In the sutta, there's a recognition of these different castes, and then the question is asked: is there a real distinction or difference among them? The caste system was just taken for granted. The Buddha answers indirectly at first. He says there are five abilities for effort, five efforts we can engage in.

First, we have the ability to awaken faith, confidence, and deep trust in something. He gives the example of trusting the capacity for human beings to become enlightened—to become free and liberated from their suffering. It is possible to have deep faith in that.

Second, it's possible to work for and make the effort toward becoming healthy. That can be problematic depending on how it's worded, because sometimes people don't get physically healthy. However, you can get spiritually healthy even if you're chronically ill. There can be an effort towards some kind of inner health.

Third, there is the effort to be honest and sincere. That is something we have the ability to do. One is honest and sincere, showing oneself as one actually is to one's teacher and companions in the spiritual life.

Fourth, one can be energetic. We can really put effort into abandoning the unhelpful things that we do. There are plenty of people who do unhelpful things, even harmful or unskillful things. Sometimes this is called "unwholesome" in Buddhism. I like to call it "unhealthy," because it's easier to identify with. Sometimes what we do is unhealthy for other people, not just for ourselves. But we have the ability to make an effort to stop doing things which are unhealthy, and we have the ability to undertake helpful, wholesome, and skillful things. We can be steadfast, firm, and persevering in cultivating these healthy behaviors. We have that capacity.

Fifth, we have the ability to be wise. In particular, we have the ability to be wise about how radically changeable this reality we live in is, how much change there is in human experience. Whether it's change moment by moment, or change year by year, societies change, all kinds of things change. For Buddhists, recognizing that change^[1] is the catalyst for spiritual liberation, leading to the complete end of our own psychological suffering^[2].

So we have the ability to develop faith, to develop some kind of health, to develop honesty, to let go of the unskillful and develop the skillful, and to have this wisdom about the changing nature of our experience. That is the Buddha's first answer about the distinction between people. He doesn't directly answer the question yet, but he is setting the stage for it.

Then the Buddha says, "There certainly are these four castes: the nobles, the brahmins, the merchants, and the workers. Now, if they possess these five factors, would there be any difference among them in this respect?" First, he establishes these five abilities people have. Then he asks what distinctions we can make between people in regard to these five factors.

He makes an analogy: there are elephants, horses, and oxen that have the ability to be tamed. If you have oxen, horses, and elephants that have been well tamed, would you call them tamed? Yes, we call them tamed. What about those that have the ability to be tamed, but don't get tamed? Would you call them tamed and well-disciplined? No.

He applies the same principle to these five factors. These factors are things you can develop. There are those who develop them, and those who don't. That is the distinction the Buddha wants to make. Everyone has this ability, but he wants to make a distinction between those who develop this capacity all the way to freedom and those who don't. Those who develop the capacity to be honest, and those who don't. Those who develop the capacity to avoid doing harmful things, and those who don't.

Then he goes on to use another analogy. Back then, they rubbed sticks together to make fire. He lists five different kinds of trees and asks: if you take oak wood and rub it together, or if you take manzanita wood, or fir, and you make a fire, is the fire different each time? No, the fire is the same. It's the same for anyone in the four castes. If they actually develop these five capacities, they make the same spiritual fire. They cultivate the same qualities inside themselves. If they develop those things, then there are no distinctions between them that the Buddha thinks are relevant.

Elsewhere, in different suttas, the same idea appears. He asks, "Can people in any of the castes kill?" Yes. "Can they also abstain from killing?" Yes, equally. What about taking what is not given^[3]—stealing or not stealing? What about sexual misconduct, lying, or intoxicating themselves? People of all castes can engage in these behaviors, or abstain from them, equally. He concludes that there is no relevant distinction between them; they are all equal in their capacity for ethical behavior. Can everyone develop a heart of loving-kindness^[4] that is boundless and includes everyone? Yes, everyone can do that, regardless of caste. Therefore, there is no real, relevant distinction between them.

So, the Buddha is making distinctions between people, but not recognizing any distinction that makes one person inherently superior to another based on caste, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Instead, the distinctions that matter to the Buddha are based on how people live and behave ethically, and what qualities they develop inside themselves. Those distinctions have value for the Buddha, but they do not separate people into "superior" and "inferior."

Speaking Up and Recognizing Bias

That is interesting. Perhaps even more interesting is that just as the Buddha gave people instructions in meditation practice and ethical living, he also instructed that we should speak up if people are harming others. If people are killing, stealing, lying, engaging in sexual misconduct and sexual harm, or causing harm through their intoxication, not only should we abstain from these actions ourselves, but we should also speak up and encourage others not to do them. He never said we should speak up to be oppositional, but rather to point out that this behavior doesn't work, that it is unhealthy, and that the opposite is much better.

Here, the Buddha does make distinctions, but not about who is superior or inferior. The emphasis is on how people behave. Our actions and how we live our lives make a difference, and we want to speak up. In our society, we have plenty of people who are killing—literally killing others, or killing their spirit. We have many situations in the United States where there is taking what is not given. Consider the discussions about climate change and our consumption of resources. These resources haven't been freely given to us; there's a strong taking of what's not given going on in our society and in our world. It doesn't take much to see that there are reasons to speak up.

But how do we speak up? I think one of the things that Buddhism emphasizes is not to speak up until you've looked deeply at yourself. Understand what is skillful and unskillful, what is healthy and unhealthy in your own heart first. Don't act from your greed, hate, or delusion. Monitor yourself. Learn about yourself and how these forces work. Learn to recognize how you get caught in attachments in your social relationships and your life situations. Learn to recognize when you get tense, reactive, and judgmental. Learn to recognize when you're watching a sports game and get caught up in what the referee has done, attached to an outcome without realizing it. When you recognize that, maybe you can become less attached. You can be more fair—I don't know if impartial is the right word—and avoid these double standards.

In the Deep Diversity training we did, they emphasized this quite a bit. They told us about a representative study that had a big impact on me. There are lots of these kinds of studies; this is just one representative of a whole class that come to the same conclusion. It's called the Thomas Meyer study. They took a group of lawyers and gave them a legal brief to analyze, consider, and rate on a scale of one to five. This brief had a lot of mistakes in it—22 mistakes, some grammatical and some legal. They didn't tell the lawyers about the mistakes; they just said to read and rate it.

As part of the study, they told some lawyers that the brief was written by a Black person, and others that it was written by a white person. It was exactly the same document; only the stated racial identity of the author was different. When the lawyers assumed it was a white author, the average score was 4.1 out of 5. When they assumed it was a Black author, the average score was 3.2 out of 5. What a dramatic difference. This is called implicit bias.

The lawyers probably weren't aware they were even doing this. But there are so many ways in which we have this kind of bias that operates, a little bit like the sports team example, or the divide between self and other. Part of the training emphasized over and over again that stereotyping others and having bias is just part and parcel of human life; it comes with being a human being. The way they explained it was that the life we live is so complicated, and the mind is a pattern-recognizing organ. It jumps to patterns and makes conclusions about how things are without really seeing accurately. If we didn't do that to some degree, we wouldn't be able to find our way in the world. Everyone has this, but it is possible to become more and more mindful and aware of how it operates within us. And that is the training.

Skills for Deep Diversity

The Deep Diversity facilitators talked about the skills needed to live wisely in a diverse society. It was like it came right out of the book for Dharma practice. I loved it.

First, have compassion. Accept the existence of bias. Accept that it exists, have a vision of the possibility of being free of being caught by it, free of attachments, and have the intention to do so.

Catch yourself in the act. This means being mindful. Notice how bias is operating, name it, and analyze it. Name it when you see it within yourself, and analyze what is going on.

Be involved in self-learning. Learn about bias, not only your own but how it works in our society and its social context, because a lot of our biases are learned. To assume that you don't have bias probably means you have more than you realize.

Then there were skills that are not quite so common in Buddhist circles, where we have the most to learn. The first points seemed familiar for us Buddhists, but the next one was to step into courageous conversations. On the whole, Buddhists tend to be conflict-avoidant. We tend to err on the side of being polite, accepting, and peaceful, but we need these courageous conversations.

The last skill is to develop relationships. If you really want to work to create a society that is less caught by bias, have relationships with people, especially those who are "on the other sports team." When my son was in Little League, I would sometimes intentionally go sit on the opposing team's bleachers. The parents would sit behind the dugout of their respective teams, dividing the sides. I would often go sit with the parents of the opposing team. It felt really weird to sit there, but I wanted to break the divide.

Caring for the Whole

Exploring this topic in a way that is meaningful, maybe fun, and not divisive is one of the reasons why we are now looking into this Deep Diversity approach. There is a lot of divisiveness in the world of diversity, equity, and inclusion. There are many political stances that people take that aren't necessarily recognized as political; they are presented simply as "This is true, and you're wrong, so get on with it." But what Deep Diversity does is remove the divisiveness and recognize that everyone is involved in this. It invites us to take a deep look at it together. While there are limitations to any approach, this has been a wonderful tool, helping us feel welcomed to step into an accepting environment to look closely, have these conversations, and consider how we go forward from here.

The Deep Diversity work involved four different areas. The first was looking at bias itself, recognizing it. The second was understanding the role that emotions play and the influence they have on bias. That is a rich area for mindfulness—to be mindful of emotions and understand them, which aligns very well with the practice we do here. The third area was taking a good look at identity: the identities people have, how we relate to identity, the fluidity of identity, how we react to it, and the respect that stems from it.

The fourth area was power. Because the organization is called Anima Leadership, they focus a lot on leadership. In Buddhism, we like to consider everyone a leader, so stepping into this kind of role is relevant for all of us.

They talked about developing leadership based on caring, rather than power. Authority should come from caring, not from invested power or the social power that people are given. I love the idea that we come from a place of caring for each other, and from that caring arises leadership and meaningful work.

Another quote from that organization that I really liked was: "If you take sides, who's going to see the whole?" In the teachings of the Buddha, he is deeply concerned about the whole. He stated that the highest order of caring is to care for the welfare and happiness of both self and others, and for our whole community. He was very explicit about this: we shouldn't only care about certain people and neglect others.

This gets particularly difficult when harm is being done. I was the chair of an ethics committee for many years—maybe 15 or 17 years, a long time—and I had to mediate conflicts that people had. The approach I took, which I carefully tried to explain to everyone in conflict, was that I was concerned about what was best for everyone involved. Sometimes people were a little shocked by that: "What about the perpetrator?" I would say, "Yes, I'm really concerned about what's best for you. At the same time, what's best for the other person? Let's look for that. Let's find that together."

Eventually, everyone seemed to appreciate that there was value in that approach. It took a lot of work to figure out how to satisfy everybody's needs, but it wasn't trying to keep things adversarial. Everyone needs to benefit; everyone needs to grow. So, who looks at the whole? Who cares for everybody involved in a situation?

The Anima Leadership organization and this Deep Diversity work seem to take that approach in a very nice way. Some people are not going to like it because it's not political enough. There are systemic issues in our society that appear to be more political than personal, and the organization acknowledges that very clearly. Still, I think their approach to addressing these issues is akin to what the leadership here at IMC appreciates.

Community and Closing

So, we finished this four-day training, and it was really cool to go through it, to have these issues raised and look at them in an intentional way. We are hoping, over the next year, to introduce this more to the community. I don't think we're going to do it like I'm doing today, with a captive audience who has to sit and listen to me talk about it—though hopefully it wasn't too bad today, as I am quite inspired by it!

There will be opportunities to sign up for different programs, simple things we're doing to offer this training and exploration in our community. The leadership—some of the teachers, teacher trainees, board members, and others—are excited by this and are investing their time and efforts to bring it into our community.

All of you have the option to be part of this if you'd like. One of the odd things about IMC is that we are a very poorly defined community. That's both a strength and a weakness, and I like the strength part of it. It means that it's open to anyone who comes. If you want to be a member of IMC, just by wanting it, you are. And if you're the kind of person who doesn't like membership in organizations, that's fine, you can come anyway. It's hopefully very fluid. You can participate as it works for you.

We'll be doing this work, and if you found what I've said today interesting, you might think about reading the book Deep Diversity. It's been a very wonderful book for us. One of the values of choosing it is that it gives us, as a community, an opportunity to have a shared vocabulary and shared concepts. Having that shared foundation is really helpful because it makes it much easier to have conversations and to understand one another.

There's tea today, so everyone is welcome to stay. They are setting it up out there, and many of us will go outside to the parking lot afterwards. What I like to do on tea days is ask you to stay an extra couple of minutes to briefly introduce yourself to a couple of people next to you. Sometimes someone is left sitting alone while everyone else turns the other direction. Look around and make sure everyone's included, because inclusion is important. Say hello, even if it's your first time here at IMC. Welcome each other here.

If there's something valuable, interesting, or problematic that came out of this talk that you want to share with your neighbor, that's fine. But it's enough to just say hello and introduce yourself. I look forward to seeing you at tea. Thank you.