I begin typing this post on 21st January from Gaia House. I just finished teaching a retreat yesterday, followed by dinner watching Trump’s inauguration live on YouTube. Nothing really shocks me (which is really sad in itself, if you think about it) but I’m still horrified as I hear him insist on the policies he’s been promising to carry out on day one of his presidency. I can only say I’m sorry, America. “America” because Trump’s policies won’t just affect US citizens, but all Americans, North and South of the country he know rules—not to say the world at large.
The Secular Buddhist Network reposted my last newsletter, and some comments made clear how easily ‘not taking sides’ gets mistaken for not taking any stance at all, not speaking up, or being passive. I have many notes for Part 2 of that reflection, and I’m tempted to go with it this month, but I decide to give that theme a break.
In line with my thoughts, though, I’d like to say to anyone reading this from the US that, if that’s possible for you, please make it your task to understand those who voted differently instead of just assuming their reasons & the specific policies they agree with, reducing them to hateful and plain stupid people. Understandably, the more directly targeted and affected by certain views and actions, the less available one is to do that—and that’s fine. Where you can, though, I think it’s worth trying. It’s what we do the least & what we resist, but it’s also where we can learn and practice.
It’s not about coming to agree with others or condone certain actions because we understand how they arose. And all that, of course, is in addition to advocating for one’s views, protesting, getting involved, etc. I can only say how I cherish the sometimes painful discussions I’ve had with a good friend who, in the Catalan political divide of years ago, was ‘on the other side’, and holds very different views than mine on trans rights.
The eloquent Tim Minchin probably says this much better than I can:
I continue writing this on 23 January from a hotel room in Bristol, resting from all the emotions of the day: this morning I attended my graduation ceremony (one year late, I’m still Spanish…).
The main thought I had throughout today is, as I posted on Instagram, that achievements are always due to the kindness & generosity of others. Like most alwayses, I’m sure there are cases where this isn’t true. And sure, we also achieve things in spite of other people and impediments. Yet there’s a tendency to have an inflated sense of personal responsibility for our successes, and conversely, a decreased one for our mistakes.
There are multitude of people I own my degree to, supportive conditions throughout my life that brought me here today—so many that I cannot list them, and I’ve started a document to try! The most direct help has been that of my supervisor Rupert Gethin. When I was considering places for my PhD, one main reason I chose Bristol was him. As I discovered later, he’s not only an amazing scholar but a wonderful person, and for this reason I believe I could not have chosen better.
I appreciated being guided by someone who, aside from an academic, is also a Buddhist meditator, who brings those beautiful qualities to his work. He was skilful in a way that reminded me of the Buddhist simile of gently tapping cows on either side to prevent them from straying into crop fields. When he disagreed with my view, thought that I was wrong (most probably correctly), or I was displaying bad scholarly attitudes as I’ll describe in a moment, he lead me gently and never confrontationally.
Gethin was also generous with his time, engaging (and perhaps bearing) with me through endless discussions in his office—very often I emerged only to realise it was already dark.
But above all, he role modeled how intelligence is not best shown by clever criticism and spotting mistakes, but by a genuine, wonder-fuelled interest in what someone or something is trying to convey. I am still integrating this lesson.
Some scholars seem driven by conceit and putting others down. I have read articles that perfectly illustrate Woody Allen’s parody of academic feuds: a hilarious story of chess by correspondance. There’s also been a good dose of cynicism and condescendence towards the very tradition of thought & practice under study. All this, luckily, is less and less frequent, and Buddhist Studies is unlearning old colonial habits. (I wrote about this in 'On our fixation with the early texts’.)
This became clearer when I reflected on why Gethin is so widely respected, even by those who disagree with him: he doesn’t do any of what I’ve just described. He approaches what he’s studying as the labour of love that study & research are, just like how philosophy means ‘a love of wisdom’.
Intelligence, I came to understand with him, is not driven by the question “Where are they wrong here?”, but “What are they trying to express?” In order to understand, one must assume the best intention on the part of the other, be that other a scholar, an ancient Buddhist text, or someone holding a very different opinion on a matter of importance. And that is intelligent.
As I learnt from the Constructive Dialogue Institute, it’s more useful to replace the thought “How could anyone think like that?” with “Why might a well-meaning person think that?”
I was brought up with the unconscious ideology that people’s value lied on their (abstract) intelligence. Bzzt! This rested on a misunderstanding about what intelligence is in the first place, as if discerning very incisively that someone is unintelligent, or/because they’re mistaken about something, makes you the intelligent one in the interaction. But that doesn’t make you intelligent: it makes you aversive.
The Buddhist philosopher Buddhaghosa wrote that aversion and wisdom are similar in that neither sticks to their object, they don’t cling. But aversion sees false defects whereas wisdom sees true faults. Putting aside what counts as a true fault, I found the parallelism illuminating and relatable. It gives food for thought. It’s interesting. Reflecting on this seems to me something intelligent to do.
Thank you, Rupert.
