Part 3
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is for people to come alive. Howard Thurman, mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The logic of Rites of Passage (ROP) is to make us move beyond our fears. Most people live with two broad types of fear: fear of continuing the status quo and fear of the unknown, the new. For most people fear of the unknown is greater. The status quo, the present norm, may contain lots of fears (“If I keep slacking off on my job will my boss fire me?” “Will my husband beat me when he comes home?”) But those fears are usually secondary, less scary, than the fear of real change (“I hate my marriage but what will happen to me if I leave my husband?” “I hate my job but what will happen to me if I quit?”) The fear of anything remotely predictable is preferable to the fear of the unpredictable unknowns.
How does ROP move us beyond our fears? By making us move toward them. It takes us directly and thoroughly into those deepest fears, the fears of the present status quo and the fears of change. Then it pummels the shit out of us. We have to be pummeled to move away from old bad habits. Feeling fear helps expedite change. Feeling extreme fear helps expedite extreme change. If you’re feeling extreme fear these days you’re right where you need to be. We won’t let go of our old ways of behavior and thinking and belief unless we get scared down to our bones. It’s similar in some ways to what Twelve Step practitioners call “hitting rock bottom.” We have to be stripped to the core. Until we do, a familiar dysfunctional pattern will be preferable to facing the fear of something functional but unfamiliar, some new way of being that’s healthier and more wholesome. Only when we are scared shitless, maybe faced with death, maybe even wanting to die, will we summon the courage to move through our fear into the unknown.
Then what? Fortunately, it’s usually not that hard to answer. In our heart of hearts, in our conscience, we already know. “I need to quit drinking.” “I’ve got to stop spanking my children.” “I need to move out.” “I need to quit my job.” “I need to divorce my husband.” “I need to start exercising.” A recent one for me is “I need to stop eating sugar.” Once we’ve put our finger on a particular source of misery in our lives, the path ahead becomes clear. We can step into the fear of change with a roadmap, and hopefully, some guides.
If you’re not willing to step into your fears and face the unknown you might want to stop reading here. The remainder of this blog will be devoted to practices you might undertake or strengthen to find your way through this ROP. It’s up to us to do the hard, necessary work to be reborn. It’s time to face our shadows and do the work to build a world that works for all.
If you don’t already have one or more mentors make a list now. Put down the name of every person who’s ever had a strong, positive impact on your growth and development. It can be a teacher, colleague, coach, neighbor, boss, friend… some positive influencer in your life who caused you to say to yourself, “I want to be like her (or him).” Someone who inspires you, who seems like they “have it all together.” (Of course, no one has it all together, but being deceived by appearances can sometimes be a good thing if it gets you to seek what they have to offer!) In my experience, it can be helpful if it’s someone of the same gender (or non-gender) as you. But it doesn’t have to be.
As men, we’ve lost the cultural authority and skill to say to other males, “This is how you become a real man.” The same holds for women. How many women do you know who say to other females, “Let me teach you something of what it means to be a woman in this world.” If you’re non-gender conforming, (or gay or transsexual or other) the likelihood is strong that you’ve already had your own personal ROP in the course of the difficult journey coming out. Regardless of whether life or cultural circumstances have already initiated you, it’s essential that all of us have mentors throughout our lifetimes that we can turn to.
Mentors may never be more important than during this time of planetary rite of passage. Friends are great but mentors are better. AA sponsors can become the best mentors a person might ever have. Sometimes a compassionate witness and a calming, wise voice are all we really need. Besides helping guide us through this passage (and, ideally, through all life’s great transitions), mentor/mentee relationships help restore the very fabric of community. The need for that has never been greater. In addition, mentoring relationships create generativity, reconnecting us to links in the continuum of human time stretching endlessly backward and forward, through both Chronos and Kairos [1].
But you must also mentor others. Reach out to those you already know and love but suspect might be struggling. Ask them how they’re doing and listen deeply to the answers. People will usually lead you straight to what they need most. You might extend a formal invitation of mentorship if it feels right. But you may not need to. It may suffice to say, “I’m going to give you a call once a month just to check in.” Simply showing up regularly for another person is all that’s generally needed. Even in this extreme time, especially during this time, we can use mentoring to restore the fabric of fragmented community and bring comfort and understanding to this unique threshold we’re in. It’s commonplace these days to recognize that even though we’re physically separated we don’t need to feel emotionally apart. Mentorship drives connection even deeper.
Robert Moore and others have taught us that mentorship is a function of the Healthy Sovereign [2]. It can be thought of as practice eldership. The time we find ourselves in is the time of the Shadow Sovereign. Take a look around. Official planetary leadership is mostly shadow driven and dysfunctional. True Sovereign energy is hard to find in the public arena. We are ruled by children grabbing for the spoils. Few demonstrate the necessary understanding of true adulthood: “us, us, us.” [3] Calling forth and acting on our most Sovereign impulses has never been more needed. “What does the world most need now?” is itself a Sovereign question.
But don’t let yourself get caught up in unnecessary self-questioning like, “What is enough? Is what I’m doing making a difference? If I just do what I’m passionate about, won’t that be self-serving?” [4] In Zen we call that “wrong thinking.” It’s a waste of time, unhelpful.
Many people think they can’t effect change unless they hold powerful positions in government, corporations, or large institutions. That unless they are policy makers, like benevolent dictators ruling the world, nothing will make a difference. Nonsense. This misunderstanding discounts the nature of interdependence. There are few who are called to that kind of large scale power brokering, whether in public or private service. It’s fine if you are. Most are not, and that’s fine too. Since we’re all interconnected, and everything we do has ripple effects that unfold throughout each and every one of us, whether seen or unseen, with impacts known and unknown, then it becomes clear how we don’t have to be capital L Leaders. We are, all of us, small l leaders. We are the leaders of our own lives. Or, as Joseph Campbell might put it, the Heroes of our own Life Story.
Popular pictorial representations of society underscore the misperception that only capital L Leaders matter. Most people tend to think of society as a pyramid. We have the wealthy and powerful at the top. All the poor and powerless are at the bottom. Everybody is placed somewhere on a vertical continuum, a hierarchical ladder of importance and influence. This is wrong thinking. A far more useful image is that of a web.
That is why in Buddhism we refer to “Indra’s Net.” Here is how Alan Watts described it: “Imagine a multidimensional spider’s web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.” Each one of us is a dew drop. Or if you prefer the more common metaphor – a jewel. Each of us is a jewel situated at the junction of other strands, reflected in turn by other jewels. When they shine, we shine. When they are dull, or overwhelmed with fear, we are affected.
The image is helpful to understand interconnection, how one thing that one person does affects the entirety of the web. There is no independent origination. Nothing can exist that is not sourced in some other already existing sources. Take an example starting with the smallest matter known – atoms. Huge atomic explosions start with sub-atomic particles. Those bombs unleash the potential of an unlimited chain reaction by tapping into nuclear fission – the splitting of atomic nuclei. Within seconds, something happening on the sub-atomic level expands and grows to an explosion of almost planetary proportions.
Or take a more prosaic, contemporary example. I’ve been scolded or yelled at by strangers four times in recent weeks for not wearing a facemask or for passing too close to them [5] when I was out riding my bike or taking a walk. I get it. They’re afraid. But they don’t pause and reflect how transmitting their fear to me through anger might be counterproductive. My body tenses; I feel attacked. My instinct is to lash out. Instead, what I’ve taken to doing is saying, “Take care of yourself and I’ll take care of me.” Just think how much more effective their approach might be if they sourced their fear in what is likely their deeper sadness, or their love. “I love my children so much that I’m terrified for their safety.” Or, “My uncle died in a hospital two weeks ago and I couldn’t even say goodbye. Please help me honor his life by… ” If we’re going to impact each other one way or another, why not make it a beautiful one? [6]
Medical science is now beginning to understand how the brain functions in ways similar to Indra’s Net. A breakdown in one area of the brain through stroke or physical injury can often lead to another part being trained to fulfill those or similar functions.
And so with community. When one person falters or falls others in the community step forward with what’s needed. All forms of service harmonize with the rest of the web. We shouldn’t be concerned with questions like, “Who’s controlling the web? Where is it going? Why is it so big? What happens if the strand next to me breaks down?” Our job is to make sure our strand is well tended, that we understand our unique role in the web and are living that out to the best of our ability, bringing our gifts and passion, delivered with our most skillful means. We can’t break or weaken the web of life. Indra’s Net holds us in connection regardless of what we do. We can only create rippling impacts that are positive or negative. So why not polish the jewel that we are and make all the other jewels shine that much more?
Who would’ve imagined three months ago that wage laborers like grocery clerks, auto mechanics, postal carriers, delivery workers, garbage collectors, and others would one day come to the forefront of our awareness, making Indra’s Net shine? Not to mention health care workers, including janitorial and food service staff. Talk about jewels!
Mutual-aid networks are no less impressive, mini Indra’s Nets of their own. Self-starting, self-regulating groups of volunteers like Invisible Hand, Service Workers Coalition, Mask Oakland, Bed-Stuy Strong, Minnesota COVID-sitters are springing up across the country to meet the needs of those around them: feeding and handing out masks to the homeless, providing child care for health care workers’ children, tenant groups organizing to resist eviction. They serve as models for the grassroots structures that we will increasingly need to be put in place as governmental and institutional structures collapse.
That is Warriorship. Doing what needs to be done no matter what. And in case you were wondering, this ROP is also the time of the Warrior. This is not the time of the Magician or Lover [7]. It is the time to stay strong and be especially disciplined. Not only in observing social rules of safety for yourself and others, but in our daily habits. It’s not the time to overindulge in the gifts of the sensual world, with excess food, alcohol, drugs, and TV. That’s Lover. It’s the time to stay strict and observe (or create for the first time!) strong habits of meditation [8] or prayer, martial arts practice, exercise and study. As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s a great time for a disciplined meditation retreat [9]. It’s a great time to begin that new course of painting or chemistry. If you’re lucky like me, it’s a great time to continue your daily work of art and inspiration making the world more comprehensible and secure. That’s your biggest job right now. Put yourself into service of that which makes you come alive.
For much of the last few months I have been happy. Before telling other people that – friends and family, my men’s group and others – I used to preface it by saying, “I feel guilty, even ashamed, to say this…” This is a world crisis! How can I be so damned happy right now?! It felt blasphemous. Like I was making light of all the tremendous suffering going on. Not so. I know there are parents terrified right now they won’t be able to feed their kids dinner. I know people are dying right now without a chance to look one last time into the eyes of their most beloved and say goodbye. I know children and teens are committing suicide because they can’t take one more beating. I know young adults are ending their own lives because they see no future. I sat at my desk the other day and watched a homeless man walk through Oakland’s deserted streets howling in misery.
Does this make me happy? Of course not. My heart is open and I feel the pain of commiseration. I also feel my own waves of sadness, anger, and fear. I remain aware of it all. (And if you prefer to think of it this way – yes, I’m extremely privileged.) But in my appreciation of the minutiae, of warming my heart in gratitude for my girlfriend, of riding my bike around Lake Merritt and hiking in the Berkeley hills, of continuing the film work and writing that means so much to me, of drawing on 30+ years of Zen, men’s work, and other training to share some of what I’ve learned, my gifts, with the world, I feel a deep satisfaction, yes, even happiness. Like a Warrior, I know and accept I may die tomorrow. But I will die a happy man, knowing I did what I came here to do.
[1] Refer to my blog Part 1 if you’re unclear on these Greek terms, and their distinction.
[2] If you’re not familiar with the neo-Jungian archetypes of Sovereign, Warrior, Magician, Lover, I refer you to Robert Moore’s work.
[3] For an elaboration on this, again, refer to my blog Part 1.
[4] Not if you give it away freely.
[5] For the record, I was not within six feet of these people.
[6] For a more nuanced account of issues like these, see my blogs “How much fear is enough?”
[7] Again, if you’re not familiar with the Sovereign, Warrior, Magician, Lover archetypes, I refer you to Robert Moore’s work.
[8] If you want to join us every Monday and Friday at 6pm Pacific for free online meditation and dharma sessions let us know at [email protected] and we’ll send you the Zoom link.
[9] See my blog Sustaining a Settled Mind in Unsettled Times