INNER DISARMAMENT - THE PRACTICE OF DEEP DEMOCRACY
by Sensei Robert Joshin Althouse (c) 2005

Inner Disarmament and Deep Democracy are the inner and outer work of an engaged spirituality. Inner Disarmament is the spiritual and psychological work of surrendering our judgments, letting go of our agenda and our attachment to a fixed outcome. Here we reach a deep accord with our experience that goes beyond dualities of right and wrong, that transcends victim and perpetrator and that refuses to blame ourselves or others. Deep Democracy is born from this fruitful consumption of our own shadow. In bearing witness to that in ourselves which we may be avoiding we also begin to see those in our community who are unseen, unheard and ignored.

As Arnold Mandell says: "What is true of Soto Zen is also true of deep democracy: enlightenment arises from awareness of how you travel the path, not through the attainment of a permanent goal." Part of walking on the Zen path involves turning inward but this process also gives birth to further energies that lead you into relationships. Spirituality is not just about working on our your stuff. It's about being in right relationship to others and to everything around you. It's about realizing and living the interdependency of life as your life.

Buddhism in the West is beginning to integrate this inner and outer practice through other disciplines such as psychology and social action. This should not be surprising. When Mahayana Buddhism was introduced to China, it adapted and integrated with the native religion and mind-set of the Chinese people, which was Taoism. The happy marriage of these two was Zen Buddhism. The same process was at work in Tibet where Buddhism entered as a foreign religion and adapted to the indigenous Bon religion. The result was Vajrayana Buddhism. While Buddhism's skill in working with healing and transforming personal suffering has much in common with psychological practices, it has not traditionally been involved in areas of social justice. But Buddhism is beginning to incorporate much of the concern for social justice that has traditionally been such a strong aspect of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Because of this adaptability, Buddhism is in a unique position to contribute to our personal and collective sanity.

America has given the world the extraordinary promise of democracy. But this bright light casts a shadow. America's history is one of both democracy and the twin shadows of racism and colonialism. While these twin shadows are not always obvious, they were painfully evident during the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Democracy is not a given; it's a work in progress. It can die from our cynicism. The only way to reactivate our democratic energies is to bear witness to our collective darkness. Inner Disarmament and Deep Democracy give us the tools to enter into civil dialogues, to remain connected with those we disagree with, and thereby transforming conflicts into working relationships and healthy, vibrant democratic communities. Deep democracy helps us do this by creating safe spaces for all voices to be heard and honored.

We don't really know how to talk about racism today. It is an uncomfortable edge because it has been buried for so long. Those who are from the mainstream culture are privileged but usually blind to the subtle ways they impose their own assumptions on everyone else. Liberals are fond of talking about "cultural diversity" but this is just too antiseptic. It's not close enough to the bone. Racism is ugly and violent, rooted in fear, bigotry and hatred. Racism can be overt, and it can also be subtle. When people of rank are unaware of their privilege they are racist. If they are unconscious of their rank, they will impose their way of doing things on others and assume they are in some way inferior when they don't measure up to their standards. This is a subtle way of discounting, ignoring and excluding those who are not in the mainstream culture. It helps to name this attitude – the ugly word we don't want to speak is "racism".

We have seen the images of Americans sadistically torturing Iraqi's at Abu Ghraib. We have witnessed news reports of black people looting stores in New Orleans versus white people breaking into stores for food and supplies. These images are unsettling. Retreating to some nostalgic time of innocence or wrapping ourselves in a flag of patriotism will not heal this collective illness. Exporting democracy to others, when we can't practice it ourselves weakens and undermines our own democratic experiment. When we lock away foreigners in Guatanamo Bay prison, suspending all due process for their rights according to international law or our own laws, we are denying them the very democratic rights we are fighting and dying to defend.

It is so easy to dehumanize the other. Colonialism is part of the fabric of racism. We use military force to extract resources from other countries to support our own unsustainable life styles. Yet we seem blind to our own privilege. Perhaps it's a failure of imagination. We don't seem to understand why people all over the world resent us. Every civilian we kill in Iraq has a family, cousins and a tribe. They all remember. Racism is the act of treating others with extreme disrespect, of dehumanizing them, blaming them, discounting them, and in the end, treating them as if their lives were expendable. Who are we fighting any way? Have we found the enemy? Perhaps we are fighting ourselves. For a brief period, in an uncanny way, New Orleans began to look like Iraq.

People still think success in Zen practice is the attainment of some final personal experience, but indigenous people know otherwise. They know that to be successful, all your relationships must be in order. Zen is about growing up and finding your place in the world. It's about sitting with yourself on a cushion and sitting with all the poor people and people of color who were trapped in the unimaginable nightmare of the Superdome in New Orleans. When we ignore them, we discount ourselves and we undermine our democracy.

Inner Disarmament and the practice of Deep Democracy is a training for pro-actively engaging in the world we want to live in by re-energizing our democratic energies for constructive and civil dialogue. I'm grateful for this practice and the wonderful people I continue to meet who support and inspire me on the way. If there is any measure of success in Zen practice perhaps it's unending gratitude. What do you think Yunmen had in mind when he said, "Every day is a good day."?