Problems No. 2 or OTHER people’s REAL problems

[Tom A.]

In an earlier post I put a note at the end (note:...), hoping I wouldn’t have offended anyone with real problems, namely problems that I don’t have at the moment or will never have, such as dislocations due to war or health or bereavement, poverty because of area of birth or any other reason, discrimination due to disability, gender, sexual orientation, or skin color.

I’m beginning to see that to soften the edges and drop barriers is to see other people’s problems as my problems too, and it’s far from escaping them or denying others suffering, it’s far from not respecting the fact that others have unique problems,

AND,

at the same time, it’s to see past all that can cause barriers by seeing the fact that no one has unique problems... like two sides of a coin where one side is unique and the other is the same, or like fingers, each unique but connected by the same hand... Sorry for the rambling of more than two sentences I just want to know if I’m getting this right or not.

Gassho,
Tom
Sat/LAH

[A.J.]

How bout, there are enough problems to go around and everyone gets their own special batch? At the same time we all share the human condition along with the same fatal fate. Socially our problems are interconnected but personally each must transcend for their own sake.

Gassho,

Andrew,

Satlah

[Tom A.]

How bout, there are enough problems to go around and everyone gets their own special batch? At the same time we all share the human condition along with the same fatal fate. Socially our problems are interconnected but personally each must transcend for their own sake.

Gassho,

Andrew,

Satlah

yes, I agree. Perhaps common humanity and respect for others is easily reconciled like water needing flour to create bread.

Is it like mixing water and flour to create bread?

Gassho,
Tom
Sat/Lah

[A.J.]

yes, I agree. My comment is more of, to put it bluntly, a question of identity politics it’s “why do people use their personal problems to cause devision and is it the goal in Zen to see past our “politically correct” divisions that have caused suffering and strife for centuries? What do you say to the modern social justice warrior (I consider myself one) that thinks it is completely insensitive and offensive to try to see past such differences?”

Gassho,
Tom
Sat/Lah

I'm mostly white but I have a mixed race ancestry on my father's side because his lineage descends from Spanish, French and Jewish people who mixed with the native people. He was born in Mexico City and although he also has red hair his mother (when she was alive) had brown skin. We cannot erase differences in detail but how we interpret them socially and individually is to a large extent an artificial construction...

... that said, my concern with identity politics is that it may reify aspects that have been socially constructed thereby instigating only further tribalism rather than solidarity beyond the details.

Gassho,

Andrew,

Satlah

[A.J.]

yes, I agree. Perhaps common humanity and respect for others is easily reconciled like water needing flour to create bread.

Is it like mixing water and flour to create bread?

Gassho,
Tom
Sat/Lah

Since each person shares humanity but also has their own causes and conditions the ability to relate to our we-ness as well as other-ness as the same time could be like your water and flour. Martin Buber's "I and Thou" is an interesting read for thinking about some of that.

Gassho,

Andrew,

Satlah