Seeing Strangers

  An interesting thing happened to me after I had been going to the zen center for a few months. I live in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. On any given day there are a variety of people living on the sidewalk. They range from homeless selling “Street Sheet” newspapers, to teenagers requesting spare change, to “crafty” individuals requesting money for their services (poetry, incense, humor), and, sadly, many people who are so strung out on drugs that they scream at themselves or barely make eye contact as they stumble down the street. Over time I’ve learned to acknowledge but not engage with the-people-on-the-sidewalk. That’s really how I saw them, different from each other but the same to me: “street people.”

Often at the dharma talks, when the abbot is talking about treating others with compassion, the question comes up, “What do you do about someone who’s being really mean?” or “How can you be compassionate to someone who is hurting others?” In the talks that I attended, Blanche or Tova would often respond by saying that the people who are hurting others are the ones who are experiencing the most suffering. Those are the people whom we should treat with the utmost compassion, to whom we should extend our greatest effort.

I understood this, it reminded me a bit of ‘turning the other cheek’ and I knew that I should try to practice it when I was struggling with others at work. But over time, it kind of seeped into my interactions with people I didn’t even know. The first time I noticed it was after a Saturday dharma talk. I saw a man walking up Haight Street. His clothes were tattered and he seemed, at the very least, intoxicated. Normally, I would have averted my eyes and crossed the street, annoyed by his presence (sorry, not nice but true…).  But this time, when I saw him I thought “Wow, what happened to you? You had such a beautiful presence once and something happened to keep you from realizing it. I wish I could figure out what it was and remove it so you could grow into your human potential.” I did feel a little Missionary in thinking this, like I was trying to save this guy. But at the same time, I didn’t want to change him, I just felt like he had been hurt and maybe he could be healed back to his regular self.

After a few more months, I had a different interaction with a person-on-the-street (actually, it was on the bus). This person also seemed slightly strung out, but less so. He was talkative, but not delusional. But that’s not how I saw him at all, I just saw him as a person.  When he talked to me, I talked to him the same way I talk to anyone. I was aware that he was strung out but it had no affect on my perception of him as a fellow human being. That’s what he was, he is, a fellow human being. And that’s what everyone is, and, as such, deserves our respect and attention.

This notion, of shared humanity, genuinely equal respect, and resulting compassion and understanding is what I want for my students. I’ve been interested in discovering the roots of racism and how to dismantle the structures that pervade our culture and sustain its system. This genuine view that we are all the same, this truth that so easily gets questioned by labels, exclusion, and identity, might actually be fosterable (I know, that’s not a word) in my classroom. In modeling removing our stories and history from the equation, in being present for each other just as we are, and in knowing ourselves well enough to see our labeling or judgment, maybe I can keep them from accepting the stories we make to separate ourselves from each other.