Occupy SF, Judgment, and Zazen

Today at noon, there was public meditation at Occupy SF.  I couldn’t make it until 1, and so ended up missing it – but in the hopes of catching the tail end, or meeting some people who might want to meditate a little bit more, I donned a business suit, stuffed my zafu into my bike bag, and biked over. 

I donned the suit because this is about business, and changing the way the country does business.  People who do business could clearly be key players in altering business and banking practices.    If business people got involved in the Occupy movement – movement perhaps being too large a word for this - I think that would make a very big difference.  A collaboration between blue and white collar workers could potentially turn this into a movement.  The biggest goal to shoot for, in my opinion, would be to legitimize the movement as much as possible in order to get to the democratic party and pressurize them, and having business become more of a face in the movement would go a long way in the legitimization game.  

I’ve been sitting on the sidelines of this… hardly following it actually.  However, my political and ethical perspective is that the inequality in wealth in this country, and across the world, is simply one of the ugliest, most detrimental things confronting happiness and prosperity.  With that deeply held perspective, I may seem like someone who would join this struggle, or contribute my energies towards making this a movement.  But when it comes to activism, I feel jaded – I would like to discover a way to facilitate change, but the activism route, at this point in my life, feels off to me.  But that’s a tangent… 

I park my bike and walk into the crowd.  I don’t see anyone meditating anymore.  What I do see are a hundred anarcho-punks and rainbow kids.  As I walk into the crowd, wearing my business suit, many of them look at me and then avert their eyes.  The suit makes me a bad guy instead of someone to collaborate with.

Before arriving, I thought to myself, “even if everyone has dispersed, I’m here, so I’ll meditate for a while on my own.”  But now my judgment kicked in pretty hard: I felt gross in that crowd.  I would have sat down and meditated if I were surrounded by blue collar workers, fellow suits, young adults dabbling in socialism, and practically anyone else…. But this, not only did I have absolutely no interest in, but I had a visceral reaction against.  Not only would it be pointless to sit here, I would feel foolish, even gross… even if a dozen others joined me. 

Sitting zazen, my belief that no one will take a bunch of anarcho-punks and rainbow kids seriously will not change.  My understanding that they don’t have the slightest clue as to how to address this most serious of problems will not change, nor will my feeling that although their political beliefs are sincere, that this is largely a social gathering for them.  I would love to see this group open up and learn how to collaborate with other segments of society, but I also don’t see that happening.  Talking with a few of them, I asked what they considered the demographics of this occupation to be – the response in all three cases was that it was a pretty diverse crowd.  Zazen would not change my perspective that this group has a judgment problem and a hard time looking outside of themselves.  Zazen does help me think better – sometimes far better – and so it contributes to my intellectual understandings.  But it typically doesn’t alter my intellectual grasp of the way the world works, and of how this subculture works.        

But zazen would melt away my judgments against them: that visceral sensation of feeling gross, or foolish, would vanish.  I would feel more openness to sit with them, to spend time with them, to discuss the issues with them.  I may choose not to do this out a belief that my efforts would be better spent elsewhere, but I would have no aversion.  I would still see them as largely naïve, among other negative qualities, but I would not have any negative emotions tied to that.  Rather than feeling pushed away by negative emotions, I would enjoy them as human beings.  This is what I seek: to see things clearly, to love what is, and to offer support to any human being.  I would like to sit zazen more often to develop these qualities.

I think it's important to distance oneself from the scene, in order to make a presence of a different variety felt:  I like this - a meditation on business ethics in Union Square next Tuesday :)

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