BEARING WITNESS SAVES LIVES

Roshi Bernie Glassman, founder of the Zen Peacemakers; a Zen Buddhist Group whose primary mission is the alleviation of human suffering through socially engaged Zen practice, defines bearing witness as being present with our moment-to-moment experience just as it is without needing to avoid it, amplify it, attach to it, or judge it. It is the practice of simple awareness of whatever is arising in each moment. The practice of bearing witness was first defined by the Sixth Zen Patriarch, Daikan Eno, who spoke of it as the state of mind where there is no separation between subject and object, no space between I and thou, you and me, up and down, right or wrong. Roshi Glassman further defines bearing witness as, "anything we do without separation or denial, - driving a car, cooking breakfast, taking out the garbage - is practice, or bearing witness." It turns out that new research in the field of neuroscience regarding brain function may have uncovered a biological basis for the practice of bearing witness.

In his recent book, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, author Daniel Goleman (he is the guy who put the term "emotional intelligence" on the map) presents evidence that our brain is wired for intimate brain-to-brain link-ups that are the basis of empathy and compassion. It turns out that the brain is chock full of "mirror neurons" which provide us with the ability to intuitively feel what others are feeling. A kind of "neural WiFi" of the brain. It appears from this research that when we are closely attending to another person, listening closely to what they are saying, watching their facial expressions carefully without judgment, etc., we actually feel what they feel. And here is the kicker, when we are closely attuned to another person in this way, we intuitively take action regarding those feelings. But here is the trick ... this innate ability for empathy and compassion, that we all possess, is not activated unless we are closely attending to the other person in an open way. In other words, unless we are bearing witness to them with a mind uncluttered with our own ideas, feelings, worries, images, etc., we will not "see" them.

Author Goleman describes an experiment in his book that demonstrates how our lack of awareness of someone else inhibits our natural ability to be empathic and compassionate. In this experiment, a number of seminary students were told to read the biblical passage regarding the Good Samaritan and informed that at some point they would be asked to walk to another building and give a sermon on this passage. The experimenters had a confederate lay down on the ground between the two buildings where the seminary students would have to pass on their way to giving their sermon on the Good Samaritan. The confederate's role in the experiment was to act like a homeless person who was injured and to call out to the seminary students for help as they passed him buy on their way to giving the sermon. The researchers wanted to see whether or not the seminary students would stop and offer the "homeless" man assistance.

Guess what? Only one in six of the seminary students stopped to help the "homeless" man. Why? It turns out that when we are caught up in our thinking about something, what psychologist Steve Hayes calls "cognitive fusion," the brain's ability to bear witness is bypassed. It's as if your thoughts create a barrier to the brain's natural ability to be present for and help others. It turns out that the seminary students were so caught up in their thinking about the sermon they were about to give that they didn't even notice the "homeless" man: a sermon on being a Good Samaritan!!

Another way of saying this is to acknowledge that to the extent that we are self absorbed, we are not likely to engage our "neural WiFi" and be of assistance to our fellow beings on the planet.

It s no accident, that Zen practice will in-time enhance our natural ability to empathize with others and be of service to them. Zazen (Zen meditation), the core practice of Zen, enhances our ability to be present in each moment with awareness and defuses the power of words, images, concepts, etc., to keep our minds locked-up in thoughts while distracting us from the life that is unfolding right in front us.

Daniel Goleman shares an anecdote regarding an experience he had while studying homelessness in New York City. He was walking through a subway station in New York and noticed a homeless person crying out for help. Literally thousands of people simply walked by this man without stopping to ask him what was wrong. Not being lost in the usual mind dream of self absorption, Goleman stopped to ask what the man needed. As he did this, others suddenly joined in with him. It turned out the man could only speak Spanish and simply needed assistance to help him find his way to his family. Within a few minutes, the man was able to get the assistance he needed.

What is the lesson here? In a world of iPhones, iPods, texting, pagers, etc., etc., we seem to be moving more and more away from our basic connection with the world as it is in favor of an insular cocoon of self absorption where we don't have to be present for the pain of others. In our attempts to "improve the moment" by listening to music through our earphones or constantly chatting/texting with whomever, we are actually contributing to the construction of a world where we don't have to feel for others. A world where we don't have to be present for the suffering that is all around us.

Bearing witness practice can bring us back to this moment. Bring us back to our natural condition of engaged awareness. You may find that by bearing witness, you may end up actually saving someones life someday. And that someone may be none other than yourself.

So let's not just walk on by anymore. Let's look, feel, and help.

PRESIDENT OBAMA SLEPT HERE

The alleyway depicted in this picture to the left is in New York City where it is believed that our new President, Barack Obama, slept just over 25 years ago.

It seems he had arrived in New York too late to hook up with a friend with whom he had planned to stay with overnight. He had very little money and no other friends in the city, so he had to find an alternative place to sleep. After considering a number of options, he had to settle for sleeping in an alley that night. The next morning, he washed up at a nearby fire hydrant along with a homeless man he met there.

One of the practices of modern day Bodhisattvas is called "bearing witness." What is bearing witness? It is our ability to function completely in the here and now ... to be totally present with whatever is appearing in this moment without entangling our consciousness with thoughts "about it."

As a Zen Peacemaker, I have attended several "bearing witness" street retreats in large metropolitan areas of this country; e.g., Manhattan, Boston, Springfield, etc. The practice involves begging the fee for the retreat from friends, relatives, and other kindred souls; not washing your hair or shaving for a week prior to the retreat, and taking to the streets with only the clothes on your back. You are instructed to leave your money, watch, cell phone, pager, ipod, etc., at home. From a material perspective, you go naked onto the streets.

Street retreats can last anywhere from one day to upwards of a week. During our excursions to the underbelly of urban life, we encounter the homeless along with many other inhabitants of the street life, sleeping where they sleep, eating what they eat, and hanging out where they hang out.

Almost everyone who is brave enough to give this form of bearing witness practice a shot, comes away from the experience transformed. Why? Because when you actually put yourself in the place of a homeless person, for that time you are in that situation, you experience what it is like to be on the outside of society looking in. It comes up on you real quick. All it takes is for one of your former peers from the land of plenty to reject you and your request for spare change. Suddenly, you feel the cold indifference and disdain embodied within the conventional wisdom that the "best" thing you can do for the homeless is to ignore them and not encourage them.

Suddenly it dawns on you that you are being related to as if you were human garbage. Your "sense of self" is assaulted by the conditioned responses evoked in others by your apparent social circumstance. Paradoxically, the people who treat you with the greatest kindness and compassion are the actual homeless people you meet on the street: like the man Barack Obama washed up with by that fire hydrant one morning many years ago.

I am so proud to have a President who has borne witness to life on the streets if only for one night. The length of his time on the streets is not important ... what is important is that he has some sense of the experience of being homeless. He knows, experientially, that the homeless are fundamentally no different than himself.

I hope someday people will visit that alley way where President Obama slept. Perhaps they will even place one of those "President .... such and such ... slept here", plaques to signify this instance of presidential bearing witness.

Better yet, I wish that all of the public officials in this country who have the elected responsibility of caring for the homeless would spend just one night on the streets like our new president did so many years ago. Perhaps then, their ideas about the homeless would be transformed by the experience of bearing witness to the reality of their lives ...