I’ll begin with an anecdote I originally posted in 2017 on the Melting-Pot Dharma blog1:
In the late 1980s, I took the New York City Subway #7 line home from my office in Manhattan to my apartment in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens. Rush hour. All seats occupied. Not much spare standing room.
As I rode, hanging on to my strap, I became aware of an abusive stream of words being shouted by what sounded like one man. I edged through the crowd to find the source. A “white” man stood over a seated “black” man, shouting the sorts of insults one hurls to get a fight started. The other man was sitting calmly, refusing to take the bait. And the “white” man kept shouting insults.
I didn’t know if the “white” man wanted something (the seat?) from the “black” man. His words told no story but the desire to abuse another. A semicircle of standees had, by this time, formed around the source of the noise. I wanted to do something but didn’t know what, so I searched the faces of the people forming the semicircle, hoping to find an ally.
Sure enough, my eyes locked with those of another “white” man across the semicircle from me. Once he and I found each other’s eyes, without speaking a word to each other, we knew what to do. We stepped in front of the “black” man, facing the abusive guy, forming a shoulder-to-shoulder wall of two. At the next subway stop, we walked forward together toward the open subway doors, forcing the abuser off the train. And we watched to make sure he didn’t get back in through another door. Then, my partner and I returned to our respective places, still without exchanging a word.
We were lucky. The abuser was interested only in raging against the “black” guy and never turned his angry attention to us. While continuing to shout at the “black” man, he didn’t resist our nudges off the train and onto the platform.
I was reminded of that incident when I listened to the recent podcast on The Good Fight of Yascha Mounk interviewing Duke University Professor Timur Kuran. They discussed how people may suppress the expression of their beliefs that counter their society’s norms until one or more fellow citizens light a spark that ignites them to speak and act out. The prime example is the Arab Spring of the early 2010s, a wave of protests against repressive governments in the Arab world that began after street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest harassment by Tunisian authorities.
Although my subway ride and the Arab Spring seem very different, both incidents illustrate a phenomenon called the bystander effect. People may gather in silence to watch an altercation on a subway car or go about their business in silence throughout a geographic region with repressive governments—until one or more individuals find the moment and the means to take effective action.
Oddly, research shows that the more bystanders gather, the less likely they are to take action. Perhaps they’re assuming that someone else will act first, or maybe that the situation isn’t so bad after all. In my case, the bystander crowd was small, but it took that one moment of eye contact with another before two of us united to act. Maybe neither of us would have had the courage to do anything at all without the initial spark we saw in each other’s eyes.
Buddhism teaches equanimity as one of the six Pāramitās (perfections). Sometimes, the list is longer than six, and the words are translated into English in various ways, but let’s think of them as concepts that can’t be captured in a single word. If you’re willing, take a moment to absorb each of the concepts in meditation beyond words:
Generosity. We in the West think of the wallet, but this also refers to generosity of the heart—sometimes putting others’ well-being before our ego and self-protective drives.
Ethical behavior. There’s no one ethical code for Buddhists, but the North Stars are nonviolence, honesty, self-reflection, loving-kindness, compassion, and avoiding intoxication (whether by alcohol, drugs, or such things as sex and gambling).
Patient forbearance. Colloquially, one might say, “Be patient, even if you think the other is an asshole.” Or a more Buddhist way to put it: Remember the Buddha within every being.
Joyous effort. The more I practice, the easier—and more joyous—it seems. It no longer feels like an effort.
Meditation. Even if sitting in a fixed position is not for you, some periods of internal stillness for contemplation and self-discovery are part of the path.
Wisdom. This is sometimes called “equanimity,” which is almost synonymous with wisdom in Buddhism. We understand that everything we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel (tactilely and emotionally) is impermanent. We cling to neither the good times nor the bad and maintain our balance through both.
Ultimately, Buddhism aims to eliminate—or at least reduce—suffering. Through our practice, we gain wisdom to help us make better choices toward that aim. If intervening in a confrontation between two individuals will lead to less overall suffering, we hope to have the wisdom to know and act on that knowledge. If intervening will cause more overall suffering, then we’ll refrain.
In our highly polarized world, questions about what to do—whether to join an Arab Spring protest or a Black Lives Matter demonstration, whether to put out a political yard sign, whether to pursue an argument over the dinner table—become more complex. (One small act of mine to reduce suffering is to put “white” and “black” in quotation marks. I’m joining the ranks of those seeking to eliminate racism by exposing the fiction of a white and a black race.)
Buddhism has no “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots.” We have “precepts” or “mindfulness trainings” that act as North Stars. They guide us, but we know we won’t reach them, at least not until full enlightenment.
May we all gain the wisdom to reduce the world’s suffering.
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I’ve added quotation marks around “white” and “black” to indicate that I have joined those who recognize that, as racial descriptors in the United States, they are fictions sometimes needed to describe unfortunate social realities that I hope will fade over time.