Systemic Youth Suffering: The Twelve-Fold Path of Social Transformation
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Four Noble Truths: Part 4
Systemic Youth Suffering: The Fourth Noble Truth and the
Twelve Fold Social Path of Social Transformation
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We’re teaching meditation but that’s not necessarily going to work in the neighborhood.
~ Barbara McClung
Life, Death, and PTSD in Oakland
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Part of what we have to do is make sure that someone on the corner is considered as valuable and worthy of life as the precious kids in the Newtown classroom.
~ Reverend Michael McBride,
Life, Death, and PTSD in Oakland
[divide style="2"]The quotes above have stayed with me since I first read Rebecca Ruiz’s “Life, Death, and PTSD in Oakland.” The quotes and the larger investigation presented in Ruiz’s piece provide both a framing for the topic of this four part series, which examines the systemic suffering of youth of color (and the relational, delusional duality of normalized privilege) through the Four Noble Truths, and its conceptual bookends. I referenced the article in the first part in this series to explore this particular form of social suffering, and I return to it now for the final section. In this last part, I investigate the topic in regards to the Fourth Noble Truth, the Noble Eightfold Path for liberation and an expanded engaged Buddhist concept of the Noble Twelve Fold Social Path. Within these paths, I explore the convergence of the notions of Right Mindfulness and Right Education.
The Fourth Noble Truth
The first three Noble Truths illuminate the conditions around suffering: it exists; it is caused by the three poisons of greed, delusion, and ill will; there is a way out. The final Truth establishes the actions we can take to begin the journey of freedom from suffering. Santikaro Bikkhu of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists notes that this fourth truth is “the way to solve the problem, the practical steps that we must take physically, verbally, and mentally to remove the causes of the problem, and thereby realize the end of the problem.” “The Fourth Noble Truth is the path (marga) that leads to refraining from doing the things that cause us to suffer,” writes Thich Nhat Hanh in the Heart of Buddha’s Teachings (p.11). “This is the path we need the most. The Buddha called it the Noble Eightfold Path.”
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The Noble Eightfold Path
And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha: precisely this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration."
~ Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
The Noble Eightfold path is often depicted as a wheel with eight spokes, each corresponding to an element of the path. In “The Four Noble Truths of Dhammic Socialism,” Santikaro Bhikkhu demonstrates that, for the cessation of collective suffering, this wheel can be expanded to include twelve spokes. He provides an overview of the late Buddhahasa Bhikkhu’s notion of “Dhammic Socialism” and explains the concept of the “Noble Twelve Fold Social Path":
Some Buddhists may think it strange, even sacrilegious, to speak of the noble Eightfold path in terms of social transformation. Ajarn Buddhadasa was fond of pointing out that the noble Eightfold path is a natural principle. It is not some holy, otherworldly thing to be used only for lofty, spiritual matters. The path also comes in handy for ordinary mundane tasks, such as plowing rice fields, brushing teeth, or doing the dishes. If it is an universal, natural principle, as he often insisted, it can also be applied to the task of social transformation. While it is wonderful and complete concerning personal wisdom, morality, and meditation, we may need to add a few factors here and adapt a few there to have an equally complete and wonderful "noble social path." Nonetheless, the noble Eightfold path is a good starting place for our reflection.
By “interpret[ing] the noble Eightfold path in collective terms,” Santikaro Bhikkhu offers a wider dhammic wheel, with twelve guiding spokes:
The Twelve-Fold Social Path
1. Right Religion2. Right Education3. Right Leadership4. Right Organization and Government5. Right Communication6. Right Culture7. Right Family and Sexuality8. Right Economy9. Right Ecology10. Right Play11. Right Monitoring12. Right Sangha and Solidarity
Drawing from both the Noble Eightfold Path and the Noble Twelve Fold Social Path, we can cultivated and understanding of Right Mindfulness and Right Education to investigate possibilities for the cessation of systemic oppression as suffered by many youth of color.
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Right Mindfulness and Right Education
There has been a rapidly developing interest in the use of mindfulness programs in public schools across the Western world within the last decade. Research studies have been conducted in Canada, the UK, Australia, and the US, to name only a handful of nations with budding interests in mindfulness educational strategies, on the effectiveness of such programs in several measures of student success. Mostly, these studies focus on individual-level (whether the subjects are students or teachers) aspects of development, measuring growth in behavioral, emotional well-being, cognitive and academic areas. In their 2012 review of the research on mindfulness (“Integrating Mindfulness Training into K-12 Education: Fostering the achievement of Teachers and Students”), Meiklejohn, et al., found:
Fourteen studies of programs that directly train students in mindfulness have collectively demonstrated a range of cognitive, social, and psychological benefits to both elementary (six studies) and high school (eight studies) students. These include improvements in working memory, attention, academic skills, social skills, emotional regulation, and self-esteem, as well as self-reported improvements in mood and decreases in anxiety, stress, and fatigue (p. 291).
Reports of mindfulness programs in the Bay Area similarly speak to the positive effects on characteristics of individual growth, with particular attention paid the impact of mindfulness in low-income (predominantly student of color) schools. A January 17, 2014 KQED article, “Low-Income Schools See Big Benefits In Teaching Mindfulness,” tells the success story of a mindfulness program at one urban elementary school in Richmond, CA. The students of Jean-Gabrielle Larochette had difficulty with their behavior until Larochette began incorporating mindfulness and meditation in his lessons. His students soon began showing a marked improvement, leading Larochette to expand his mindfulness curriculum through establishing the Mindful Life Project. Commenting on the role of mindfulness in preparing students to learn, school board member Madeline Kronenberg noted, “When we look at low-performing schools it’s not that these children are unable to learn, it’s that very often they are unavailable to learn.”“They’re not able to focus,” Kronenberg explained, “they’re so fixated on other things that are going on in their lives that it’s difficult for them to be able to find space for learning. Our job is to educate these kids and the way you educate them is that they need to be available to learn.”The general trend in the research supports the idea that mindfulness programs are having an impact on individual-level markers of student well-being and success. Indeed, mindfulness can be a very powerful skill for maneuvering through life, a fact evidenced by the many spiritual and knowledge traditions that have a practice of reflective contemplation. Teaching students of all backgrounds techniques for breathing and fully embodying their presence is a crucial step for cultivating seeds of change.However, there is cause for concern in regards to the dominant ways in which mindfulness is taught in schools, especially to low-income students of color. Because policymakers and educational administrators are increasingly looking at mindfulness as a strategy for school reform, there is a need to rigorously examine areas of concern and the potential they pose for enhancing inequality.I want to be clear, here: I think teaching students how to become more mindful is one of the most important educational lessons we can provide as a society. It is an important element of the Fourth Noble Truth and the path to the cessation of suffering. In fact, I hope for a future in which all students can have access to these skills. I feel strongly, though, that they should be grounded in notions of interconnectedness and measures of social-level benefit, rather than focusing on individual growth. When it comes to the education of low-income students of color, mindfulness can be easily turned into a mechanism that mystifies the structure of social oppression, shifting the analysis of school reform from the systemic level to the individual.In particular, I am concerned that mindfulness as behavior management for students of color, especially black and brown boys, can serve as a seemingly well-intended way of continuing a long history of racial disciplining based on negative stereotypes. Too often, the root causes of what are seen as disruptive behavior—the “other things that are going on in their lives,” as School Board member Kronenberg pointed out—become invisibilized when the focus is put on students’ ability to practice mindfulness. Without a critical understanding of the social structures of oppression that shape the daily lives of our students, mindfulness presents a danger of transforming the practice of looking inward into a pattern of teaching low-income youth of color to internalize systemic violence.Returning to “Life, Death, and PTSD in Oakland,” Ruiz provides an example of the ways in which the dominant modes of mindfulness may not be enough to create transformative social change. In writing of the challenges facing students suffering from systemic oppression and violence, Ruiz quotes Barbara McClung, Director of Behavioral Health in Oakland:
McClung knows that the lessons of a brief therapy session might help a child in school, but feel less immediate when the patient returns to the same violent block or fractured home. ‘We're teaching meditation,’ McClung said, ‘but that's not necessarily going to work in the neighborhood.’
In writing of the engaged Buddhist notion of the Noble Twelve Fold Social Path and the element of Right Education, Santikaro Bhikkhu urges for the “need to correct education by taking it out of the grips of economic assumptions, political ideologies, narrow religious belief systems, patriarchy, and pseudo-science.” He understands Right Education as, in part, “a need to transform education into a partnership between people of all ages, backgrounds, experiences, talents, and understandings.” Right Education, therefore, entails an explicit interconnection of individuals with each other and the world around us. Through this element of interconnection, it provides a basis by which we can develop programs of mindfulness that contain the potential for substantial social transformation and the liberation of social suffering.While organizing the archive of Turning Wheel print journals at the BPF National Gathering, I came across the Fall 1998 issue, focusing on education. I was excited to read about the ways in which BPF had long been concerned with public schools and social justice. I was even more excited to find an article entitled “Nourishing Freedom: Five Ways to Provide an Engaged Buddhist Education for Your Children,” by Mushim Ikeda. In it, Mushim explains how her work with Oakland public schools was motivated by a desire to be an advocate on behalf of all children.
If we regard all children as potential buddhas, I don’t think we can say that some children deserve a better education than others. (p. 12)
To me, this statement speaks exactly to the Twelve Fold Social Path and Right Education. I hear it echoed through the wisdom of Reverend Michael McBride, in “Life, Death, and PTSD in Oakland,” as he states,
Part of what we have to do is make sure that someone on the corner is considered as valuable and worthy of life as the precious kids in the Newtown classroom.
When mindfulness practices converge with such a model of education, we can begin to make true strides in the cessation of social suffering for our students. [divide style="2"]
Funie Hsu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Davis in the School of Education. She was a former public school teacher in Los Angeles.
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About BPF’s The System Stinks
Buddhist social justice curriculumTo help promote collective liberation and subvert the highly individualistic bent of much mainstream dharma these days, Buddhist Peace Fellowship presents our second year of The System Stinks — a collection of Buddhist social justice media named for the favorite protest sign of one of our founders, Robert Aitken, Roshi.This year, we’ve asked some of our favorite dharma teachers, practitioners, and activists to reflect on the Four Noble Truths — suffering; the causes of suffering; cessation of suffering; and a path to cessation — from a systemic, social justice perspective.Other Buddhist groups from around the world have also used the Four Noble Truths as a lens for social movements: for good examples, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, and the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka. In a U.S.-based context (not predominantly Buddhist), where mindfulness is increasingly separated from ethics, we are eager to uphold this social justice tradition.If you like what you see, please comment and share to show the world another side of Buddhism!We are deeply grateful to the teachers and practitioners who lend their voices to this cause. In alignment with our media justice values, all contributors to the 2014 series have been offered humble compensation for their work.
You can support engaged Buddhist media makers by donating to BPF.
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