The Do-Gooder and the Mirror

“Doing good for Others” was always my strong suit. It was my birthright.  I was a social activist, diving into Zen in search of inner peace. I was relieved when Bernie said I didn’t have to be put my activism on hold while I worked toward enlightenment. “In some traditions, one goes up the mountain (to enlightenment) before starting down the mountain (to do good for others). In our way, we go up and down the mountain at the same time.” It was one of Bernie’s most important teachings, and he is still talking to me.

We’ve incorporated this teaching in our precept practice. In moving up the mountain, we look inward, at all our karma, at all the ingredients of our lives, to embrace them all. It's a wonderful, rewarding practice. Not so easy. It’s hard to change those patterns which cause harm. We work at them one at a time. We learn to be gentle with ourselves.

And we go down the mountain at the same time. Not so easy either. Over the years, many people have asked, as they edged onto Peacemaker path, what do to. There are so many problems in the world, so much suffering. It was overwhelming. Bernie pointed a way: To do good for others is to heal others and to heal ourselves. These are not two separate activities. The crisis in the world which calls to our hearts is one which touches our own suffering. Sometimes our trauma leads us to our mission. Sometimes, as we follow a mission that calls, we are led to our trauma. We come face to face with our demons.

Bernie was called by the homeless. I have no idea if he recognized the trauma, the buried memory, that was calling to him, but to see him with a homeless person was to see healing happening. Both ways. Homelessness didn’t call me. It was people living with mental illnesses who called. A fear was buried there. I knew the fear but not the trauma. I joked that I was the only one of my generation who hadn’t tried LSD. I wasn’t tempted. The fear was too great. Although very few people tripped over the edge, never to return, I was sure that I was one who would. I would not risk going over.

The Universe took me into mental health work. While most of my peers aspired to careers in private practice, I was drawn to public mental health, to the “seriously and persistently mentally ill,” the outcasts of society. When I retired from my career in mental health to follow my Peacemaker path, I had no idea that the Universe would take me deeper, but the work that we began with The Verrazano Foundation changed my relationship to people living with mentally illnesses. Hugging friendships replaced professional distance and led to the development of the charter school network which leveled the playing field for kids with emotional challenges. It doesn’t matter that no story, no memory of trauma, has emerged.

Going down the mountain, looking as I journeyed in my inward mirror, I continue to discover and embrace the ingredients of my life. Some, many perhaps, appeared first as demons. What a blessing to get to know them, going down the mountain and up the mountain at the same time.