The Art of Non Discrimination

How to be at home in the world

Overview:

The root of discrimination is embedded within our ego formation. In order to have a self, we must create a distinction between self and other and this is where discrimination begins. Our intellect is trained to discriminate, primarily between what it should move towards, pleasure or anticipation of pleasure, and what it should move away from, pain or anticipation of pain. So we cannot feel home in the world if we cannot get past this illusion. This othering creates the necessary conditions for our general dis-ease, and so we don’t feel at home in the world unless we setup the situation to maximise pleasure. Since we maximized it with things that are conditioned we suffer from getting what we don’t want (when things change) and getting what we do want (the thought that those things could not be)). In this talk, Christian Fanli Ramsey gives a peek into his life to show how we can begin to cultivate a sense of non-discrimination which is foundational to our happiness. A book of the same name is being written with more details soon.

Transcripts:

Christian Fanli 0:17
There is some hesitation.

But I think that’s a good uncomfortable feeling to be sitting with. So we’ll start from there. So what I want to talk about today is being at home in the world. And so start off I think it’s

well enough to start off with what do we mean by home? And so for, for me when I was thinking about this, what does it mean to be at home with myself? And upon reflecting on this, it’s, it has to do with this sense of the long game, where you are the sense of security and safety. There is a kind of warm temperature to being at home from me. And I think it’s, it’s quite easy to fill, not at home. I think that is probably the more typical experience. And so what does it mean to feel like you’re not at home in the world and that’s the feel, feel this. This sense of disease. The sense that there’s a kind of background neurotic layer of just kind of like it’s okay, it’s Great. There’s this sense that you need to grab on to things. And you can see it a lot when you think of it’s subtle ways of showing up is when we are often grasping things. I have a experience in my life where I was listening to like audio books and non stop and studying non stop. And it was quite fun. But I began to notice that there was this subtle motivation. There was beyond gaining knowledge it was, I couldn’t really stand the silence of just sitting with myself. The sense that I needed to do something I needed to grab on to something exciting journal in order to fill sober. So, for me, I kind of started off with my search for home. And this started a long time ago. So I was apparently born in Corpus Christi, Texas. And I say apparently because I don’t have any recollection of the place and it’s supposedly on the seaside, which is quite nice to know that I was born near seaside. And quickly probably by the time I was one or two, I was orphaned. And then I went into foster care and by the time I was 16, I think I had lived in a different family’s name Be more, maybe a little less. And so the precarity of home for me was it was it was much more obvious. But there was kind of there’s kind of two sides of that coin. And the first side is I mean, I guess it’s good to give a little color to the families that I lived with in ink, and I’ll try to explain them in conventional terms, which won’t do them the greatest justice. But in the allotted time, I have a guess we’ll have to go forward with that. So I’ve lived in families where getting a 39 cents cheeseburger on Wednesday nights was expensive. So very poor families and I’ve also lived with very rich families were smuggling in two monkeys from Nevada, that cost a fortune back to California was kind of

fun, what they would call fun. So I’ve also lived in quite extravagant families and across all those, they are also what you would call different culturally. So I have lived in a traditionally speaking in a Filipino family, I’ve lived in the Mexican family. I’ve lived in a a African American family, a white family, a British Irish family to see if I’m forgetting any Indian family from India. And on the surface the I say that because we often think that that is a way to find differences. And so, of course, in one family picking up a fork and eating was perfectly appropriate. And in another family eating with your hands was appropriate. And then if I went back and use my hands in one family that was seen as barbaric and using a fork was seen as pretentious. And so I was really confused a little. I guess I could say, Boy, I don’t even know if I identify it that much as a boy even. And so I went through each of these families living with them and I started to. So for me, I should say this, because I think it adds some good colors that I never really thought of. So I could I could do it in comparison. So there were other kids that were living there, some biological, some faster, who suffered much more than I did. And so I want to make it clear that I think I am a very lucky person. And a lot of times their suffering stemmed from this distinction between the real family and the fake family or the temporary family and seeing that when they were living in the family with me, that wasn’t their biological family. They felt like they needed to get Bear as soon as possible. But I never felt that sense of needing to go back to the real family. And I didn’t have a sense that there was such a thing as a real family. And in certain ways that might be saddening, but I actually felt like it saved me from a lot of suffering that I saw on these other children. And so as I watched them suffer from having this belief that this these parents, these new parents were not good enough that there was something greater that they needed to get back to this authentic, real place. I think I started to see at a very young age, how these ideas were parasitic. They could be So it could also be very helpful and and so, at a young age, I think I quickly began to adopt whatever. So on the test that I would take, I would sign my sometimes gender changes, mostly racial changes, whatever race the family was. And so I felt, I felt very loose in my identity. And because of this, I have the opportunity to really begin to look for my true home. And then to be able to realize that my true home is not limited to any one family, or to any one location, race, sex Any identity that we usually identify with and find belonging with I, I was able to see at a young age that there was something greater

that I could feel at home in the world, no matter what family I was in and I could adopt whatever it is that their values were, and begin to see that within myself there was what I first thought were contradictions. Because I came from a this British family and they talk this way. And then I went to this other family where that way of talking was, and I felt like constantly like, like I was contradicting myself. And then eventually once that breakthrough started to happen. I started to see the other I cannot claim any of these identities I cannot claim that I am British, that I am white, that I am black, that I am Mexican, that I am Filipino and it it is more of the case that I am all of these things within me that I contain multitudes and that I could see that that was the only way for me to not contradict myself to see that in myself. And so, what I discovered was the kind of the art of non discrimination. And now that is social activists and more so in the sense of living. In order to be at home in the world, you must practice the art of non discrimination and the way to do That is to begin to look at things at a much deeper level than we usually do. And so just giving a working definition of non discrimination. It meant that when I’m when I moved to China for a project, and was able to live in between with my partner and her parents, that the distinction between Chinese and American was basically not there for me that I could easily connect with these people who maybe they themselves saw me as an American. Initially, were quickly able to see that we were connected in the same way that their next door neighbors would be. And so For me, it’s not really about the other person reaching this because we can expect that. But when we act out of this place of non discrimination, and what I mean is utterly no discrimination in seeing that, the contradictions, when I spoke with certain families, they would say, we’re a Mexican family, this is what Mexicans do. And then I’d see contradictions. And they say, and of course, the white people are like this. And then I say, Well, I live with them. And that wasn’t the case for all of them. And there will just continue to be these contradictions. And when you really look inside the complexity of what it means to be human, you arrive at non discrimination. It doesn’t mean that people aren’t different. They surely are. They’re just are different in the very clean ways we like to describe them in culture. In fact, if you go into a family that’s Mexican, and one that’s black, let’s say, you’re going to find as much differences between the people and the family, as you will between the groups. And that’s something I discovered quite directly. So the root of all this is non discrimination. And in order to do that, I think that’s the question is how do you not discriminate if I want to be at home in the world, that means there, there cannot be this large distinction between myself and the other. Because if I go to China, and I see the image, I create this image in my head of myself who I am It’s this professional person, data scientists American person.

And I see that that’s me. And then I create another image of the Chinese person. And I use that as a way to compare myself as a way to say that I can’t be at home in the world because they’re just not like me. And so this is a very limited view, to not see that they themselves contain multitudes and contain the suffering a lot of the suffering that you’ve been through and a lot of the joy and so, in practicing this, you have to first give up the idea that you are this solid sense of self. And you already know this because you are constantly contradicting yourself. likely if you’re not You have a really good, defensive complex going on. But typically, we live in contradiction. We say we want to be this way, I’m going to wake up early tomorrow, and then we don’t. And then, you know, there’s all sorts of these contradictions, all you have to do is look inwards and see that they’re always there. And they’re not actually contradictions. They’re only contradictions against the background of discrimination. You can discriminate against yourself by saying, I should be like this. But you’re currently, at least for the moment not. And so now you’ve discriminated by creating this better self versus current self. And now there’s conflict. And we do this all the time. And so Moving towards non discrimination. It doesn’t mean that we don’t see differences. I also want to make that clear we we are uniquely different in some interesting ways, it’s just that we are mostly the same. And so what does it take for us to see a bird outside and see that as, as closest family as we would a person that we’ve known for 20 years. And of course, this is an aspiration. But when we can do that, imagine how at home in the world you would actually be where you can, wherever you are, look to the things around you and fill your connection with them. And that’s really the basis of non discrimination So the next thing I’ll do is if you can bring up something in your room and your place, just a simple thing, I’m going to bring up this plant. And you can bring up anything. It doesn’t have to be an organic, it can be a piece of wood. And I want to teach something that the Zen teacher tick not Han teaches. And it’s called inter being. And it says, basically, if you look at the plant, at the most shallow level, you see the forms. You see the colors, the texture, and that’s the plant. But when you look deeply into the plant, just in the simple plant you can see you can see the sun You can see clouds you can see people you can see that this plant is actually made up of nothing but non plant elements. Really try to take that in this plant is made up of nothing but non plant elements. And if we keep going back to the root to the seed, and we go back even further to where there were no plants, we ended up seeing that there’s only one root right that, that this that actually in this plan, the whole cosmos exist and it’s not in a this is not in a and I guess I’m What I’m trying to say is like it’s,

it’s not, I’m not just saying this in a artsy way. But I’m saying actually the plant is made up of scientifically nothing but non plant elements. And if you look at your face, and if you really try to think deeply looking at your face and try to pull it back all the way to the point where maybe in the Big Bang, it was scattered across as minerals was rocks, and that your current formation is a temporary formation, that when you so called die, you become fragments and eventually that forms into something else. So in a sense, the garbage which we call compost is the flower. So within this flower, I can see the garbage. So everything is within it. And it means I cannot draw a line between myself and the plant when I’ve looked deeply. So that is intervening. And so that means that to be American is to be made up of non American elements. That means to be white is to be made up of non white racists. And you can continue to break it down. Now what this does is it can be somewhat overwhelming because you cannot distinguish the bad guy from the good guy. Because within the bad guy, the good guy has to exist. And so we cannot make these harsh distinctions between the other. And now we can notice that these distinctions only exist in the shallow realm of seeing. But we can train ourselves to actually see from this deeper perspective. And so you may look at me and see an American or an Indian or African American or British person. But I can assure you that I am made up of everything but those elements and it’s not a denial of those things. It’s to say that if what you mean by that is to create a distinction between yourself and I then cannot be true. And it’s a temporary illusion. And so that’s interesting seeing that within a flower within a plant, we can see the whole cosmos. And so, to kind of end on the intervening note, I want to read part of the poem by Tom. And it’s called call me. Please call me by my true names. Do not say that all depart tomorrow, because even today, I still arrive. look deeply. I arrive and every second to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird with wings still fragile learning to sing in my NES to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry in order to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive. I am the may fly metamorpho seeing on the surface of the river, I am the bird which When spring comes arrives in time to eat the may fly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond. I am also the grass snake who approaches in silence and feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda I am the 12 year old girl

refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate. My heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the drug lords with plenty of power in my hands. I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like spring so warm, it makes flowers bloom and all walks of life. My pain is like a river of tears. So full it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names. So I can hear all my cries light and laughs at once. So I can see that my joy My pain are one, please call me by my true names. So I can wake up. And so the door of my heart can be left open the door of compassion.

I’ll just pause there. I didn’t get through what I wanted to. But I actually feel this. I’m content with leaving it here. And so I leave, I want to leave time for questions. And I want to just conclude with that. In this talk, I hope that I could convey to you That you contain multitudes that you are. If you feel yourself as a contradiction that’s quite natural because you are you contain multitudes. And that being at home in the world requires you to see that you are utterly, unconditionally connected to everything. And that means that you may have to give up taking strong sides, where you see a bad guy that isn’t filled with good or a good guy who isn’t filled with bad. And if you can come to do that, and you’re by way of mindfulness, by looking deeply by being mindful of what arises, then you can come home and it will always be with you. Wherever you go Thank you guys.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai