Hmm, is there a more gentle way to say this? I want to let you know that you’re doing here could be considered a type of spiritual bypassing. Don’t worry, I do it sometimes too. I really appreciate Spring Washam’s take on it. I’ll paraphrase her here: There is absolute reality, the place we touch in our practice, where we are all one, and where the individual stories and details of our lives are irrelevant in the context of seeing the divinity in ourselves and each other. Then there is relative reality, the place we live and eat and do laundry, where despite the beauty of absolute reality, our differences are real and they change how we are treated by each other and even how and whether we are able to survive. It’s a form of unskillful action to pretend we can bypass relative reality and live in absolute reality while we are still embodied, and the idea that we can or should causes harm in the world and is alienating to those who are suffering, including ourselves.
Being queer, black, South-Asian, an immigrant, non-English speaking, disabled, trans, etc, makes others treat us differently, whether we like it or not, whether we remember our divinity every day or not. This is not our fault. There are causes and conditions, institutions and history that created how these differences were perceived long before us. If we ask others to see our differences and how we’re treated because of those differences, and then ask them to treat us with kindness and consideration, this is a request for less harm and more compassion. It’s a way of putting to the test our beliefs that we aren’t really separate from each other. I think of relative reality as the testing ground for our compassion. Compassion is a lot simpler on the absolute level. But in this world, can you hold with compassion and humility those who are different than you? Those you’ve unintentionally harmed? Can you hold yourself with compassion? Can you see my suffering as your own?
