During the Colors of Compassion retreat for people of color, Fuerza Youth Program (Y.P.A.C.T.) sponsored the attendance of four teens from Boston’s inner city neighborhoods: Alan Young, Estrellita (Star) Rojas, Charles McElroy and Rhyheemma Burns. They were accompanied by their adult facilitator, Rekia Jina Jibrin. The interview was conducted and filmed by Tripp Mikich. It began as Alan recalled a question he had asked Thich Nhat Hanh earlier in the day. Please note that Thich Nhat Hanh is often called, Thay, which simply means, "teacher".
Alan: I asked Thay, you know we’re faced with so many negativities in Boston back home due to the fact of many things: discrimination, age, culture. I asked him, “How can we use Buddhism and mindfulness to turn those negatives around to a positive and to put everything in a simple form?” He told me that the sangha or the Buddhist community is like a place where you’d be able to go and it won’t matter. Negatives won’t exist being around people that are open minded. They use mindfulness. It’ll make you feel like there’s no negatives. You don’t have to be faced with having to do something over peer pressure. With the sangha you can go there and relax and let your mind be free without having to worry about how people look at you. I was kinda happy that he answered my question because yesterday at the dharma talk I asked the same question and I didn’t really get a response. The Brother kind of beat around the bush but Thay, he approached it head on, you know what I mean? I was thankful for that. I figured if the Brother didn’t have the answer, Thay wasn’t going to have the answer for it, either. But he did, so that’s what I’m saying.
A lot of people said it was a good question. Not too many people would really ask how we would tie in the urban life because it doesn’t really occur to people that it’s harder to tie mindfulness and Buddhism into a fast-paced, everyday, noisy life, know what I mean? A lady that came up to me, she said that I did a pretty good job asking Thay a question. She said it touched her so much that it made her cry. She never thought that a question like that would come out of me or something. She wouldn’t have realized how it affected us in an urban life setting. I mean that kinda touched me knowin’ that I touched somebody else. So, that’s what’s up.
Star: The question I asked Thay this morning was, how I can go back home and translate this to urban teenagers my age. Because some read a book, some have tapes, and they’re really confused. Some don’t understand the Buddhism and mindfulness and compassion and stuff. They don’t understand the words. I asked him how I can translate it so they can understand just as well that I can understand it. Thay responded saying, the sangha is another solution to stuff. So, when you have that bond, there’s a sense of brotherhood, sisterhood, and nobody’s judged. He said I can become a dharma --did he say “dharma?” -- I can become a dharma, taking what I’ve learned here into my everyday life to see how people respond to that. And see if they do follow me or see if I change within my home or at least in my house with my sisters. He said Buddhism is really clear. Anybody can understand it. It’s straightforward. Anybody that has a sense of compassion can really understand it, because everybody does have a sense of compassion somewhere around their heart. He said it’s pretty clear as long as I use it, to see how it affects people and how I can help them use it.
Rhyheemma: To explain it, is going to be hard, what we did. It’s not easy coming here and then going back to Boston and describing to everybody what it was like. You have to be here to really experience what happened. ‘Cause we can tell you and you’ll think like, “Oh, it’s so great, I want to go.” It’s all right. I like it. Silence is cool. It’s a new thing. Know what I’m saying? It’s kinda touching. It’s fun to finally have time to yourself and be inside a place where you can feel wanted instead of a place where you’re not wanted. It’s a place where you can have a lot of people you can look at as role models and you can look up to instead of looking at all the negatives. You can finally have something positive to look at if you came here. It was our experience and I wish everybody could experience it because yo, I would want to have everybody experience it, ‘cause I’m saying it’s not everyday that you live in an urban community like Roxbury or Dorchester and you get peace and quiet. You go there and somebody’s always yelling and if they ain’t yelling, they fightin’ and if they ain’t fighting, they killing one another. You know what I’m saying? I finally got a chance to see some place that’s actually peaceful and you can actually walk in silence, and eat in silence without having to hear people yelling. So, basically, I’m going to go back and I’m telling everybody, it was so touching to me that I actually am going to miss it when I leave. It was different, the food was different, the people are different, there’s people of all different kinds of color and it’s like in the book I was reading, everybody is brothers and sisters. And it’s like everybody is not racist, “He’s Dominican, he’s Puerto Rican, ugh! I’m not talking to him. She’s black, he’s white.” It’s, “You’re here and you’re my brother and you’re my sister.” It’s not, “Ugh! Don’t look at me. You’re nasty. You’re Black.” It’s like, “You’re my sister. You’re me and I’m you. We’re all family.” Like Thay was saying in one of his speeches, we’re all family.
The lady who was teaching yesterday said we’re all each other, we’re all ancestors, we all got a piece of each other in each other. You have a piece of me and I got a piece of you. You rub off on me so now I’m a piece of you. Regardless of your personality or who you are, I’m a part of you. Because if I know you, you’re a part of me and if you know me then we’re a part of one another, we’re family. I’m your right hand man and you’re my left hand man. That’s what’s up.
Charles & Star: That’s what’s up.
Charles: Yesterday when Thay was talking about hitting the left hand with the hammer, by the right hand, he said that the right hand would show compassion to the left hand because they don’t feel superior or inferior or inequality with each other. But our friend, Brian, he brought up a point. He said, “What if the right hand just keeps hitting the left hand with a hammer?” Brother Fabio said, “When the left hand can scratch that part of the back that the right hand can’t, the right hand will be thankful and appreciative.” I was thinking about that. That’s a good thing to bring into my community. But then I thought of something. That means that the right hand is willing to stop hitting the left hand. But what if the right hand is not willing to stop hitting the left hand and just keeps hitting it? I was talking to one of the Brothers and he said, “Just keep showing compassion. Keep showing compassion, stay nonviolent, don’t ever strike back.” Know what I’m saying? In Boston, that wouldn’t really help because in Boston, if you keep letting somebody hit you, they’ll think you’re a pushover and they’ll just keep doing it, “Oh, it’s easy, I can just keep doing it and doing it and never stop.” It don’t matter how much compassion you show, they’ll keep doing it. And so, he couldn’t really answer my question. I was going to bring that in but now -- I’m trying to figure out how to bring that into Boston and say it without somebody having a problem with it.
Rhyheemma: Yeah, that’s true. It’s gonna be hard explaining it to young people. I was going to ask Thay a question but we ran out of time. I was going to ask him, if I don’t really understand this, how am I supposed to go into my community without fully understanding this practice and go and teach it to these young people who might not even be willing to listen to me? How can I put it in terms where they understand it and I understand it even better? I was going to say something like, “Okay, I don’t understand this practice very well. I understand that it’s not all about just breathing in, breathing out and focus just on your breathing. It’s about understanding and compassion and all this other stuff.” So, how can I go back to Boston and tell these young kids or people my age about this without them looking at me like I got four eyes, or something like an ‘it’ or a cyclops, you know? How can I put I put it to them so that they understand it and I’m also understanding it and not just saying words that I don’t understand?
Like at first I used to say, “Bodhisattva” and I didn’t understand what it was. But then I came here and I realized what a Bodhisattva was. For the first time I could actually look at somebody and say, “I’m a Bodhisattva,” because I am. And you understand the meaning now. At first I was just fascinated with the word, just walking around, “I’m a Bodhisattva!” Now, I walk around saying it because it’s true. I am a person who has a passion to do what’s good and what’s right and basically, that’s a Bodhisattva. So, when I looked at the lady at one of Thay’s teachings I was like, “I’m a Bodhisattva.” She was like, “Are you really?” I was like, “Yes, I am.” She was like, “Then that’s good for you. I’m glad you’re a Bodhisattva.” So, if you could understand it more and if I could stay here longer and actually understand it, then I could bring it back to Boston, but in the short time that I’m here...how am I going to put it in terms that they will understand
and I’ll understand? I don’t know if you all understand my question.
Like, basically, not all young people are willing to listen. Sometimes you have to sit them down, “Chill. Listen. I just need you to do this one time for me.” Because the first time I meditated I was, “Yo, what’s this? I don’t want to do this, breathe in, breathe out.” But there’s more to it than just breathe in, breathe out. It’s an understanding with yourself and with your surroundings.
Alan: Basically, by this family coming here to California to participate in this retreat it’s like we planted a seed. What we’re going to do is try to bring the best information we could, to them, so hopefully they can grow and bloom and eventually take heed of what we’re saying and they can use it in their everyday life. So that at least, if it’s not touching all of Boston, we’ll know that it touched our family, our Fuerza family and they can spread it out to who they know...So, that’s basically what I want to do and bring this back to Boston so that somehow, all of us in this group, even people who did not come here can look at somebody and say, “Hey, listen. Four of my family members from my group went on this trip to the Colors of Compassion retreat. And, what they brought back was really touching. I could let you know mindfulness and compassion and all of those things. To live a life with those things is like the ultimate happiness. You know what I mean?” Hopefully our words right here are going to touch enough people in our group so that somebody in our group can touch another person. And maybe that person that they touch will be touched enough to touch another person. Our message is in the city so we can walk around and they’d be like, “You organize? With who?” and I’d be like, “Fuerza” “Oh, I know them. They’re the guys that went on the Colors of Compassion retreat, right?”
Rhyheemma: We need to find a way to make a brother and sisterhood like ya’all got. Like, here everybody is welcome. I walk by, everybody’s smiling at me. Everybody’s like pattin’ my hand. They don’t know my name yet, but they still consider me their sister. In Boston, if you’re walking down the street, ain’t nobody’s going to look at you and hold your hand. They’ll look at you like you’re a cyclops. So, we need to find a way to get us to have peace in the streets. Peace, and make ourselves one community. I’m not saying having scenery and all this exactly like yours but just get the violence off the street. I was saying in the dharma group yesterday, everybody in Boston believes that there’s no place that exists without violence, or that there’s no place that exists with peace. There’s no such thing. But there is. Because you all have peace and I don’t see any violence here. I don’t see you all smacking each other in the back of the heads or fighting. Ya’ll are happy. You all are always smiling. Even if you are not satisfied with something, you’re thankful. People are ungrateful sometimes, but you aren’t. You still show compassion and that you understand.
We want a way to make it like a family. Not really many people practice this in Boston so we don’t really have a sangha. We just have Fuerza and a lot of other Fuerza’s that are trying to make a change. We need brotherhood and sisterhood. We don’t need to discriminate against people. He [Thay] said that’s a sign of suffering. If that’s a sign of suffering then I think everyone in Boston is suffering. Everybody. Somehow, some way, in some place. If you’re not suffering in your family, you’re suffering to yourself and you’re just not opening your mouth... We need to find a path and I think this is an excellent way because you don’t have to convert to it. You can choose to do it. You can choose not to do it. But if enough people do it, everybody’s going to want to do it...
Ain’t a sangha a family? If you’re all alone in the world then you don’t got nothing. If you don’t have nobody you can turn to, then you have nothing. So, if you have a sangha, even if they’re not really a family, they’re still a family, a sangha. So, if you have them you have somebody to fall back on, or to turn around to. You got a problem, “I’m not happy with this situation. I’m not happy with that situation.” But if you have a sangha then you have family. Everybody is compassionate to you and everybody listens. Because if you’re talking to somebody and you feel as though they’re not listening, your point is not going to get across. You’re not going to be satisfied with the answers they gave you. You’re going to want something deeper. And if you have a family who actually feels for you and wants you around, like you feel welcome every time you walk around, they smile at you and shake your hand, then you will feel welcome and you will open up and then your problems will get solved. But if you keep quiet and if you have nothing, you’re not going to open up. A sangha is really the answer...
Star: We haven’t discussed about setting a sangha yet. But we do have a group called Fuerza. About 15 to 20 or so. We don’t call ourselves a sangha but we’re all there for one reason. We’re all there because something’s wrong in our community and we want to make a change. We want to change it. We don’t consider ourselves a sangha because we’re called Fuerza. But we are all there for something and for the same reason. And we all are striving to do the same exact thing. We do have support for one another. We do not laugh at one another when we do ask a question or when we say our opinions. We do show love and compassion towards one another and I can say we’re not a sangha yet, but we’re working there.
Alan: Today I kinda like changed because after the discussion we had with Thay when we asked him the questions, a lady came up to me and said the question touched her so much it made her cry. It really made me feel I had some worth. Like, when you’re in a big city such as Boston where everything is so high-paced and we’re faced with so many negatives, it’s hard to feel that your word actually matters. Because there’s so that we’re faced with, like discrimination, it’s always going on so that’s one thing that makes us feel like our word doesn’t matter. but when she told me that it really touched her like that it made me feel like me being there, there’s hope for me to go back to Boston and touch people with the knowledge that I have. So, I’m thankful for that and I’m happy to be here now.
Rhyheemma: What touched me the most was being welcomed. I never been in a place where, well, until I found Fuerza, I never been in a place where I actually felt wanted, “She’s a unique person, we like her.” It’s mostly people turning their heads to me because I’m not satisfying to them. But here I can be myself and everybody still smiles at me, doesn’t look at me in a negative way. Every time I turn around somebody’s always smiling. You’re all so happy and I love to see happy people. I love to see smiles on people’s faces. And I love to see smiles on people faces because I put them there. Just to be here is a true blessing. I like it a lot. Because if I didn’t come here I’d probably be in Boston still miserable. It’s kinda hard. I mean miserable, like not happy at all, a little bit but not a lot. Here I can just smile all day and everybody smiles back at me. But at Boston I can’t really smile because there’s really nothing to smile about. But now I have something to smile about. I can go home and keep smiling about this experience.
Charles: The monks really surprised me because in Boston we got a place called Chinatown where the majority of the Asian people live. You go to Chinatown and all the people are mean if you’re not Asian like they are, like, “What are you doing here? Get out of here. This is our town, this is our place.” But we came here, the monks came up to me, “Hi, how’re you doing? What’s your name?” They’re nice and that surprised me that they were so nice.
Star: The thing that touched me was talking to Thay because I asked the question and he was actually giving me the answer. Everything that came out of his mouth was so true. Everything he said, it felt as if he meant it in the most serious way, like he really cared about me. When I was looking at him he was looking at me. It was like this guy actually cares about me and he doesn’t even know me. He’s actually helping me. It helped me a lot ‘cause you struggle so much as a teenager and you meet a dude and he’s like, all you have to do is sit and talk to him and when he’s talking to you he means everything, he’s so sincere and stuff. He’s doing his best in his heart to actually give you an answer and you know what, “I actually care about you. I don’t know you, but I care about you. and I know your struggle and I know where you’re coming from and here’s my advice,” he put faith into me as if he knew I was going to go change something. Either with the relationship with my sisters or myself he gave me that faith. So, I can probably change myself.
[Star began crying as she spoke. Her tears brought emotion up in everyone present.]
Alan: This is what it’s about right here. This is what it’s about. Really, this is what it’s about. This right here just brought me closer to you all. Really. This’d be the last thing I’d expect anybody to show emotion and it’s like, this is touching to me, like, this is making me appreciate this trip for what it’s worth. Like, I would’ve never thought in a million years, that around here or wherever, I’d a shed a tear. Rhyheemma is like me, right? Rhyheemma is so cheerful and always wanting to make everybody laugh and Star’s the one that is real laid back and relaxed and you know she just goes with the flow of things, but it’s like just seeing everybody here and being touched so much, that makes me feel real good. It makes me feel mad good, ‘cause I mean when we first stepped into Fuerza it was strange because none of us knew each other. But we all became family. I would do anything for these guys right here. Honestly, like I think of them as family, and for me to call somebody family, it doesn’t happen often. Because where I’m from it’s like I’ve been through so many hardships, it’s like you don’t know who to trust and I really trust them a lot. You know what I mean? I love them. They’re family.
Rhyheemma: I love you, too.
Alan: [responding to group energy] I need to go out. I need to take a walk.
[The group takes a break and resume their interview with Tripp Mikich in the afternoon.]
Star: with the morning session that Thich Nhat Hanh gave us, he was talking about discrimination and how we can stop or not have discrimination and be happy. Discrimination causes suffering. In Boston there’s a lot of discrimination, just like Rhyheemma was talking about. If you was to call somebody fat over there, that’s mean. But in the Philippines it’s positive because you enjoy the food. But in Boston it’s something negative. A lot of violence occurs with that, because there’s a lot of discrimination and racism out there. People think when you enter the kingdom of God, there’s no suffering, there’s all happiness and loving and that’s not true because without suffering you can’t show compassion, because you don’t know what the other person’s life’s been like, or what they have suffered. So, you can show compassion and show understanding. When he was talking about that, it really hit base on Boston ‘cause here everybody says hi to you, everybody smiles at you. In Boston you don’t know anybody. If you get on the bus you look at a person in a certain way, they get upset. Or they’ll laugh at you for what you have on. With that discrimination, people are suffering. Females have low self-esteem. People have low self-esteem because they don’t have enough money to buy the cool clothes. And they’re suffering from that low esteem. Like Thich Nhat Hanh said, that’s ignorance, that’s anger towards another person, and craving, cause you crave for those clothes you can’t have and that’s suffering. That touched base on a lot of people that I know, craving for certain things they can’t have and they’re just so depressed half the time with school and stress and everything. It’s really big especially when you are a teenager. You go through so much before you grow up. You grow up so quick, it flashes before your eyes. You have to grow up quick because certain situations that you’re put in, you have to be in that state of mind as an adult, to have responsibilities and stuff. It’s a tough life when you’re a teenager. It’s up to you to work with it, to make it so that you can have that happiness and if it’s through meditation, it’s through meditation or any other practices that you do have. But a lot of teenagers don’t know that.
Rekia Jina: This is something that we’re all going to talk about, but just having a certain consciousness, understanding that we’re all connected to each other and taking that back home in our interactions with other young people. I think a lot of young folks that I’ve met in Boston feel so powerless. They been very disempowered by whatever it is, the system, education, you know, so many different things. In many ways, there’s been an openness to new alternatives of how to strengthen yourself in a tough world. I think it would be great to try to translate this in a language that young folks would hear and understand, of how do we teach others, how do we share it with others, that we are connected, that we can be compassionate. How do we teach people to listen? It’s hard, even for me. But, a lot of young folks don’t know how to listen. they are so resistant to everything. A lot of Black and Latina females have inferiority complexes. A lot of guys have superiority complexes. But just having to identify that I have self-worth in a situation where I don’t really have any power and trying to take that back to young people and figure out how are we going to talk to them about it, it’s so important. Whether it’s through meditation or not, but just the concepts of this is so important. For instance, we saw our President go to war and that’s showing us it’s an us-and-them relationship, “We’re bigger and better.” It’s “othering”. We talked about this, we talked about what is a terrorist. Rhyheemma said, “I’m not going to lie, I first think of an Arab.” This is because of the propaganda on television. We talked about that. It’s so important that politically we’re seeing this superiority kind of dominance complex and we can break that and not have to feel that that’s an okay example to follow in our local lives, you know what I mean? I think that’s a really important thing to take back because a lot of kids think that’s an okay thing. It sort of justifies violence in many ways, the culture of violence in young people. The challenge is how do we translate it in a language that young people will hear and understand?
Rhyheemma: There was somebody that Gina introduced us to, David, he’s our instructor. He helps us to do meditation. He talks us through it because we weren’t used to doing meditation and stuff like that. It was a new experience for us so he walked us through it. He told us just to get comfortable, we don’t have to cross our legs or nothing. Sit in a comfortable spot, sit up straight and he has this little bell that he rings and he walks us through it like, “Close your eyes. I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out.” It was a new experience but it was good because it helps you find something that you don’t really have, like silence and helps you free yourself for the little bit of time that you are meditating. You’re thinking a lot during it but he’s trying to teach us how to push our thoughts aside without judging them, just move them so we can find time for ourselves because we don’t really have time for ourselves. It’s a beautiful experience at times but sometimes you get a little distracted but he shows us how to get back on track.
Alan: When we first did meditation I didn’t really get down with it like that. I thought wow, who wants to meditate? I’m from an urban setting. I mean, all I’m used to is noise and chatter. But when I really sat down, buckled down and got to business I found it was actually kind of soothing. It’s very seldom in the big city that you ever get any silence. Because when you’re in the house there’s always someone yelling or there’s cars passing, traffic, kids outside yelling, so when he took me into that world of meditation it was like wow this is something so very knew. I did not know that this was out there. We did it a couple of times just to prepare us for coming up here. And like I said, it was a great experience.
Rhyheemma: Sometimes you can’t find the time. Basically, you do it when you find the time. I would like to do it more to get myself on focus because I get off focus really easy. I learned that meditating helps you regain yourself again. If you get sidetracked by something, you just sit down and breathe. You can just get back on track and do what you gotta do. So, I think yeah, I would do it again when I have the time for it.
Rekia Jina: When we first did meditation before David was instructing us, some of the kids said that they had tried it at home. Somebody said that she had tried it for a week which I thought was amazing, having never had this experience before. But it is hard. And I think that maybe we need to think about making a space and a time to do it because at home it is a difficult practice especially when you’re the only one who knows about the practice. When you feel that you need quiet and there’s absolutely no quiet around and you’re easily distracted. That’s something we’re going to talk about, how we can create a space to do it and a time to do it where it’s not distracting and we will have some silence.
Star: The four of us here, we actually got picked for this experience. Like me, this is the first time I’m leaving the state. We’re here basically for the other teenagers that couldn’t come here. We’re here to learn how people live their lives here and how walking meditation helps. How we can take all this, the meditation and relaxation, how we can bring it back to the urban society and how we can translate that so teenagers like us -- you know some people don’t understand some of the words Thich Nhat Hanh will be saying, they’d get really confused. How can we translate that so they can understand? So, we’re here for that and we’re going to go back to Boston and we’re going to tell them our experience here. We’re delivering a message from Thich Nhat Hanh.
Rhyheemma: I liked walking meditation. Because for me, I’m really lazy. When we got to walk really slow and just put our thoughts into it, it’s not just about being lazy, but you get to put all your thoughts into it and just breathe and walk. It’s beautiful because you got the mountains and everything when we were in walking meditation. I never really experienced it before but it was something really different from sitting down.
Star: I liked it and I did not like it. The reason that I did was because I’m not used to it. In the city you walk fast, you’re trying to get somewhere quick paced, you know. And here the walking meditation was step by step by step, right? And, I’m like, I can’t do that, I’m stepbystepbystep! I was trying to pass everybody. I actually noticed I was passing people. I’m like, I’m not supposed to go this fast. I’m supposed to be relaxed and breathing. And I wasn’t acknowledging that I was breathing, either. I was like, I have to slow down, focus. So, I just started counting and I started walking really slow. That was good because it was so relaxing. The surroundings was good. the mountains and stuff like that. It’s like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen...it was totally relaxing. You didn’t even know you were walking, basically. You were just gliding on the floor. I was like gliding. It was good and I would do it again. It was just the
steady pace, I have to get used to that.
Alan: The serenity when you get here, it’s like, when I first stepped onto the premises I was like, wow, I could tell this was going to be way different from Boston and it is. The silence is the major part that I notice. Not too many places in the United states where you can just walk. You see people but you don’t hear people. So that’s one of the things that caught my attention.
Charles: Also, here everybody greets you. Back in Boston if you walk up to somebody and say, “Hi, my name is Charles,” they’ll look at you like you’re crazy, “Who are you, get out of my face. Why are you talking to me?” Here if you say, “Hi, my name is Charles,” “Oh, hi, my name is so and so. How are you doing? How’s life? Where are you from?” The people are really nice here. I like Thay’s teachings about nondiscrimination and inter-being. He was really good and I can tell that he really believed in what he was saying and he really got to me on the nondiscrimination part, using his hands as an example. I can see myself bringing that back to Boston, in organization of events. We can use some things to create social change and for social
activism.
End of Interview
Since the film could only include a few moments of this wonderful interview, it is posted below in greater length.
