Meditation: The Art of Letting Go

It's always an honor to get some attention for the work I find most rewarding.  The inner work.  Big thanks to www.theroot.com

Nurturing Liberation

         I was recently interviewed for the Huffington Post's article, "Celebrating The Diverse Spirituality And Religion Of African-Americans," and wanted to let folks see my whole offering as we were all basically edited down to a sound bite.  The questions were:

1. What does being Buddhist/spiritual mean to you? How do you practice?

2. How do you experience being a part of both the Buddhist/meditation community and the black community? How do these identities interact?

3. What inspires you about your faith?

           We all have within us a propensity moving us forward, upon whichever paths we choose, toward our own liberation and spiritual awakening; this unifying integration of heart and mind we call oneness.  The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama called this our "Dhammoja," in the language of Pali.  I’ve been training Vipassana (Insight) meditation for the past ten years and when I first learned of this concept, it tickled me, resonating with me on a variety of levels.  First of all, is sounds like a Pan-Africanist spiritual awakening movement, blending the words Damu (blood), Umoja (unity), Moyo (heart and spiritual power) Mojo (the creolization of Kikongo “moyo) and JAH (the old testament Creator, creative power) that could have surfaced in 1972 somewhere in the African Diaspora.  It also rolls off the tongue like the name for the Yoruba deity Yemaya, and sounds perfectly natural in the middle of a Yoruba praise song, transporting me to a living-room in Old Havana, Cuba where bata drums underscore chants from 50 Lukumi devotees dancing, singing, and channeling wisdom from our ancestors.  Thus by saying Dhammoja, I simultaneously reflect on all of traditions that have instructed my path; Rastafari, Christian Gnosticism, Kabalah, Sufism, Hiduism, Shamanism, the Yoruba and Kongolese mystical traditions via Cuba, and Tibetan and Theravadan Buddhism, all collectively fertilizing the soil of my heart and mind for awakening to grow.

            The Buddha spoke of the path as training and practicing.  I want to be very clear that it is a training, a repetition of coming back into mindfulness, back to awareness of the body, awareness of the breath, refocusing awareness inwardly, moment by moment.  We are training our hearts to open, training ourselves to let go of the unwholesome and embrace that which is wholesome, reconditioning our selves to be at peace with life as it comes.  I practice sitting and standing posture for 45 minutes as many times as I can, as well as a constant coming back to being mindful in whatever activity I’m doing, like bringing my awareness into my hands on the steering wheel while I’m driving, or into my feet while walking or standing on the subway.  It’s this constant letting go and letting be the rapture of thoughts that are away from the present moment that helps me let go of that which hinders my journey on the path, namely greed, aversion, delusion, ignorance, anxiety, laziness, and doubt. 

Teaching meditation has deepened my practice by inspiring me to investigate the Buddha’s teachings and apply them to my own stories of insight from trials and tribulations that I have gone through in life.  I was working on a documentary in Ethiopia, and teaching a group of teenagers Muay Thai boxing and my student Zelalem asked me to teach him about Buddhism.  I said, “Yeah, man, sure, it’s all about oneness, and non duality, and waking up from the illusions in life…” and I realized that I wasn’t able to explain the teachings in a clear, coherent manner.  When I returned from Ethiopia, I started practicing more and went on a 6 day silent meditation retreat for people of color.  I experienced a deep unraveling of the heart, reflecting on sources of dysfunction in my relationships, wounds that I had buried and avoided by years of seeking escape through smoking ganja and being romantic about things to a point of delusion.  I had never felt so much clarity, and had never reached levels of concentration that united me with all life in equanimity.

In 2010, my mentor Gina Sharpe suggested I apply for a scholarship to the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock, a two and a half year teachers’ training.  I didn’t feel ready to teach, but applied and was accepted.  The program empowered my inner teacher and inspired me to instruct meditation and tai chi to incarcerated youth through the Lineage Project.  I have worked with urban youth for many years as a teaching artist, but always wanted to empower them with more tools that could bring balance and rooting during the emotional rollercoaster of youth in the city.  I also started teaching classes at New York Insight Meditation Center and now lead a bimonthly meditation group that meets at the Brooklyn Commons every 2^nd and 4^th Monday, called the New York Insight People of Color and Allies Meditation Group.  Western Buddhism has been very homogenous until very recently, and though Buddhism is a practice of liberating ourselves from toxins that cloud our interconnectedness, the People of Color movement in Buddhism has created a gentler transition into the mainstream community where folks don’t have to be the only person of color in the room all of the time.  When I started a sitting group with my friend Sebene Selassie, while we were in Community Dharma Leaders together, we wanted to create a space where everyone, especially first time meditators, were welcome and wouldn’t feel marginalized or silenced because our group is deliberately racially diverse, much like it was in the Buddha’s time when he was teaching many different people from different regions, cultures, casts and classes.

In this time of cultural narcissism, I feel like mindfulness practice is a perfect tool for snapping us out of self-centeredness and into interconnectivity.  Our awareness in this computerized society is constantly being pulled into commercial media, marketing campaigns, computer games, and social media, where we constantly construct more computerized identities to maintain. It isn’t until we are brought back into our embodied awareness, this knowledge that we are living in a body, that we realize that we are here in the unfolding now.  Buddhism can also be a hollow shell and can become another garment of self-identification, which can become yet another distraction.  This is why mindfulness is a practice, better termed, “mindfulnessing.”  My students at Elle McQueen Detention Center sometimes challenge my closing statements that we are all interconnected as a meditating family when we unite. They say they feel polarized by neighborhood, gang affiliation, occasionally race (they’re predominately African American), but when I ask them to look each other in the eyes, standing in a circle, connected knuckle to knuckle with cross-pounds, they pause. I tell them, “I respect your power and I honor your greatness.”  My intention is that they have the common experience of feeling seen, respected and honored in that moment, and are interconnected by that. I’m positive that for at least some students, the illusion that we are completely individualized islands blurs and evaporates, even for an instant.  And this is another step towards to freedom.  May we all be free.

Cubamor Coming to the Stage... Hopefully Broadway!

Cubamor was my first feature film, shot back in 1999 and put to DVD in 2003. A few years ago my good friend Charles Vincent Burwell asked for the rights to adapt the film to musical theatre for his thesis production at NYU Masters in Musical Theatre Program. I agreed, and the production has been gaining momentum since then. Now they're at the point where it's being shopped as a broadway production. So Cubamor may be broadway bound! Let's send some positive energy in that direction! Check out the article in Playbill

!

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/169069-DeAdre-Aziza-Rebecca-Naomi-Jones-Doreen-Montalvo-Javier-Muoz-Set-for-Reading-of-New-Musical-Cubamor

ALAFIA: Leaving the Graham Plantation

The year was 1999, and I was about to send in my script for "Amor d'Exranjeros," later to be called, "Cubamor," to the Copyright office.  It was a moment where i knew if i were to change my name, my first feature film would be the right time to do it.  I went and met with my village elder, my Babalawo, Ifalashe, with three Yoruba names that i liked; alafia, alabee, and alashe.  Alafia was my favorite, meaning "Peace," a shout out to one of my favorite poets, Octavio Paz.  Alabee was my second choice, meaning "born of dreams."  And alashe was my third choice, "one who walks with ashe."  Ifalashe did a divination between them asking about alafia first, and it was most positive.  I sent in the Amor d'Extranjeros script as joshua bee alafia, AKA Joshua Bee Graham.  From that point on, folks knew me as joshua bee alafia, but i'd always have to clarify that i also had a "government" name when folks were writing me checks or booking a flight for me.  It always struck me as a small defeat.  I spent a lot of time wondering about what it must have been like on the Graham plantation; would my ancestors want me to carry on the name of their captor?  

My grandfather, Johnny Bee Graham is an enigma to me.  My grandmother tells me stories of Johnny Bee's ingenuity, how he designed and built a model car by hand that ran, how he owned a pool hall, sold Cadillacs and shark skinned suits, tailoring without a tape measure with his precise eyes.  Johnny Bee was a professional gambler and would leave my grandmother for weeks at a time to play high stakes card games with the Black doctors, morticians, and moneyed gamblers throughout the South.  He had several patents stolen from him in his engineering ventures with motors, and swore to always be his own boss.  I met him twice.  The first time as a baby, then as a 7 year old, when i visited my father when he stayed with him in Waycross, Georgia.  Johnny Bee asked me to come sit on his lap, gave me a $50 bill, and told me to run along and play.  He never shared a word with me.  Unfortunately, he died the summer i was going to go visit him when i was 19.  Somehow, as independent a thinker he was, i feel like he would have lost his plantation name if it was something folks were doing back in his day.

I googled my grandfather and found nothing.  I googled my father and links to "Black Fire," the anthology of Black Arts Movement poets compiled by Leroy Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka) and Larry Neal.

This is what comes up at the afterward in "Black Fire" to describe my father:

RUDY BEE GRAHAM is a Harvard drop-out. besides writing poetry, he has written several plays, two of which were performed by the New Lafayette Theater. He is published in Negro Digest and Black Dialogue.

Later, Rudy would also be featured in "The Poetry of the Negro," edited by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes. 

I asked Rudy Bee if he'd change his name to "alafia" and he declined, being happy with the name "Graham," as it's one of Brahma's names, a divine name...  He said he'd been "Graham," too long.

On October 8th of 2010, The Civil Court of New York in the County of Kings reviewed my petition and ordered my name to become joshua bee alafia.  It was a fairly painless process, a few runs to DMV, publishing the name change in the Canarsie Courier, and the judge Carolyn Wade signed off on my papers, forever liberating me from the Graham Plantation.  The clerk saw me as i was making copies of the papers and sang, "A Fanga Alafia Ashe, Ashe..."  i smiled.  "That song has been in my head ever since I saw your name this morning." She said.  "I'm glad i could bring music to you today, angel," i replied.  The song, was one of the first african songs i learned while studying drumming my first quarter at UC Santa Cruz.  The song goes like this:

Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.
Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.

Come and share our drumming space.
Ashé, Ashé.
All are welcome in this place.
Ashé, Ashé.
We are here to welcome you.
Ashé, Ashé.
Young and old, and babies, too.
Ashé, Ashé.

Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.
Fanga Alafia, Ashé, Ashé.

Open hearts to every care.
Ashé, Ashé.
Open minds to learn and share.
Ashé, Ashé.
Open doors in drumming space.
Ashé, Ashé.
All are welcome in this place!
Ashé, Ashé.

Fanga Alafia
Ashé, Ashé.

It's a song of welcoming.  "Fanga" means "Welcome"; "Alafia" means "Peace"; "Ashé" means "So be
it, or Amen".  I felt welcomed by the ancestors as I walked out of that courtroom with my name legalized, and the legacy of slavery liberated from my namesake for the prodigy.  I've left the Graham plantation, and will continue to decolonize my mind... one day at a time.  This i know is true... one day soon, we will all be free.

Remembering the Magnolia

Remembering the Magnolia teaser from joshua bee alafia on Vimeo.

In January of 2010, Shantrelle P. Lewis, Art Curator and Director of Programs & Exhibitions at the Caribbean Cultural Center called on me to work on a documentary about the Magnolia Projects in New Orleans. Since then, we've been collecting past residents' accounts of their days living there. The story really reflects the larger story of the criminalization and ghettoization of public housing coinciding with the influx of heroin during the Vietnam War through the distribution of crack cocaine among the impoverished urban sector. Our team has included historian Dr. Yaba Blay and photographers Jati Lindsay and Abdul Aziz. Our next trip down will be for the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Billie's Understudy

Skeeder stumbled into the small flat and knocked over the tiny dining room table, the little plant on it crashing to the floor.
"Man, what's that matter with you, you high? Or do I even need to ask," she said. Annie May was only 19, but she had an older woman's voice. I guess that's why she took to singin' the Blues. Guess that's why she went with Skeeder, he could play the drums like nobody's business.
Skeeder collapsed into their bed with his shoes still on.
"Damn it, Skeeder, take off them clothes and have some sense! What you on?"
"I'm high, woman, what it look like?"
"You smell like, African Violet, you got high with Billie?"
"You got nose of a blood hound, woman."
"Skeeder. You didn't."
"You know I'm not here to tell you no lies."
"No. Skeeder... No. Get your alley cat, good for nothin', horse ridin' ass out my bed, fool!" She yelled, and pushed him onto the floor. She got up and closed the door, which was still wide open, withe the light from the hallway pouring in. She turned on a light and took a look at Skeeder laying on his back. She walked to the sink and grabbed a long kitchen knife and walked over to him.
"Skeeder, of all the two nickel whores and show girls you could of stepped out on me with, why you choose my teacher? Why you take her away from me? How am I supposed to listen to her now? How am I gonna learn from her now?" She held the knife tightly behind her back and shifted her weight from right to left slowly.
"Woman, I was so high I didn't know where I was. I thought she was you. She didn't know me from nobody either. I called your name, though, when I reached that promise land, I called your name. She slapped me silly... She slapped me and threw me out the door... can you believe that. I had to go back for my damn shoes. She threw my clothes in the hallway. I called your name, Annie May, and you can believe that."
"I took this knife so I could cut the life out of you Skeeder, but you ain't worth my time. Now get out. You can get used to women kicking you out of they life because you have no decency. You have no shame, and you have no decency."
She threw the knife across the room and grabbed his leg and dragged him to the door. Annie May was a little, pear shaped woman with short curly hair. Pretty when she smiled, but she didn't smile too much. Had too much of that blues in her. She pulled Skeeder into the hallway and went to close the door but he stopped her.
"You know I love you more than life itself, don't you?" He said from his knees.
"Let go of me, " she growled.
"You know I love you like a bee love honey and a fish love water, Annie May. Come on now."
She began to sink. Like a ton of bricks she came down with no bones in her, she came down. She came down and cried like she just lost her Mama. And Skeeder held her close, how he usually held her. Like a man who loved hard but too late. She let him hold her there, and searched for the dreams inside her that had died prematurely of unnatural causes. She searched her heart, and she searched his eyes. His eyes were red, but tender... a real puppy dog... What hurt her most is she couldn't stop loving him. No matter what.

Brother Blue: Boston Griot

brother blue: boston's griot from joshua bee alafia on Vimeo.

Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill aka "Brother Blue" was one of the great American storytellers. I grew up watching him perform in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Brattle Square, at Cafe's, the Children's Museum etc. I loved listening to his colorful and often transcendental stories, and I credit him as being one of my chief inspirations to make films. Here is a short clip of the footage from the documentary I started last year. Brother Blue passed over in his sleep November 3rd, 2009. He was 88 years old. I hope to finish the documentary in his honor by the time we have his memorial in the Spring of 2010. His wife Ruth Edmond Hill was his rock of reason, and the librarian that captured his heart and gave him the support needed to be his freeflowing creative whirlwind self.