Wisdom and Not-Wisdom in Action, Plus Sweet News

There’s “ordinary” news: market whiplash; leadership/not leadership; greed, hatred, and delusion.
 
But there’s sweet news, too: the child of a friend and benefactor who cleans houses for living - a child who’s been planning to be a lawyer since they were five -

got into Princeton undergrad with a full ride.Princeton, full ride, with a solid foundation of love and goodness underneath them:  leadership in the making.

In the middle of the muck (from the incredibly hard work of scrubbing toilets) a triumph. From the deep mud, a gorgeous lotus.

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 486. It’s good to be with you.

On Monday night I got to sit with the Working Group for Law & Meditation. We’ve been sitting together for a long time, as many of you know. I went back and checked the presidents and saw that we’ve been sitting together since Bill Clinton was president. Honestly, I don’t know how that’s even a thing. 

Anyone, on Monday we were talking about the law firms – those that have capitulated to the administration demands and those that are resisting -  another thing I honestly just don’t know even know how it’s a thing…. But anyway…

One thing we landed at was the obvious: that in a way, this is an object lesson in the Three Poisons of mindfulness, greed, hatred, and delusion: jaw-droppingly high-salaried people, acting in their own interests in keeping their huge businesses going, and yes, also their interests in serving their clients, and yes, the two aren’t necessarily separate, but in so acting (to sound like a lawyer), becoming complicit in violating the rule of law. 

We especially wondered what those who are voting complicit, are saying to their siblings or friends or kids who lead ordinary lives and don’t have gazillions to protect. Do they justify what they’re doing? Do they defend it? Or do they not feel they have to?

I invited my law students to debate this yesterday because it was perfect: we’re talking about the middle part of the path – wise communication, wise action, wise livelihood (I think I mentioned that last week on the Call), so, wise communication – the acronym of Thinking Cap: saying what’s t-true, h-helpful, i-interconnected, n-necessary, and k-kind; and listening with c-curiosity, a-attentiveness, and p-patience. And wise action, which is doing no harm, not taking anything not freely offered, not misusing sexuality, not taking in substances that cloud the mind (which Thich Nhat Hanh taught us includes media, social media, advertising, anything we “take in”), and not using unskillful communication (so, looping back to wise communication). And then wise livelihood, which also overlaps, so, all of the above, plus, not dealing in intoxicants, not dealing in poisons, weapons, or humans, and doing no harm. 

I invited the students to plug in these precepts and then debate the merits of complicit vs. resistant, imagining they were partners at the table of one of the firms being hit with an executive order. The “resist” group argued that the firm should resist in order to stand by the rule of law, protect its reputation as a strong, independent firm so as not to lose clients, and because economically, it would impact the firm more negatively in the long run to lose their good reputation than it would benefit them in the short run. The “capitulate” group argued that their duty to their clients and employees was paramount, the work they were doing in Federal court was critical, and pro bono work was per se in alignment with their values, even if the work they would be required to do might not be (this was right before the news broke about Steve Banks, Paul Weiss’s chair of pro bono, leaving the firm). The two sides were debating, using mindful communication and action really beautifully, I’d say, when one person in the “complicit” group said to their peers on the opposite side of the table, in a moment that clearly hadn’t been rehearsed, “We’re placing too much focus on values. If we’re being truthful, we didn’t come here for that. We came to the firm to grow it and make money.” To which there was general, non-cynical, agreement. (And by the way, if anyone’s here from class, please forgive me if I’ve mischaracterized anything.)

I agree, too, and am also trying not to be too cynical. Because I feel like this is where plenty of folks are living right now: in a moment where there’s a need to protect what we have. And if that means making concessions on values for what is hopefully a short(-ish) period of time, so be it. Maybe this is just one way democracies fall. 

Anyway, I want to end with a love story. In the middle of this moment, which is anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusivity – and of course that’s some of the pro bono work these firms are agreeing to do – a beautiful thing happened. 

We have a friend and benefactor I’ll call Eleanor. Eleanor slipped into the U.S. 25 years ago without documents, raised two children, watched the eldest graduate from college and become a medical professional, and just found out that the second, who graduates from high school in June, has a full ride to Princeton. 

There have been a LOT of tears of joy. This child made this happen, no doubt, and deserves this scholarship, and entrée into this elite institution. And obviously there’s no legacy so she really did it 100% on her own. But I think of Eleanor, working her petunia off as we say in our household, with so much gladness to be in this country, reporting her income, paying her taxes, and sending her youngest to Princeton on a full scholarship. And did I mention this child wants to be a lawyer?

So this is our country right now: a place where many people – including partners at huge law firms – feel unsafe, and yet where someone can slip in, raise a family, and watch their children rise to the most elite top of the ladder. And of course I get the irony, too – that in both cases, the letter of the law has been broken. 

Princeton is flying Eleanor and her daughter out for new student week, and Eleanor will be in peril, her only document a drivers license. Many people will be wishing her well on her journey, wishing her safety, hoping she gets out East and back without incident. She told me, though, that although she’s not ready to be deported if she’s caught, because she hopes for many more decades to mother these amazing young women up close, if it ends up that she is, it’s ok. She feels like for her, it’s a job well done. 

So we have these law firm partners who are taking home between $900,000 and $6,000,000 a year and appear, anyway, to be motivated by greed, hatred, and delusion, and Eleanor and her family, who are motivated by love to do the hard, hard work of the world, so that maybe, just maybe, their daughters can rise to the top. And in this case, rise to the top and maybe run this tired old world one day.  

Let’s sit.