Going to Gym daily I speak to a lot of kids ages around 14 – 19.
There is one kid Dayton in specific who’s both 16 and who is African American who has tried numerous times to race bate me.
He’s tried many times to get me to say racist things.
And given not only the context of his age, but more importantly and more specifically his programming and conditioning…
I have not reacted. Not even resisted. It’s almost as if in my mind nothing was said at all. Nothing to react too, nothing to even bypass. But still logically knew he was saying.
A big part of having empathy for someone is actually not reacting to what they say or do, WITH presence.
I don’t know what he’s been through. I don’t know what experiences he has had. What his upbringing is….ETC.
We have had many talks in fact about NBA. And I’m genuinely interested in these kids life at home, their parents, how they get along with their parents. And several other things.
I’ve watched Dayton have periods of anger on the court. Not just any ole anger either. Extreme Explosions. Inner atom bomb type explosions.
Given that it’s a game. Nobody is going home with any prizes. Nothing added or taken away from who they are, the anger is a sign of something else going on under the surface.
I could have easily made him into an enemy but with presence, me being here with him is what would allow him to heal. He needed healing.
He’s seen me meditate several times. Has tried to interrupt me quite a few times. It’s very funny too.
But I could tell he started to wonder, curios what I was feeling when I would enter into the bliss mode of deep presence & supreme self-realization.
One day after meditating. All the kids left and it was just him and I.
“Do you know what I’m doing in meditation.”
“Yeah…. I got nothin.” … 
“I’m finding the sense of relaxed aliveness that I am. That you are. I’m allowing everything chemically in my body to find rest, ease, relaxation and gentle aliveness.”
He began to move into it a bit.
And now while he was moving into this state it was time to call that elephant out in the room.
“Do you know where racism comes from?” I asked.
He said “Where?” with a very intrigued, sharply focused look.
I said…
“It comes from people who feel separate because they have not realized who they are which in inseparable from that relaxed gentle aliveness that is already here. Which is colorless and cannot be separated.”
And I continued…
“Do you know I don’t care about my skin color?”
This was shocking for him. And he and questioned me in a dumb founded way. Almost appalled.
“WHY?” He asked.
“Because it has nothing to do with the freedom of who I am. That freedom of moving into the relaxed sense of aliveness which is already here and is who am regardless of my skin color.”
We walked into the gym just a few short steps away.
And I put the finishing slash on the both of us. (I’m releasing chemicals as I write.”)
“And you know that relaxed sense of aliveness is the whole ……..”
And before I finished he drew circle in mid air with his hands to represent the whole universe.
And thus I finished.
“That relaxed sense of aliveness, is the whole universe.”
And I looked off into a distance and was LIKE WOAHHHHHHHHHH in total awe of reality looking through our eyes as if I was moving deeply into what is most blatantly obvious.
And he left and said.
“Bye Matt, in a very gentle, very soft, serene way.”
A vast difference from the anger and race baiting that I seen before.
And for that moment he had healed from the division caused by skin color.
Although there is a good chance he has moved back into his default mode. That conditioned default mode WAS shifted to be a bit more at peace with ‘what is’
From that day moving forward he waves with a smile on his face to see me. Which means I know that he has been impacted and healed.