Welcome to the American police state.

How do you stand against institutional cruelty and cynical lies? And: where is equanimity to be found in outrage and anger? How do you act?

Challenging times.

Thursday afternoon, the United States congress passed Donald Trump’s absurdly named ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’ The nauseating cynicism and bloviating dishonesty of the name pretty much speaks for itself.

The president signed this bill into existence yesterday afternoon — indulging his fondness for hijacking the symbolism of patriotism for his own ends — the Fourth of July. Again, the cynical and bloviating dishonesty of the symbolism speaks for itself.

Wiser and more erudite voices than mine have already, in great and disturbing detail, outlined the intent, and results of, this bill, on this country, but I’ll bullet-point a few big ones here:

•Trump’s first-term tax cuts will become permanent, granting a huge tax windfall to the top of the (now-inverted) American wealth pyramid at the expense of everyone else, especially the most economically disadvantaged Americans, tilting income inequality even more wildly out-of-whack than it already is;

•Cost 12 million Americans their health insurance between now and 2034;

•Make ICE the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the federal government, essentially pushing the United States of America into an anti-immigrant police state;

•Create a system of detention facilities that can be accurately characterized as gulags (see: Alligator Alcatraz);

•Balloon the federal deficit by an estimated $3.4 trillion.

This is a deeply unpopular piece of legislation (an approval rating in the very best case of 35%, according to polling carried out by the Kaiser Family Foundation), and yet, it was able to pass both houses of congress. Its passage was the result of fear and intimidation: the complete and utter capitulation of the republican members of the house and senate to the narcissistic and — let’s not mince words, because, at this point, why hold back at all — cruel and infantile will of Donald Trump. Out of a combination of fear, complicity, and a slavish, cynical addiction to the pursuit of power and truly spectacular narrow self-interest, this is where we are now.

Now what?

There’s a strong possibility, given the deeply unpopular polling associated with this bill, and the fact that you’re reading this Substack, that you might be angry.

Good.

There’s a cliche of zen practice, and Buddhist practice in general, that Buddhists don’t get angry: that the equanimity of meditative practice somehow magically ends anger. That’s completely bullshit, of course.

Anger is inevitable; meditative practice doesn’t end anger, doesn’t stop emotions from arising. A zen practitioner may appear imperturbable, but that imperturbability is the surface of the ocean of their humanity. That calmness may not betray obvious emotions, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

What meditative practice does have to teach us is how to engage with our humanity in ways that minimize our suffering — to let our suffering, for instance, our anger, or outrage, or sadness, be a teacher. And enabling us to harness the energy of our emotions in ways that allow us to productively engage with the world, and the causes of our suffering.

So, anger.

My teacher, Tenshin Fletcher, Roshi, has reminded me again and again that anger is valuable because it cuts through bullshit: the energy of our anger can be like a sword that cuts through lies. We find the strength in harnessing our anger to speak truths we were afraid to speak out loud, or to call into question actions we might not otherwise have the energy to confront.

That doesn’t mean indulging rage or surrendering to the Red Mist of blind fury. It means taking a meditative pause, recognizing the emotion that’s arisen and acknowledging it, and then, out of that pause, allow an opportunity to choose how we respond.

The imperturbability is in the pause, in the breath taken before we react.

In this way, anger — or any emotion — is a tool available to us; essentially a technology we can harness yoked with the wisdom of the pause we’ve taken.

It’s a lot to ask, to be sure, and I can say with 100% honesty, I fail again and again to take that pause. That’s why I practice: to find that pause as often as I can, again and again, until it becomes embodied, and to act from that pause when I do take it, and act with something remotely resembling wisdom and something vaguely resembling equanimity.

So, be angry. Fully experience whatever arises and in that pause taken, find a path to respond using that energy with your whole being: heart, intelligence, compassion.

Just be present and respond fully. Be angry. Stand up and take a step. Make your voice heard and take a stand. This is your life. Our collective life. Stand ups for what you know is right, and your body tells you is true.

Anything else is complicity. Go ahead, please: be angry. Be alive.

Your comments are always welcomed and encouraged. I’d love to hear from you.

One more thing.

As a zen priest I’m a student of Tenshin Fletcher Roshi at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center. For more info on Yokoji, please visit www.zmc.org.

I’m also the caretaker of Warwick Zendo, a small in-person and online sangha based in the lower Hudson Valley of New York. if you’d like to check out our practice community, we’re at www.warwickzen.org.

How this works.

I plan to post at least once a week, at minimum. The Freeside offers those weekly posts, which will always be accessible. Payside will (eventually) offer access to some longer writing and ongoing investigations into my practice: literary, baking, road. All of it fundamentally zen.

Payside also helps to sustain this project, and this practice. Like any creative project, keep sweeping is a kind of labor, and as such, your support to sustain that labor is much appreciated.

If Payside is not for you, that’s all good. The posts will keep coming on Freeside. The support of your reading and attention is a deeply appreciated gift, and I thank you for being here.

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