Norma Wong is the author of When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse, which was released on November 5. 

Norma is a Native Hawaiian and Hakka life-long resident of Hawaiʻi. She is the abbot of Anko-in, an independent branch temple of Daihonzan Chozen-ji and serves practice communities in Hawai‘i, across the continental U.S., and in Toronto, Canada. She is an 86th generation Zen Master, having trained at Chozen-ji for over 40 years.

Below is an introduction from Norma and an excerpt from her new book.

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Who we are matters, and what matters even more is what we do with who we are. This is a foundational purpose for this slim volume, which could not have been written if not for now over four decades’ practice in Rinzai Zen walking side-by-side with community work, policy work, political work, and the calling into the best parts of humanity work. The deep reflection and sweat equity of practice keeps me honest, humble and persistent. If not for fully engaging in moving ahead of the rising tide, there would be little to be honest about, humble for, persistent enough.

This book makes no prerequisite of its readers. But a spiritual practitioner might recognize a louder calling-in, a more earnest beat of what is required of us at this fragile time for Mother Earth and humanity. I hope that is the case! Our clarity and decisiveness are required as much as our compassion. Engaging with, as much as for. Seeing the truth, while understanding it is only a part of what is so in a complex world that took a very long time to get to where it is we are, and nonetheless we must. Engage. Now. I hope that is the case!

Excerpt:

From When No Thing Works by Norma Wong, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2024 by Norma Wong. Reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books.

“Here I am, in my home. At least for the last sixteen hundred years. And in this region of the world -- the vast Pacific -- from the time of known human existence. This place and the peoples of this place over time -- the self-sufficient and confident native people who defied extermination and continue to arise, the seafarers, the missionaries, the laborers and craftsmen and families who did not return to China, Japan, the Philippines, Portugal, Korea when their contracts were done, the refugees of war from Southeast Asia, the climate refugees from the sea-level hugging islands of the Pacific, the land developers, the military and their families who come and go, the people who choose to continue to visit not only because of the islands’ beauty and lifestyle but also because we are among the least American-like place in America -- shape who it is I am and how I view the world. Lens count.

From a categorization viewpoint, it would have been sufficient to describe myself as an indigenous woman of mixed ancestry in her mid-sixties, life-long resident of Hawai‘i, active early in life in policy and politics, particularly as it relates to Native Hawaiians, and focusing for the last twenty years on applied Zen.  That would mean something to me, but would it mean something to you, enough for you to have an experience of lens? Probably not. Just as you would have much more insight if the next hundred pages or so traversed the more interesting stories of this short life and the learned stories of related and unrelated ancestors. Tempting, but we are in an urgent slipstream. The shorter versions of a handful of stories are likely to find their way into the unfolding text. How else may we be in relationship with each other, so critical in this digital existence that drives to all matter of transaction -- choices, judgements, acquisitions and discards. 

The lens with which we view and act into the world, among other things, form our perspectives -- our points of view. My teacher, Tanouye Tenshin Rotaishi sometimes answered the question of “What is the truth?” with this… “The truth is the intersection of everyone’s perspective, if we could only know that.”  We can’t. His point was to show the architecture and the slipperiness of righteously judging what is true or not, and instead to practice reflective discernment, remembering one’s own perspective is what it is we see through our own lens. What are the lenses of at least two others in vicinity of this truth? Just one other is one short of triangulation.

Prescriptively, there is first the recognition of lens -- its presence and its specific characteristics. Second, the interruption of one’s own lens to remove the habit filter otherwise known as our bias. Third, an understanding of how another person’s lens populates their perspective, hearing it without our own judgement, and therefore catching a glimpse of what is behind, underneath, desperately wishing to be known, and a preview of what may come. It is listening without filter plugins.

In the treble of these times, it is impossible to talk about perspectives and lenses and hearing and seeing things with clarity, even in complexity, without talking about and warning about the magnifying hair-on-fire effect of social media. Here I open a door that I have observed without direct experience.”