Radical Zen Leadership
By Rebecca Ryan
““If I give alms to the poor, they call me a saint. If I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.””
I have always believed in social justice, always donated to organizations committed to equity. But it wasn’t until I watched a video of George Floyd being killed under a police officer’s knee that I became radicalized.
Wait, does the word “radicalized” scare you?
It scared me the first time I used it. But it freed me, too. It freed me to be more ambitious about what I want from police, the legal system, and myself.
What is a radical?
Radical: adjective (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough: a radical overhaul of the existing regulatory framework
In Linguistics, radical denotes or relates to the roots of a word.
In Music it means belonging to the root of a chord.
In Mathematics it means the root of a number or quantity.
In Botany radical is of, or springing direct from, the root or stem base of a plant.
Imagine you were diagnosed with cancerous tumor. Would you instruct then surgeon, “Just take out a little, the least invasive amount.”?
No, you wouldn’t. You would say, “Take it all! I want it all out!”
That’s what it means to be radical, it means you want to get to the root of an issue, you want to understand and treat it thoroughly. You don’t want to read about tumors. You want to treat and heal tumors.
Zen Leadership both calls us to radical leadership and arms us for it. Radical leadership requires courage - or in the words of Zen Leadership “fearlessness.”
Go on, you radical. :)
Rebecca Ryan Roshi is a Zen Leader Instructor, FEBI Certified Coach, and Board Chair of Chosei Zen.
