Building a Coalition of the Heart
Buddhism does not speak much about the soul. It tends to look instead toward impermanence, changeability, and the fluid dynamics of situations. In much of Western civilization, by contrast, the soul has often been imagined as a thing—an independent and perhaps permanent essence that lives on after the body expires.
Buddhism offers another way of approaching the question. It speaks of basic goodness, or Buddha nature: the fundamental openheartedness and wakefulness present in every human being—indeed, in every living being. Basic goodness is not a solid or permanent object. It has always been here precisely because it is always changing, taking new forms and manifesting through people of different cultures, religions, identities, and ways of life.
Perhaps this is closer to what we mean when we describe something as soulful.
Think of soul music. Soul is not a thing possessed by the music. It is an energy moving through it—an energy that connects human beings across cultural boundaries. It is difficult to imagine truly soulful music espousing violence, sectarianism, prejudice, or hatred. Soul music reaches toward something deeper and more universal.
In America, soul music grew from gospel, blending the emotional and spiritual force of the church with the structures and textures of the blues, then moving into the popular music of its time. An extraordinary stream of artists emerged from this fertile meeting place. Among them was Sam Cooke, whose “A Change Is Gonna Come” became one of the defining anthems of the Civil Rights Movement.
The song’s power does not come from political argument alone. It communicates heart to heart. It carries suffering, dignity, longing, and hope across the boundaries that ordinarily divide us. It makes politics human.
A politics of soul would begin there. It would ask whether our political and social structures might be organized around the heart—around our capacity to communicate the feelings of one heart to another, crossing cultural lines and recognizing a shared humanity.
That does not mean pretending prejudice and hatred are superficial or harmless. They can be deeply ingrained in individuals, institutions, and societies. But they are not as deep as our basic goodness. They are not as fundamental as our capacity for openness, wakefulness, and connection.
Even those who espouse hatred, prejudice, or extreme partisanship possess basic goodness. This may be difficult to accept, especially when we feel attacked. Our instinct is often to attack in return. Yet when we answer aggression only with aggression, communication can freeze. Each side becomes more solidly identified as the other’s enemy.
What might happen if, without surrendering our principles or tolerating injustice, we could remove ourselves as targets and speak instead to another person’s basic humanity? What if political communication sought not merely to defeat an opponent, but to reach the place within them that remains capable of recognition and care?
Such an approach would not be sentimental. Opening the heart requires courage, discipline, and clarity. It asks us to resist hatred without becoming organized by hatred ourselves. It asks us to recognize the humanity of people whose actions we may need to oppose.
A politics of soul would not deny conflict. It would transform the ground on which conflict takes place. It would begin from the understanding that beneath our hardened identities and inherited prejudices is a more fundamental capacity to awaken and connect.
Perhaps that is where genuine political change begins: not with the soul as a permanent thing we possess, but with soulfulness as an energy we practice together.