This is a variation on the classic koan “What is your Original Face?” aka “Think Neither Good nor Evil” – #23 in the “Gateless Gate” book of koans.

One version of this koan is worded, “Do not think of good, do not think of evil. At this very moment, what is your original face before your father and mother were born?” Of course, in our commonsense understanding, you had no face before your parents were born (and of course you had no “Race” either). The expression “original face” has been used since the earliest days of Chinese Zen (Chan) to refer to the ultimate reality you can perceive only when you have removed all the delusions about conceptual “reality” or the small self.

This will not be a classic koan presentation. Instead, it’ll be a launch point for not looking away from the deep, intergenerational trauma – personal and societal – caused by the delusion of “Race.”