Like many people, I’ve been limiting news intake lately, because it’s designed to provoke outrage. All it covers are the deepest expressions of human unconsciousness (and granted, there’s a lot of that to see right now).
Anger and sadness are understandable responses to the violence in the United States, Iran, and around the world right now. Yet it doesn’t help us to live in anger and sadness; it’s terrible for our health, and further, action taken from a place of resistance isn’t effective; it just creates more of whatever we’re trying to change.
The thing is, our feelings of peace, compassion and love aren’t gone when we experience anger; they’re just buried. It takes intensive practice to remember that we always have peace within us.
You may already know about this, so bear with me. Last week, my friend Ingrid King told me about the Venerable monks walking 2,300 miles, from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, DC. (Venerable is the honourific for fully ordained Buddhist monks.) She suggested watching their YouTube channel. I’m trying to avoid Facebook, but their page, too, is a balm for the soul. How often do you hear that about anything on Facebook?!
Eighteen monks have been walking in a single file, through all kinds of weather, including the bitter storm that’s swept most of the US. At the end of their walk, they will request that Vesak, the Buddha’s birthday, be recognized as a holiday. While that’s the end of the walk, that’s not the purpose of the walk. The purpose is to take the step they’re taking in each moment. These monks are so present that they transmit their love, peace and compassion simply by walking. They are living presence.
Throughout their journey, they have been greeted by and spoken to crowds, alongside streets, in gyms and baseball stadiums, offering much-needed healing and respite in a time of chaos. From the response—people bursting into tears, moments of connection between the monks and children—it’s clear just how much their transmission is needed right now.
Nineteen monks began the peace walk, but one was injured early on and lost one leg. Nothing more was said about it. The monks haven’t framed it as a ‘tragedy’ or ‘devastating’ in the way American media would frame it. It’s simply what happened and what is. Bodies are impermanent.
This was so humbling for me, because I don’t know about you, but my ego likes to believe I practice acceptance. Yet I can think of a dozen situations far less dire than losing a limb that have caused me to stray from peace.
Then there’s Aloka, the rescue dog from India. Aloka means light (among other synonyms) in Sanskrit, and the benefit of living with monks is evident in Aloka’s quiet demeanour. Whenever you need to cleanse your mind and/or heart, watch a few videos of the monks interacting with Aloka. I can’t even put words to the joy these videos bring up in me. And boy, couldn’t we all use some joy about now?
Aloka tore an ACL (and underwent successful surgery) a few weeks ago. At a recent stop, head monk Venerable Bhikkhu Paññākāra explained non-attachment using Aloka as an example. When Aloka is with him, he said, he is fully present with the dog and enjoys being with him (as is evident from videos). Yet as soon as Aloka was taken to the vet—he was away from the venerable monks for two weeks—Paññākāra said Aloka wasn’t in his mind, because Aloka wasn’t part of his present moment.
I can’t even go to the grocery store without occasionally having thoughts about Ariel.
Venerable Paññākāra was, I believe, pointing to how worry and longing both are forms of ego that keep us from being fully present, and therefore they prevent us from embodying peace.
I don’t know many lay guardians who would be able to stay so present that they don’t worry about an animal friend undergoing surgery. That takes an enormous amount of acceptance and relinquishing the outcome.
Noticing peace and joy doesn’t take away the unconsciousness in the world, but it’s a great reminder that we can (almost) always access peace and joy, if we’re willing to stay completely in the moment. Or more practically for Western humans right now, remember to come back to the moment frequently, to remember that anger or sadness isn’t who we are.
Besides which, we don’t know how much time we have, which is why every moment is so important.
The old, ego-based world is burning, and alongside it, we have the capacity to build a new one. It’s not sequential; we can always strengthen peace and compassion in ourselves. These qualities are always there (in this cultural moment, I have to remind myself of that frequently); the trick is to let go of whatever isn’t peace and compassion.
The grief many of us are feeling is real and valid. Productive anger, like ‘good trouble,’ has its place. At the same time, what if we could be even a tiny bit more like Paññākāra and release the old world to begin focusing on the world we want to create? Can we let go of our attachment to outrage enough to allow the peace in us to blossom?
In the comments, please share the qualities
you’d most like to see in the emerging world.
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