It’s Sunday morning, and the early sunlight of what promises to be a beautiful summer day is streaming into my office and reflecting off my hardwood floors. My children are playing together in the family room, and I’m cozied up in my chaise lounge, with a warm mug of coffee.
I’m ready to write my weekly blog post about mindfulness and compassion and skillful living, but all that is in my head right now is a massive string of expletives.
The world has broken our hearts. Again. And again. Two mass shootings in 24 hours. On top of family separations and anti-immigrant rhetoric and racist vitriol…. my heart, and I imagine yours, too, just aches.
It’s at times like these that I know mindfulness is so needed in the world… and that I feel like it is completely inadequate. I usually see and interpret the events of my life through the lens of my mindfulness practice…. and I don’t know how to be mindful about mass shootings.
A glimpse of my fed up frustration…
I know that the suffering and pain I am feeling right now is minimal compared to the anguish of those who lost loved ones this weekend, or experienced the trauma of a mass shooting, or have borne the brunt of institutional, systemic racism and blatant, overt racism, and horrifying white nationalism, or are hurting in a multitude of ways that I cannot even imagine.
And… I know that suffering is suffering. I know that minimizing or ignoring my anger because “others have it worse” only actually makes it worse. If I can’t feel and process my rage, I cannot learn from it. More importantly, I deny its power to transform into skillful anger that prompts meaningful, change-making action.
And... I worry that speaking of mindfulness in the wake of these abhorrent and violent actions is the secular humanist version of “sending thoughts and prayers.” If I rely on my practice, am I just “sending kind thoughts and compassion”?
And… I know that the world desperately needs compassion and kindness right now.
And… I know that I need my practice, as un-enough it may feel in these moments. I know I need to sit. I know I need to feel my pain and the pain of the world (to the extent I am able). I need to find stillness in order to listen to the wisdom of my body so I can act from a place of clear knowing, instead of rage-posting into the social media void.
And… I also worry that speaking about mindfulness in the face of tragedy can manifest as an insensitive, unkind “this is how it is; we just accept the present moment, without judgment.” I fear that my message may be one of passivity and resignation.
And… I know that mindfulness is NOT passivity. Yes, mindfulness helps us shape our relationship to the things we cannot control and to navigate the spaces where we may be unable to act…
BUT THIS IS A PLACE WHERE WE CAN ACT.
And when we are mindful — when we see clearly, when we take stock of what is actually happening — we can act. We can send our kind thoughts as we hold the victims of tragedy with fierce compassion, and then we can take fierce and compassionate civic action.
I’m reminded of my teacher who once said that mindfulness needs heartfulness. We need to cultivate a curious, nonjudgmental awareness AND and an open, loving heart that inspires us to kind and loving action. Mindfulness without heartfulness is dry and dispassionate. Heartfulness without mindfulness is overwhelming; it’s just feeling all the feels, without any wisdom or insight.
So when tragedy strikes, we can call upon our practice. We can notice our fear, our rage, our sadness, our aching heart, our churning stomach, our shaking body, our clenched fists … our collective emotional and physical reactions to hatred and violence.
We can pay attention.
We can feel.
We can listen.
We can notice.
We may notice energy in the body. We may feel moved to act.
We may notice the angry, ragey thoughts settling. We may start to notice thoughts about planning, writing, marching, comforting, donating, advocating, voting, canvassing, teaching, allying, confronting, or campaigning.
We may notice wanting to do allthethings, and then we may notice a prioritizing, a discerning. We may notice some wisdom arising.
May we indeed be moved to fierce and compassionate civic action.
I want to close this post with an excerpt from the blog post I wrote in the wake of the 2016 presidential election:
At the conclusion of Voltaire’s Candide (an eighteenth-century novel about toleration and reason), the naive Candide’s philosopher friend Pangloss states, “[F]or when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle.”
And as Pangloss continues to philosophize and speculate (instead of actually acting), Candide replies,
“All that is very well, but let us cultivate our garden.”
Yes, let us cultivate our garden.
Gardens do not grow by themselves. They need tending and fertilizing and watering and trimming and harvesting.
We need to get to work.
And that can feel overwhelming.
But remember — it’s a GARDEN, not a farm.
You can handle a garden. Don’t buy a farm and start working on ALL THE THINGS that need working on right now.
You have a few tools, and a small piece of the earth.
Dig in. Plant the seeds you are passionate about. Take action where you will be most effective.
Tending your garden is not a retreat from the world. It is the first step toward transformation.
So tend your garden.
We shall reap what we will sow.
If you are feeling so moved, you may consider taking action in a number of arenas, for civic action is not restricted to voting. You may want to take action to stop gun violence. You may want to advocate for better mental health care. You may want to work with groups fighting hate and extremism. If you identify as white, you may want to learn more about how to be an ally for people of color. If you live in the United States, you may want to contact your representatives.
- A Mindful Approach to New Year’s Resolutions - January 13, 2020
- Just This Next Step - December 16, 2019
- WAIT: A Mindfulness Practice for Waiting in Line - December 9, 2019
