Tears well up as I type these words. I ask myself, can I let myself be mindfully undone by this pain and not shut down from it?

A few days ago, President Zelensky addressed the UN Security Council via video link from Kiev. He ended his talk with a short video montage of still photos from the newly liberated town of Bucha. I can’t unsee those images of bodies laying on streets.

One person cut down while riding a bicycle on a street with a basket of groceries. Another killed with a bullet to the back of the head with his hands tied behind his back.

anesthetized by horror?

Many of us, I suspect, would rather not see those images, or if we choose to see them, we process them at the outer limit of our tolerance. Sadly, the more images of unspeakable horror we view, the more anesthetized it seems we become.

morbid curiosity?

Maybe you saw those images out of what psychologists call morbid curiosity. We have evolved to avoid danger, but to do that, we need to know what danger looks like, so we can better deal with it. So we look at these images much as we would look at a car wreck on the freeway as we pass, using the well-known example.

If we choose not to see them, is it because we are afraid to see them? It’s much easier to shove the images aside, unseen, paved over with culturally congruent expressions of outrage.

There is a line that’s been coming to mind over the past few days, from Pema Chodron.

If you’re invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.

Pema Chodron

news from the wrong planet?

Maybe we shove the images aside as news from the wrong planet. One where these things don’t happen.

The mindfulness movement has been hijacked by a self-help industry from this other planet. Mindfulness is now a billion dollar market telling us it’s all good, don’t worry, you got this.

I am sorry, but after practicing Buddhist mindfulness for over forty years–I definitely don’t “got this.”

Mindfulness has helped me see those images and feel my rage in all its rawness. Modern mindfulness says you can deal with intense feelings, but they shouldn’t undo you. I guess I am a failure at this, because right now I am feeling quite undone.

can I be mindfully undone?

Tears well up as I type these words. I ask myself, can I let myself be mindfully undone by this pain and not shut down from it?

This begs the bigger question–does your mindfulness practice serve you to shut you down, or to open you up? To dissociate or invigorate? If the situation is too intense, mindfulness can be protective. But it can also be too protective, reinforcing avoidance.

suffering, death, and resurrection

I grew up Catholic, and Easter time has always been special for me. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the start of holy week, the day Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the week ending with his crucifixion five days later.

Perhaps as Buddhists we can find a very rich contemplative vein to mine here on suffering, death and resurrection.

When I see the pictures from Bucha, I feel a part of me dying, losing hope, falling into fear, closing down. And when I meditate, I feel the ache in my gut, in my legs, in my face.

My years on the cushion have taught me to just feel, just feel.

Drop the commentary. Drop the narratives. Simply be with fear, anger, and rage dispassionately as they play themselves out in the psyche. Watch the enticements toward reactivity, but don’t follow them. Just watch the mind looping, looping.

the loops of our conditioning

The Buddha pointed out the many conditioned loops the mind can go through, and a way out. The big loop, of course, is samsara. And the way out is always through–clean through our resistance.

A clean death leads to a clean resurrection. By clean, I mean free from reactivity and resistance.

This is the work of meditation. Observing our resistance and feeling our way through, not falling into reactivity, and coming out alive, fresh, newly emboldened to work for the benefit of others.

our pain is not a mistake

I can’t remember who said this–that our pain for the world, of seeing the image from Bucha–is not a mistake to be corrected. Our attempts to get rid of this pain, through anger or hatred, only make it worse, as the Buddha never tired of telling us.

I see the Four Noble Truths everywhere I look. The truth of this world is painful, but ignorance is more painful. The path is through the pain.

The Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, wrote in one of his novels:

The problem is not that truth is harsh, but that liberation from ignorance is as painful as being born. Run after truth until you’re breathless, and accept the pain involved in recreating yourself anew.

Naguib Mahfouz

Our Buddhist practice might deepen the non-reactivity on this planet. Not by much, but maybe by just enough to see us through.

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That Putin is digging into a hole he will not get out of, is a trigger for the Buddhist contemplation practitioner to re-frame this situation as a historic teachable moment.

Last week I asked if we should be preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. I got several answers back from you, the most pithy being: “Yes, and no.” Of course, the question hinges on what we mean by preoccupied. 

As we witness this ongoing war in sound bites or headlines in our news-feed, undoubtedly there is tremendous fear. Ukrainians fear for survival, while Russians fear for their future. 

And our headlines in the USA seem to say–while you were sleeping World War III broke out. The noted historian and philosopher Yuval Harari, in a recent article in The Economist observed that:

At the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question about the nature of history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? Or are humans forever condemned to reenact past tragedies?

Yuval Harari, in The Economist, Mar 11th 2022

This war begs the question if we can ever effect radical, lasting change. This is also the central concern of Buddhist contemplation.

In the short term, Buddhism, especially Buddhist contemplation, helps us cope with the overwhelm we all are feeling. Please have a listen to this week’s 10 minute teaching on this very matter by the American Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron in the video linked below.

Although popular culture often caricaturizes meditation as Pollyanaish– the Kumbaya meme–as simply chilling out and not facing reality, how mistaken they are!

Yes, we do so need a chilling out, but we also need a rational examination of our motives– the essence of Buddhist contemplation.

Indeed, Tanner Greer, in a recent article in the New York Times says exactly this, comparing the war in Ukraine with 09/11. He warns our politicians not to be lead by outrage as the Bush administration was. And we all know how that worked out.

He writes:

A righteous reaction may be a dangerous one…Failure to slow down and examine the assumptions and motivations behind our choices may lead to decisions that feel right in the moment, but fail to safeguard our interests, secure our values, or reduce the human toll of war in the long run.

Tanner Greer, The New York Times, opinion piece March 18, 2022

In the short term Buddhist contemplation is an effective way to slow down and examine our of assumptions to avert further catastrophe.

In the long term view, Buddhism’ response can be rather shocking, but its a way out of this potentially cataclysmic mess.

This long-term view is elegantly addressed in this week’s teaching, where Venerable Thubten Chodron she says that the real culprit is not a deranged Putin, but rather our own mental afflictions.

This is the heart of the Buddhist enterprise: to examine our own minds at depth and to work fearlessly to uproot the seeds of anger, greed and ignorance which gives rise to the behavior on display by Putin.

That Putin is acting irrationally, digging deeper into a hole from which he is unlikely to ever emerge, is a trigger for the Buddhist contemplative to re-frame the situation as an historic teachable moment.

Putin’s ignorant mind and actions are a “cause for compassion to arise” as Ven. Chodron puts it. As Ven. Thubten Chodron says in the video linked above:

I can understand him and not hate him for that and at the same time wish him to be free from those mental attitudes and emotions that keep him so trapped.

Because we can recognize those very same emotions in ourselves. The only real difference here is one of scale.

Let’s try and calm our minds with meditation so we can see which of our actions would be the most beneficial for ourselves as well as for all beings everywhere.

Be well, stay safe.

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I admit I am preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. Should I not be?

I am ambivalent about mixing politics with spirituality, so I am trying to be very cautious here. But as the French sculptor Daniel Buren once wrote:

Every act is political whether one is conscious of it or not.

If our meditation practice is to be of any real value to us, it must shine a light into every corner of our lives. We can’t hide anything away in some secret place in our minds and hearts.

So many feelings come up

So many feelings come up when I read about the war in Ukraine, I have trouble triaging them in my head–which ones are critical, which are purely reactive and which might have some meaning to reveal.

I check my news feed several times a day, as if that would make any difference or allay my anxieties.

These last few days I don’t know any more how to greet people.I cannot say have a good day or have a good night, no, because for some this is their last day. We are facing a harsh reality–people are dying every day.

Volodymyr Zelensky, 3/1/22, during a video-link message to the European Union.

Sadness comes up a lot. Then there’s awe of Zelensky’s guts and the courage of everyday Ukrainians in the face of such terror. 

frustration and anxiety

Frustration and a horrified anxiety yell into megaphones from the crowd of protesters in my mind.

I ask if I am “doing this right”, if I should even feel anxious, or should I be cool and disconnected from these emotions? I mean, I have been a dedicated Buddhist meditator for four decades.

How do I write about this? Should I emote? Be visceral? Adopt any of the wartime tones on social media and the press?

I feel exhausted emotionally at times, wanting to turn away from this pain.

how we carry our pain vs knowing the answer

The older I get, the more I think about what makes us deeply human is how we carry our pain.

What also makes us human is to question what we think we know. To allow that whatever we think may not be as rational as the thoughts say they are. Remember the bumper sticker from the 1970s?

Don’t believe everything you think.

It helps me to know that bearing witness to the pain is more important than knowing what the answer is to this crisis. When sadness comes up, mindfulness observes the feeling tones in my body and the thoughts in my head intimately and dispassionately.

the mindful space

Mindfulness makes the space that allows me to investigate if the feeling offers some direction, or if it is purely reactive, coming from fear or aversion.

The poet Mary Oliver writes in her poem Wild Geese,

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on.

the world goes on

That is a tough reminder for me. The world does go on, despite everything.The media reports are horrendous, but I can’t forget my own well-being, and that of others I care for.

So I continue meditating. 

It feels like a privilege. But maybe an uglier entitlement would be not to care about the war in Ukraine. Meditation is a privilege, yes, but one that I don’t embrace just for myself. 

Sitting quietly in mindfulness meditation, I care for myself.

Caring for myself, I care for others. 

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