Dealing with the world of shock, grief and anxiety

 

Going on almsround, people stop me and ask me what I think about the state of the world. I say, well, it’s ... errmmm … problematic. It’s the stuff that the Buddha says we should know, and through fully comprehending it, find release. What he was pointing to was the psycho-physical ‘personal world’ but the qualities and energies that you encounter there reflect the world as it’s presented through the media. Or at least an aspect: the outflow of the human mind in terms of conflict, crime, sport, and economics, with some fashion or cultural add-ons. Details change.

My view and input as a Buddhist samana (= ‘monk’ or ‘nun’), one who has stepped out of the mainstream, refers to the facet of human experience that can balance ‘the world’, and through that find the place of no-suffering. That is, there is an awareness/wisdom that encompasses experience but doesn’t participate in its energies and attitudes. This doesn’t mean that I think that people shouldn’t have jobs and children, make money or vote – but my part in the great human body is to be a heart that just steadily pumps some warmth and clarity into the consciousness where impressions of the world arises. 

So what am I, or anyone, going to do about … the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia,Yemen, Taliban, Myanmar … and so on. One can read analyses that point the finger at western imperialism, or the stranglehold of the economic super-powers as underlying causes, and one can debate this and that. But how does all that make you feel? And what are you going to do about it? If I was in a position where I could pull a lever and stop it all, I’d be doing that.

I also think it’s good that there are organizations that offer resources and healing, and that there are protests and petitions that try to give attention to the problems of the world. They at least express social conscience and concern - ‘guardians of the world’ in Buddhist terms – and that is encouraging. However, they often work best by stepping back from taking sides and finding the neutral negotiation point. But trying to find that place in the midst of atrocities takes some deep work. Yet it's obvious that the underlying causes of violence and conflict derive from the corruptions and blind-spots of the human mind. Once the mind is intoxicated with views and opinions, with mine and theirs, then there is no evil it will not do. Best then to step out of political viewpoints. Naming the current aggressors may be a political truth, and may bring around remedial action, but it’s not a noble truth, one that meets suffering and resolves it. 

There are occasions when the two truths meet. After the Second World War, there was global political dialogue as to what the new status quo was going to be. There were voices that proposed that Japan no longer be an independent nation, but one supervised by others; reparations, loss of territory and so on. But the prime minister (or president) of Sri Lanka, being a Buddhist, came out with the famous lines from the Dhammapada, ‘hatred doesn’t stop with hatred, it’s only through love that hatred ceases.’ He felt that the best thing to do was not to take revenge, but to follow the healing process of Dhamma. People respected that, and so Japan was allowed to be an independent nation, and has been a law-abiding peaceful member of the family of nations ever since. 

It was pretty much the same with post-war Germany, where support to rebuild the nation was offered. But even more than the material support, there came around a change in one of the major sources of long-term conflict in Europe: inter-European rivalry and conflict between Germany and France.  Wars had been going on between these two for about 500 years; you would have thought that the accumulation of so much mistrust and bitterness would have ruled out a rapprochement. But after two World Wars, the scale of the European catastrophe was so great that it caused a wider focus. Everybody’s hurt everybody. Everybody’s lost their friends and parents. To get out of this, the only thing we can do comes through an attitude shift; to soften the boundary between us. So they started what is now called the European Union. 

The EU still has boundaries and where there are boundaries, there are problems, internally (Do we all agree? Do we have to?) and externally (immigration and relationships with other blocs)  But at least it has stopped the warfare that had been going on inside of Europe for millennia. However the rule is that where there are boundaries, sharing across them is a crucial part of any solution.

For example, one of the most significant moments in the riots that deceptive social media recently whipped up in the UK was when an imam from a Muslim congregation began distributing food to the ‘anti-Muslim’ rioters. One rioter, at least, realised that he didn’t actually have a problem with Muslims (probably didn’t know anything about Islam) or immigrants. The more fundamental issue was, and is, the frustration around inequality and wages, stirred up by years of divisive political rhetoric (which drew the UK out of the EU). Something called ‘immigration’ – the outsider, the foreigner - is blamed as being responsible for it.  So there were scenarios of patriotic people who felt that it was their patriotic duty to attack other British people and smash their property. Which asks questions about what being part of a nation means. Perhaps the idea ‘nation’ is an attempt to transfer the elusive ‘we’ sense onto a manageable socio-political structure. And who gets left out with that? Anyway, if you put aside the confusing topic of who does and who doesn’t belong, and to what, you get in touch with people, not ideological projections. That’s where the projections and the hatred can cease.

What remains for me is the moral outrage at the level of deceit, aggression and violence-inciting speech that floods the public domain. Transforming that outrage into resolved and outspoken demonstrations of non-aggression and inclusivity (as also happened in Britain) is a moral duty in these intense times. It may come down to sharing non-exclusive time. I've previously suggested that presidents step out of role and invite their opponents for a meal; or go to each other’s countries and dance together. But with the current status quo, maybe their children should start the get-together. Or just get their dogs to meet. (Step at a time!) Where can one begin?

Well it seems to me that the fundamental duty of all of us is one of clearing and regenerating good heart. It’s not just an emotional tonic, it’s about human order – and health. It’s vital to dispel the lie about humans. We are not ‘others’; we are not even ‘self’. We cannot be defined by any ideology, though we adopt them. And we adopt them because we lose access to a stable and unbiased heart. The stable and clear heart/citta, is joyful, empathetic and reflectively wise. Only a return to that sets the mind straight; political or religious ideologies will not do it. These set up the basis for projections that justify discrimination and persecution. Basically people don’t hate people; they get frightened or hungry or angry … and there’s a point which their hearts lose balance and empathy, and when that happens, the politics and the ideologies and the generalisations take over.

Do you also recognise how all this connects to the growing number of mental health issues? It’s down to depletion of heart/citta. In these times, the impact of receiving so much fear, shock and greed-inducing input, via news and social media, uses and abuses the receptive energy we call heart. So some of the heart-sensitivity shuts down; you lose empathy, you get distracted and reactive. For some, greed and power-lust springs from that. For others it’s caused by threat and results in violence. Notice how much of this messaging springs from a screen, where there is no empathetic presence – and there’s plenty of misinformation.

Without empathetic presence, your heart isn’t tuned in to discharging stress. Then the experience of ‘me’ and ‘others’ crystallises, you lose your sense of empathy and balance, and negative emotions arise. These can burst into violent or abusive actions, or, if you don’t act upon them but don’t release them, negative states take over the mind.

One of these is resentment, rage directed against the others or ‘the system’. On the other hand, you can get stuck in guilt and regret and feeling hopeless. Either way, if stress isn’t discharged, those energies rush though the heart and leave it depleted or sickened, or depleted. Depression sickens. Loneliness sickens. Depravity sickens. The heart loses its buoyancy and radiance; and, as heart energies are felt to be mine and my self, the assumption arises that ‘I am a depressed person, a misfit’. Actually, nobody is a depressed person, but there is a depression-causing misfit: deflated or corrosive states don’t fit the nature of heart. If you don’t resolve them, you become them; you lose emotional resilience, joy and the ability to regenerate. And then you’re prone to participate in the world of depression, resentment and selfishness.

Some an aim of Dhamma practice is to clear the negative, return to the truth of heart, and learn about the world. We use the body as we’re living in as a support. Because in the embodied condition, we can detect energies that steady and support a balanced heart. And they encourage the discharge of stress. To put it very simply, when you breathe out, you can let go. If the heart is in touch with that embodied presence, it feels naturally and comfortably supported; it’s non-reactive. So, in testing times, we need to put some effort into maintaining embodied presence from top to toe and into the ground to get the stability in order to not spin out into floods of emotion.

However, you also have to learn to moderate - how much pressure can you take at any given time? That takes mindful discernment. So Dhamma practice is not just a matter of feeling, but of mindfuIness; of holding the feeling in the presence of stability.

It’s like holding the rope on a bucket when you drop it down the well: you don’t just descend into the realm of emotions without mindfulness immersed in the body. No, you lower the bucket of the heart on a rope, and acknowledge: I can be with this much grief or anxiety at this time. If the bucket is going upside down, it’s time to pull up a little - that’s too much right now - but you don’t haul out of the well. You gain discernment at the point where you keep in touch with embodiment in order to feel what’s being felt without going so deeply into it that it overwhelms you. Then we can learn: that’s an emotion, it’s not a person, it’s not another, it’s not myself. Nothing need be added or subtracted from that truth. 

This process will allow citta to come to a stability where its reactions and its fear and its agitations ceases. That’s obviously for our own welfare, we feel comfortable. It’s for the welfare of others because from this state, I will not be producing reactions of righteousness, hatred, violence, nor will I be producing feelings of fear, impotence or despond. My heart will be steady. Therefore, what arises from it will be just truthful, sagacious, loving, equanimous, for the welfare of others. 

We’re no longer interested in blaming, righteousness and shaking our fists. All that’s just adding to the negative brew. We also are no longer interested in consumerism. We find it pointless and silly. We’re no longer distracting ourselves or using alcohol – because we find all that distasteful. Then, as we’re social creatures, the overall health of the individual is going to lead to health in the social fabric. And if the social fabric is healthy, the likelihood is the leaders we empower are going to be sane and balanced. Because the leaders arise from the social fabric that allows them to be in that position. 

At any rate this is what the world can teach us. We learn that if we create boundaries in the heart, then those boundaries block the flowering of understanding, ethically-attuned awareness, and sanity. It may be that some of us can lead, or invent, or educate or heal, but for all of us, if we can come through this human world stronger, more resilient, more endowed, then we’ve done some good. It cannot be that it will not be for the welfare of others.