Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Be the Calm


Breathe In/Breathe Out
“We ordinary people, in our daily lives, we experience enormous amounts of disorder and confusion. It’s inside us. It’s in our past. It’s in the unknowable future. And we just navigate our lives with this kind of interplay of disorder and order.”
Gregory Orr (“Shaping Our Grief With Language”; On Being, May 30, 2019)
          Our country is going through extraordinary times—pandemic, riots, curfews, civil unrest, looting and property destruction, job lay-offs and furloughs. One doesn’t know what to pay attention to because there is so much swirling around us. Curfews have been instituted in Birmingham because of looting and property destruction. There is so much tension and animus over the killing of yet another unarmed black man, George Floyd, by police that you can feel it in the air. In the middle of this pandemic in which more than one-hundred thousand people have died, there is enormous anger and grief and hopelessness.
          This is when all our methods of calming and centering come into play. I cannot go out into the streets to protest the misery of African Americans, I have no right and I'm too old. But I can imagine the anguish and futility they must feel. What I can do is hold the center. I can breathe and pray and send calming energy out to all who are watching their world cave in around them.
It is a good time for Tonglen meditation. Tonglen means “giving or sending” and “receiving or taking.” If you would like to do it here is the way: Sit quietly with closed eyes, center and quiet yourself. Picture the scene or person of your concern before you, and with the inbreath, breathe in their pain and suffering (it helps me to visualize this as a cloud or smoke). Feel their pain transform within your body/mind, and on the out breath, visualize sending healing energy going out to them, surrounding them, enveloping them. Do this until what is coming into you and what is going out are the same—balanced and healing.
          This is a moment of decision for white Americans. We must open our hearts and realize the anguish we have caused, recognize the wounds never healed, and make amends if possible. And then we must be prepared to tolerate the justifiable grief and anger of our black citizens and do our best to change the conditions that cause them. This is both an inner and an outer journey. This is not a time for revenge, or for angry rhetoric, or for punishment. This is a time for understanding, and not only understanding, but real, systemic change. Let us grieve with them, and open space at the table for them to join us as brothers and sisters.
                                                  In the Spirit,
                                                  Jane

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