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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