How to practice when the world needs you
Dear friends,
In two weeks, I am heading to Plum Village in France for a month-long meditation retreat. I know I have a lot of privilege to be able to take a month to practice deeply with my community. For that, I am very grateful.
Recently, a friend of mine reached out to see if I could help her with a direct action for social justice, taking place during the time of my retreat. She made a very compelling argument about these unique times that we are in and how important it is to do what we can to end genocide and destruction.
I took some time to ponder this question. I felt a little guilty taking so much time on retreat. And in the end, I decided to go to Plum Village. I offered to support my friend’s action via video and/or find someone else to take my place.
It’s a good question, though, and maybe you have wondered about this too. During challenging times, is it OK to step away from our responsibilities to others in order to practice meditation?
Doing nothing brings about quality of being, which is very important. So doing nothing is actually something. – Thich Nhat Hanh
I often reflect on something I learned from the Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo. She said that our current life situations are part of our karma - the causes and conditions that have led to us this moment. Karma isn’t personal, it’s simply actions that result from other actions. As the Buddha put it, “This is because that is.”
If I look closely I see that my life situation, one that allows me to have the time, money, health, access, and freedom to go on retreat, is the result of infinite impersonal causes and conditions, many of which came from unfair, racist, classist, and ableist beliefs and systems, and only a few having anything to do with my conscious actions. And yet, they are real and have real life implications. What Tenzin Palmo shared with me was this: while I don’t need to personalize my privileges and make them mean something about me– good or bad– I also must never become complacent about them or take them for granted.
Her words have guided me for years and they remind me to reflect on my privileges whenever making decisions. Is this the most beneficial way to use the good conditions I have been given?
It feels important to reflect on this question, and from another perspective there is no question. Meditation and action are really two sides of the same coin. Deep practice informs wise action and taking mindful action from a grounded place is a form of deep practice. They are not two different things, and they are not exactly the same.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s guidance during the war in Vietnam was to encourage his students to spend one day per week in mindfulness and the other days traveling around the countryside helping people and bringing needed medical supplies. With the guidance of wise teachers, we can each determine for ourselves how much practice we need in order to show up and act with understanding and compassion for all beings.
with love,
annie
Postscript: I thought I had come to a final decision about my retreat time and my calling to social action. But after attending a Solidaire social justice funding gathering last weekend, and listening to Maurice Mitchell, the director of Working Families Party, I reevaluated again and decided to spend one of the four weeks of my retreat canvassing for Seed the Vote in my home state of Michigan. Everything changes when conditions change. I turn to the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra for guidance in knowing when and how to take wise actions:
We invoke your name, Samantabhadra.
We aspire to practice your vow to act with the eyes and heart of compassion, to bring joy to one person in the morning and to ease the pain of one person in the afternoon. We know that the happiness of others is our own happiness, and we aspire to practice joy on the path of service. We know that every word, every look, every action, and every smile can bring happiness to others. We know that if we practice wholeheartedly, we ourselves may become an inexhaustible source of peace and joy for our loved ones and for all species.
❤️