We live in interesting times…. to put it mildly. In India…. we have overwhelmed medical facilities and personnel, cyclones, denial of basic rights to migrant workers and kashmiri muslims, border skirmishes with china etc etc. The US has Trump (among other issues). The rest of the word has its own heartaches.
And this world seems to demand an emotional reaction from us. To take angry action.
To protest. To punish.
And maybe these things are inevitable.
But wisdom and experience tell us that these reactions simply dont work. They only tend to perpetuate the As Is.
For you see, events are as they are….. pristine and umblemished. No amount of labelling can make them anything else.
However, there is a body. And since there is a body, there is a heart. Since there is a heart, there is vulnerability. Since there is vulnerability, there is pain. Since there is pain, there is true love and compassion.
The mind resists vulnerability and helplessness. My own and that of others. It wants to run away. To label and control. To protest and punish. To practice and pray.
But the only “practice” worth doing is staying with this helpless vulnerability. The only prayer is to accept things as they are.
As we stay with this vulnerability, at some point, an universal act of loving compassion will arise. The hearts of the meek WILL give it birth.
No other prayer will do.
Helplessly vulnerable. Helplessly free.