Global Peace Meditation

Join David in for this short talk and meditation to process all the deep and difficult emotions around the war in the Middle East, and bring healing to the region. Together, we can find solace and hope in these challenging times.

Transcript

I think as human beings,

We all experience similar feelings when we see so much violence and hatred and tragedy.

When we watch death of innocent people,

Children,

Our initial reaction might be to get angry,

To want revenge,

To be despondent,

To feel apathetic,

To be afraid,

To go,

Ah,

Screw the whole human experiment,

Get me off of this dumb planet.

These people are never going to stop fighting.

Humans love war.

It's over.

Forget it.

It's not worth it.

Anyone have some of that?

Just want to give up on humanity energy.

So we all experience these feelings.

That's normal.

And hopefully here in today's meditation,

We can bring some mindfulness and awareness to them and start to grieve,

Let ourselves grieve,

Let ourselves move the emotion and find something deeper and some healing for ourselves,

For the Middle East and for the planet as a species.

So yes,

When we watch the news,

We get an IV drip of all the worst things human beings are doing to each other on a daily basis.

And this week,

It's been far worse than other weeks.

But that's mostly what we get when we tap into the news.

We get the worst things that happened to the seven plus billion of us in one day.

And that is unhealthy for our consciousness,

For our emotional states.

It's hard to deal with.

And for most of human history,

We didn't get that,

Right?

The news was what was new.

Somebody would walk from another village and they would tell you something,

Give you some gossip.

A letter would come,

Right?

Nowadays,

Within seconds,

You know,

The worst things that have happened to everyone on the planet.

And so we're inundated with suffering.

And that's hard to handle that on a mental level and emotional and spiritual level to know about all the suffering of the world and to be inundated by it.

And it's an amazing opportunity to come together as a species and heal that suffering and make a better collective place for all of us to live.

So there's a silver lining to that.

We can also solve problems together as a species.

And the human consciousness is definitely still struggling with tribalism and fear and scarcity and hate.

And you see all of that manifesting.

And there's also so much peace and love and creativity and joy and beautiful expressions of the spirit on this planet.

And it's all of the above.

And whenever I get someone telling me,

You know,

The world is going downhill,

Society is collapsing.

Or when someone says to me,

You know,

We're the conscious 2012,

The consciousness is shifting.

We're all going to shift into another non-physical dimension,

David.

And everyone's going to be enlightened.

I'm like,

I don't see that happening either,

My friend,

That would be great.

But really,

We live in a very diverse world.

And so we have the worst of the worst hate and violence.

And then we also have the Buddhas of the planet here,

Very enlightened,

Awakened beings and everything in between.

So the human experience is a spectrum from what I could tell,

And we're living on that spectrum and experiencing all of it.

So I have no sense of one direction that all of humanity is going in the short term.

The best I can do as a teacher and healer is help people awaken to who they really are and bring that energy out into the world.

And then we will see.

So I don't think that the future is written in any one direction.

It really is up to us and the energy that we're in.

So let's be part of that positive shift and in meditation today,

See what happens and then bring that energy enlightenment awakening out into the world.

I've also noticed,

You know,

This is since we live on social media,

Everything's kind of become this opinion generation,

Right?

We're just regurgitating and just expressing our rage and opinions.

And there's nothing wrong with having an opinion.

We all have opinions and points of view.

But from the perspective of the meditator,

Which is what we're doing here,

Being identified or overly identified with our opinions is when we start to cause some trouble.

When our ego is identified with our opinions,

This is what I believe and I am right.

And then you take that to the extreme and then we have violence,

Which is what we're seeing.

My opinion is right and I will literally kill you over my opinion because I'm correct.

My God is right.

My tribe is right,

Whatever it is,

And I will kill you because of that opinion,

Right?

That is the extreme version of that consciousness of the identification of an opinion.

And for me,

What I've always tried to do in life is to temper my opinions based on my own experience and knowledge.

So if I have no experience or knowledge in a topic,

Then I try to make sure I don't take my own opinion very seriously.

So I have never lived in the Middle East.

I am Jewish.

I do have relatives in Israel and luckily they are all safe.

But I have never lived in that region.

And so my opinion matters far less than somebody who has a lot of experience and personal experience and knowledge about that conflict.

That being said,

I'm also a human being,

Hopefully with a conscience,

And I can have a strong opinion about murdering children and violence and hate.

I'm comfortable having a strong opinion about that.

But what happens for a lot of people,

What I'm seeing is they identify with that opinion,

They run their rage through that opinion,

And it doesn't lead to anywhere good.

And so part of the healing is in understanding.

It's easier to understand the people we agree with and believe,

And it's hard to understand the people we hate.

And I think a lot of growth comes in learning to understand the things we don't understand and the people that we hate,

Or we think we hate,

Or that are so different than us.

You don't have to agree with someone to understand them.

And so I hope through this experience,

Humanity will have some deeper understanding and realize that violence is not really going to take our species anywhere.

I did a few of these at the beginning and during the Ukraine war,

Which is still going on.

And I think people are going,

Oh my God,

You know,

Ukraine,

The Middle East,

So many places where there's conflict and intense energy,

And it's creating a sense of stress and anxiety that feels almost relentless.

Anyone experienced that?

Like,

Oh my God,

This is just getting intense.

And so violence is the element of fire,

War is the element of fire,

Right?

Bombs exploding is fire.

And we also see that with the temperature of the planet getting hotter,

Right?

The numbers getting hotter is reflecting in our natural environment,

What we're doing to the planet too.

So if we live in a state of rage and anger,

That will express itself and manifest itself out into the world in many different forms,

In our environment,

Through war,

Through hatred.

So we want to bring our own internal temperature down and deal with our own anxiety and fear if that is coming up or despondency.

And that's part of the human experience is we have these hard freaking feelings.

We dislike them.

And it brings us back to the Buddha's Four Noble Truths,

That there is suffering and dissatisfaction on this planet as human beings.

Every single human being experiences it.

There's a cause for it,

And that there's a way to come out of it,

That we don't have to live in an endless feeling of suffering and dissatisfaction.

And hopefully meditation is one of the ways that we can work through that.

So that's what I'd like to do with you today,

Do some healing and take a beat just from all of the news and the energy of the world.

I've had so many messages coming in saying,

David,

Can we just take a beat?

Can you do a meditation so we can all breathe for a moment and pull our energy out of this intense situation?

And so yes,

We can.

And that is why we're here.

So make sure you put your other devices down,

Let yourself just be here and relax,

And shift your energy and your consciousness,

And then let's see what happens.

So this is not a place where we're shouting our opinions from the rooftops.

It is where we're going inwards into our conscious subjective experience and reflecting on how we feel and who we are,

And allowing ourselves to have a healing and letting our energy shift.

Because this will not be the last conflict.

I don't know much,

But I'm pretty sure of that.

And so can you show up to your own personal conflicts mindfully?

And can you show up in the face of human kind of collective conflicts mindfully,

And not just react?

That's a tough thing for a lot of us.

So take a deep breath in.

Be grateful for the oxygen,

Relax your body,

And relax your mind.

Most of what you experience are just thoughts in your head.

You don't have to chew on each one,

Or fight each one,

Or solve each one,

Or identify with each one.

You don't have to become each thought that passes in your consciousness.

So as you gently close your eyes,

As you relax your body,

Notice that you are consciousness,

And that occasionally,

Or often,

Thoughts pass through it.

And I want you to just take the temperature of your thoughts.

Notice what kind of thoughts have been passing through your mind recently.

What's the nature of them?

Are they angry?

Are they sad?

Are they despondent?

Are they distracting?

But notice that you have this consciousness,

And that thoughts just pass through it.

You're not even creating most of those thoughts consciously.

They're just coming,

And they're going.

And if they've been driving you crazy,

Well,

You've been letting them stick to you.

So just back up.

Notice your internal weather,

And just watch it.

The power in meditation is the power of being a neutral observer.

That's the foundation we want to create as meditators.

So in this still space,

You're not fixing anything,

Solving,

Healing,

Judging,

Just watching.

And this is how we start to have insight,

When we see in neutrally and clearly.

Notice as you're still,

Your body can relax maybe another 10 to 20%.

And then in your head,

You can find a volume knob,

And even just turn the volume of your thoughts down.

So they might continue,

But turn the volume of them down,

Just like you would turn the volume down on some music,

Or on the news,

On the radio.

As you turn the volume down,

You might notice where you've been taken for a ride in your own head,

And that you're coming back to center.

Everyone has different kinds of thoughts that take them for a ride.

Notice how important you think your thoughts are sometimes,

How they need to be solved and completed.

And most of human conflict and most of human suffering arises from the minds of humans.

Most human suffering is created by humans and from our minds.

Sometimes you might turn that on yourself with judgment,

Or you might turn it on someone else and judge them.

Maybe I'm not good enough,

Or maybe you're not good enough.

Maybe I'm bad,

Or maybe you're terrible.

If I get rid of you,

My problems will be solved.

If I become a different purpose,

My problems will be,

If I become a different person,

My problems will be solved.

As you're sitting here still,

Some of that energy might start to just fall away.

So in this very moment,

There's nothing you have to solve.

So as we begin to really find our center here,

We can then start to say hello to some of the deeper,

More hurtful stuff.

We want to do that with mindfulness.

We really want to be present when the really deep feelings arise.

Maybe feelings of anger,

Feelings of hatred,

Of a desire for revenge.

Maybe the identity with some group consciousness.

Maybe grief.

So allow one really deep feeling that you've been having that just needs to come up to the surface and be acknowledged and felt.

Just allow it to come up to the surface.

No judgment is needed of any kind.

You don't even need to understand it or solve it.

So if you need to fully feel the energy of,

I want revenge,

Let that feeling course through your whole body and just be with it.

If there's this feeling,

I want to just give up on humanity,

Let that feeling course through your body and just feel it and just be conscious with it.

The feeling is not an issue.

It's the judgment towards the feeling that tends to create a complication.

And usually we have this initial feeling,

Maybe there's disbelief,

Rage,

Confusion.

And as that expresses itself and has some room to breathe,

Then we tend to find underneath it some pain,

Some grieving.

So there might be a feeling underneath a feeling.

If you're an empathic person,

If you're a compassionate human being and you see children die or innocent people die or any human beings suffer,

Then there's probably going to be some heartbreak and some grieving.

Allow yourself to feel that deeper feeling,

Let that arise.

There's a tendency to always want to figure something out or fix something.

Just let a feeling be a feeling.

My sense is the most trustable people are the ones that allow their feelings to arise and allow themselves to feel them fully.

And they're authentic with those feelings.

The people who push their feelings down,

Hide them in their unconscious,

Manipulate them,

They're the ones we go,

Whoa,

Not safe here.

Let yourself be the person that fully feels and is honest.

Because when we don't feel or allow ourselves to fully feel,

One of the things that can happen,

It's like a toothpaste bottle,

It'll go somewhere,

The toothpaste,

And it'll go into your opinions.

Your ego might take over and then becomes a feeling that's targeted towards someone else because you need to find someone or something to blame for you feeling bad.

It's easier to spend our energy that way than to just be with the grieving.

And under the sadness,

Under all of this pain,

At some point,

You might even find compassion for the really deep unconscious human beings who've,

For whatever reason,

The way they're wired,

Their upbringing,

The pain they've experienced have turned to hurting other human beings.

So even in the midst of sadness,

Of grief,

Of anger,

Whatever the feeling is,

Notice that there's a still inner peace,

Just like at the center of a tornado,

There's a still deep inner peace.

Then I want you to just notice as this energy starts to unfold,

Something deep inside yourself that wants to emerge on a spiritual level.

So is there some more compassion,

Self-love,

Empathy,

Understanding,

Peace?

Is there some energy under all of this pain that wants to emerge from you as a gift to the collective healing of humanity?

Notice that.

Maybe it emerges out of your heart center,

Just a vibration,

A sense,

I'm going to walk through the world peacefully or with an open,

Compassionate heart.

Let that energy just start to emerge from you.

Let it vibrate through your body and around your body.

And let's send some of that to the Middle East.

And if you're in the Middle East and are all around you,

Send that energy of compassion,

Of love,

Of acceptance,

Of peace.

Whatever you feel your spiritual energetic gift is here that you want to give,

Just watch it go to that region of the planet and touch everyone there,

No matter how conscious or unconscious they are,

No matter how hate-filled they are,

Or love-filled they are,

Or how much they're grieving right now.

Send it to everyone,

Just like the sunlight doesn't discriminate.

Mostly what you're seeing in the world is loud,

Opinionated,

Angry voices with no understanding or compassion that want to be right and want to win.

And that is the ego,

That is the human ego.

Let your energy be open and send some healing to all of those people,

The women,

The children,

The men,

The soldiers,

The grandparents,

Even the souls of people who are recently deceased,

Everyone,

Everyone,

No matter how broken they are,

Are part of the human species.

Take a nice,

Big,

Deep breath in,

Easy,

Soft sigh out,

And when you're ready,

You can slowly stretch and open your eyes.

Thank you all so much for sitting with me and meditating with me.

Hopefully that gave you some space and applause,

Some healing.

And just one piece,

As this moves forward,

If you are sharing on the internet,

Expressing yourself,

Do it mindfully and notice where your energy is when you do it.

Thank you,

Thank you.

And instead of just from the ego saying,

This is my identity,

Share something insightful,

Educational.

Hey,

This article explains the history of this.

This is a great article about this one family.

Share something insightful that brings understanding and healing rather than just an expression of your ego identity,

If that makes sense.

So something that's actually useful and helpful,

And you do it mindfully,

And you take action mindfully versus out of reaction from pain,

I think that's a healthy practice going forward for all of us.

Yeah.

Thank you,

Everybody,

So,

So much.

Reviews

David always leads me to peace within and without. Thank you.

The meditation brought me the word Grieving, to compassion, as if a door was opened to an almost years-longlocked room full of grieve. Thank you!

Meditation part starts around the 20 minute mark. Thank you for this, David.

Beautiful and very helpful talk and meditation Thank you David 🙏🏼💕

Perfect meditation for this extremely painful, fearful, difficult time. Thank you so much!

Thank you for this meditation, really needed this , I have been so anxious the last 3 weeks 💫🙏

Thank you so very much 🙏

Thank you so much for these words and for the meditation.
🙏🏻 I find it difficult to put it into words how it touches me.
Just this: love shining through. 🙏🏻 Thank you.

Thank you so much for this meditation, David. I’ve been feeling so much about this conflict, but you helped me realize that my deepest feeling is grief—for the inhumanity of humanity, for terror, for subjugation, for dehumanizing others, for not learning the lessons of history. You helped me reach back to my deep beliefs from my childhood in the Quaker faith, especially the power of peace and the inner light in all of us. Thanks again, David 🙏

Thank you for addressing this topic. I count on you to make some way through this mess and many others. 🙏❤️

🙏🙏🙏 Thank you so much!
South Africa

Thank you 🙏🏼

It is always a pleasure to sit with you, David! Thank you! 💝🙏💞

Mostly just feeling helplessness and grief for tragic killing. Prayers for peace, rest and healing of our world.

Just what the doctor ordered. Thank you. Recent days have been agonizing for those of us with ties to the Middle East. This practice helps lend an important perspective 🕊️

Thank you David. I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the fighting and violence that’s taking place in our world. Your meditation brought me some peace.

That was great , thank you David. Really appreciate your work—so *grounded* and helpful. Maybe you can do another meditation on further processing the grief and pain we feel inside with all this. Blessings, Satya

Thank you David, so much❤️. I love your lightness and your wisdom.🙏🌈❤️

Amen 🙏

Can’t express how much I needed this meditation and wisdom. Thank you.