Welcome to In the Deep.
I'm your host,
Catherine Ingram.
When you are frightened about the future,
Consider the times in history,
Which seem to be most of previous history,
When life was generally short and one could easily die from an infection,
From war,
From a spread of disease,
From childbirth.
We,
In our time,
Have come to expect longevity and relative ease,
And we panic in the face of anything that threatens that expectation.
But that expectation is a brand new phenomenon in the human story.
The truth is that we are and always have been vulnerable creatures,
As have all creatures,
And it is important to come to the deep recognition and acceptance of that fact.
Most of what we fear is completely out of our control,
And at least some of what we fear does not actually come to be.
I'm aware that there is panic rolling through many parts of the world.
Don't join in.
Otherwise,
You'll just be another body on the pile of despair that someone else,
Someone who's more calm and clear,
Will have to rescue if you are so lucky.
Instead,
Be the voice of peace in situations where panic and fury reign.
There are some people who are now railing against the Dharma perspective in the face of what they perceive to be a political war ahead.
This has always been the case.
Dharma responses have been criticized as being too passive for as long as I can remember.
My first book,
In the Footsteps of Gandhi,
Was born out of this criticism.
I wrote that book about 30 years ago,
Having spent the previous decade studying and writing about the confluence of spiritual understanding and social,
Political,
And ecological action.
I interviewed and profiled 12 leaders for the book,
But I had interviewed 100 others over the years prior on those subjects.
I became convinced through knowing these people and seeing their effectiveness in their fields that only understanding and empathy have any hope of moving the conversation forward among opposing sides.
There were,
In many cases,
People who had lived through hell and who,
Along with their communities,
Had been subject to various forms of unspeakable cruelty and injustices.
But they nevertheless held to empathy and understanding for their oppressors,
And understanding exemplified,
For instance,
By Gandhi's statement that he wanted the British to quit India,
But he wanted them to leave as friends.
Or in the Dalai Lama's reference to the Chinese as,
My friends,
The enemy.
Or in the words of the nonviolent activist Pancho Ramos Stierl to his jailers,
Brother,
Your soul is too beautiful to be doing this work.
It is an understanding that to affect change with the most lasting results,
There is no place for hatred in the equation.
Even when you're simply in a room and listening to people express their worries about what is to come,
See if you can,
Without denying the potentially dire aspects of the situation,
Leave open a space of not knowing.
This is not to escape into a transcendent story such as it's all perfect or it'll all work out or it's all illusion.
This is to face the reality of what is,
But not entirely lost in what might be about the future.
There are many troubling things about our world.
We are rapidly denuding our life support systems and heating up our planet.
This is not in the future,
It is now.
But we must live on a razor's edge of clarity,
Knowing that although our time is troubled,
As have been many times in history,
And although sometimes things have turned out worse than imagined,
They've also sometimes not been as bad as had been feared.
Sometimes even when the worst has happened,
There is a quickening of wise response to the crisis.
This is the evolution of our species,
Whatever happens,
Whether it is heading to its end or kicking and screaming to its awakening as a world community.
Our job is to stay steady and there's no need to apologize for taking refuge in the Dharma.
In any case,
Your beautiful life is rolling along on this very day,
This very breath,
The days and breaths,
A finite number for each of us.
This has been In the Deep.
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Book a private session or make a tax-deductible donation for the ongoing production of the podcasts,
Please visit KatherineIngram.
Com.
Till next time.
