In these troubled times,
With unsettled nations,
A rancorous public discourse,
And unprecedented disruptions,
Cultivating our own sense of peace and extending it to that part of the world within our influence has never been more important.
And perhaps one of the greatest challenges can be understanding and accepting those whose viewpoints and beliefs are so different from our own,
Especially those that seem to be enabling the rancor.
How then,
In the presence of views we might consider violent,
Can we safeguard our sense of peace so that we might move with equanimity through the world?
In his famous essay,
Notes of a Native Son,
James Baldwin examines his very fraught relationship with his distant and often very angry father,
And the complicated feelings that dogged him into his early adulthood.
Only when he set his father's actions against the backdrop of the violent and ubiquitous racial oppression of mid-20th century America did they become explicable.
His father had suffered vicious racist treatment his entire life,
Seeding an anger that ultimately consumed him and turned him unbearably bitter.
By examining the forces that led to his father's response,
Baldwin was able to step away from his own growing bitterness,
Stop blaming his father,
And turn toward an understanding of his father as a person who had suffered greatly.
From this,
Baldwin was able to feel compassion for his father,
Even as he still harbored his own resentments.
Baldwin comes to this conclusion,
That he must never give up his fight against racial injustice because to do so would drop him into despair.
At the same time,
And seemingly contradictorily,
He must never give in to the false hope that he would ever see the end of racial injustice because to do so would,
When that day never came,
Foster the kind of bitterness that ate at his father.
Baldwin's view is very much in keeping with Buddhist doctrine.
Life is suffering.
So long as we are alive,
We are subject to suffering,
From the inevitable decline of old age to the more immediate and extreme effects of poverty and warfare.
To give up in the face of suffering leads to despair.
To resist and resent suffering leads to bitterness and anger.
When I look about the world we live in,
And I see people I know supporting the kind of actions that,
To me,
Are unsupportable,
I have to remind myself that these others are the same as I.
They seek safety,
They seek belonging,
They seek meaning.
These desires underlie all actions.
Fear of losing these are what fuel anger and hatred and violence.
I have to remind myself that these others see the world in different ways.
They've had different experiences,
Upbringings,
And educations.
They have a different sense of history.
They have a different conception of what kind of world there must be for them and others to experience safety and belonging.
If I had lived their lives I try to remember,
I would likely believe and act in exactly the same way.
This does not mean I condone their actions and beliefs,
But I do accept their actions and beliefs as sensible given their experiences and understandings.
Acceptance does not mean acquiescence.
Like Baldwin,
I will accept that injustice exists in the world,
Suffering exists in the world,
And many people are,
Perhaps unwittingly,
Agents of these.
But also like Baldwin,
I will never stop working in my own small way,
In my own small world,
To counter those forces,
To spread peace and justice in each of my actions the best I can.
As we move through our days,
As we witness the events of our world,
Let's strive to see others with compassion,
As beings seeking safety and belonging.
And as we do,
Let us all do our best to practice peace throughout our day,
Recognizing that our individual actions are all that we have power to control.
I hope this practice or something similar is helpful for you.
I wish you a beautiful day.
