The Wisdom Of Sorrow

Another shooting. Another war.
Another moment of sorrow and grief. Another moment of wondering why. And another moment of us – the lawyers - advising, representing, prosecuting. Doing our jobs.
Is there room for sorrow? Is there room for grief? Is it even useful? How can we live with it, and how can we live without it?

Transcript

Hi everyone, It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 381. So it's been another violent week in the U. S. This time right here in California especially, California which is the state with the toughest gun control laws in the country. The shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay took me back to Norman Fisher's words about prajna paramita, The paramita or perfection of understanding and again in choosing understanding over wisdom, Norman says understanding means to be close to, To be with and we take it like that. An understanding person we feel is compassionate, Considerate, Empathic and so the perfection of understanding includes to know, To see how elusive and shimmering this life is and at the same time with and through seeing this to be understanding of life, To care for it, To stand with it in empathy, Love and compassion. In fact, Norman says all we are really talking about is love. The shootings, The shootings themselves I don't see how they are about love. What I feel about them is anger and frustration and sadness but to be honest my first response was not any of those emotions and it wasn't to stand with in empathy, Love and compassion. My first response was not to look, Not to look at the news, To put my head in the sand, Not to see, Not to deal with, Not to know and also not to mourn and then I saw a photo of a young parent with a young child. It was in the New York Times, Maybe you saw it, Leaving flowers against a fence in Monterey Park, The site of the first shooting this past week, A fence that was already layered with flowers and I had the thought if that young parent has enough confidence in the resilience of their small child and that much of a sense of being able to turn towards what's just happened themselves and that much of either a belief or instinct that to bring the child into this moment not just to see but to memorialize, To mourn is the right thing then I better do that too. But the truth is I don't know if I know how to mourn. I mean I don't know any of the victims so it's different from mourning my mom or anticipating the death of our frail 15 year old Labradoodle or watching my almost 87 year old father's decline. It's different because it's more distant and it's also closer. You know it's smaller in my life and it's also so much bigger and when I think about how much bigger I feel a shattering in my chest, In my heart because you know what am I really mourning? These victims, All shooting victims, All victims of violence and bias and hatred, Just the most recent ones Tyree Nichols for example or everyone or what about all species, All beings and then right in the middle of that confusion yesterday the U. S. Agreed to send tanks to Ukraine. Plus what about mourning those who perpetrate hatred and war, Who pull triggers, Who beat unarmed black men, Who enlist others to do those things, Who clear-cut, Who spew carbon into the air which is me too. No. What am I mourning there? The lack of wisdom, The lack of compassion. So I felt the temptation to turn immediately towards equanimity and then I had the thought if ever a practice feels like spiritual buffet pass in the moment that one does. You know there is sorrow and then before there's equanimity my instinct, My body says first grief, First grief and then maybe equanimity. As Naomi Nye, Shihab Nye says in her in her iconic poem, Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. I heard Governor Newsom speak in Half Moon Bay. He said he went to Monterey Park after the first shooting and was asked to speak and declined. He said he just couldn't face the words and then after the Half Moon Bay shooting he couldn't avoid speaking so he grabbed a folder as he was leaving his office, A folder full of index cards on what to say at shootings. He had a folder, He had a folder, He had index cards. I have index cards about how to talk about mindfulness and he has index cards about how to talk about shootings. So how to turn towards this? I don't have, I don't have any answers. I mean is it like my old dog when I take her head and I gently point her in the direction I want her to go because she can't see? Can I not see? Can we collectively not? I mean it's partly that and it's partly just not wanting to face my own broken heart but then I think, I think of Joanna Macy's suggestion or maybe it's an admonition and the instructions of so many teachers from every lineage to allow our hearts to break open, You know, To let in the awfulness, The horribleness, The frustration, The rage and especially, Especially the sorrow. You know everyone knows the Leonard Cohen lines, Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, A crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. I know that sorrow and compassion are siblings and I also know there's wisdom in sorrow, Wisdom in grief. A lot of times it feels more like falling apart than wisdom to me but maybe there's wisdom in falling apart. Once when I was working with a bunch of immigration lawyers at the border who were representing the children they said don't tell us to give us up our anger. It's important, It's crucial, It's our fuel and when I went to my teacher for an appropriate response he said underneath anger is care. That's what they're really talking about and if that's right then maybe underneath all afflictive emotions, Anger, Rage, Disgust, Helplessness, Fear, Sorrow, Grief is the deep maybe unflinching knowledge that we care. We care about each other. We care about our loved ones but we also care about our acquaintances. We care about the strangers. We care about the strangers in strange lands. We even care about our opponents. We even care about our enemies. So in this moment if it's possible to look beneath and tap in and honor what is beneath, What's underneath and tap into sorrow and tap into grief not as a kind of a downer you know to ruin our day but as a way of just learning to be in this world. I don't know if this world right now is any more violent and tragic than any other time in history. Maybe, Maybe not. What was it like to live in the Roman Empire? I don't know but just taking that time, That compassion, That wisdom to be with what's here right now today as the Taoists say the 10, 000 joys and 10, 000 sorrows. So let's sit. Finding your posture, Maybe today if you are going to explore grief it's a more relaxed posture, Maybe it's a more upright posture, Whatever is supportive for you. Checking in with the body, Especially checking in with the heart, Checking in to see if the heart is blocked in any way and if there's some kindness, Some gentleness, Some relaxation that's available to you to open the access to the heart and maybe there's nothing blocked at all and maybe there's agitation in the body or in the mind, Some emotion that's layered on top of sorrow, That's layered on top of grief. Noting if that's present and seeing if whatever is underneath that is accessible to you or if the mind wants to slide away towards easier topics and maybe there's wisdom in that, Only you will know, But in case there's wisdom in staying with this practice of uncovering sorrow, Uncovering grief, Then maybe gently redirecting the mind back to the present moment. And because this is, Well, It's such hard work for me anyway, I don't know how if it's hard for everyone, But in case it is, Just to take the hand and place it on the heart, If that feels comfortable for you or if it doesn't, Just in your imagination and sending love to yourself, Just acknowledging your own good heart, Practicing to heal ourselves so that we can help heal the world and help practice to help heal the world so that we will be healed. Thank you for being on the wake-up call today. Thank you for your practice. Be safe, Everyone. We'll see you next Thursday.