Stay with the Grief

"Today I saw images of students leaving their school with their hands raised in the air, hours after cowering in fear and terror in barricaded classrooms. Nine dead and twenty-seven wounded in the tiny Rocky Mountain town of Tumbler Ridge. The mayor, Darryl Krakowka, said, "I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims." And this in Canada, which often seems to us Americans like a bastion of sanity and normalcy in comparison with our madness."

"I see a little boy covered in bandages and burns in a makeshift hospital in Gaza. He is the same age as my son. My imagination is too good sometimes. And there are so many images to engage. But you already know that. You're bearing the weight too. I want to rage at the bad guys. But really there is no other side. I love my extended family, and half of them are evangelical Christians and MAGA to the bone."

"But this is not what practice is for. Meditation has been training you all along to stay with the discomfort, stay with the trouble, stay with the pain, and to not collapse. Every hour on the cushion was a preparation for this: to hold it all, or as much as possible, and not go numb or freak out or fall back into distractions, including the distraction of thoughts about reasons and blame. What I am saying is not some kind of metaphor."

Images of schoolchildren fleeing violence and injured civilians in distant conflicts produce visceral pain and identification. Family and political divisions intensify emotional strain. People cope by distracting themselves with hobbies, media, or subtle forms of numbing within spiritual practice, such as pursuing body bliss or intellectualizing suffering. Meditation training aims to cultivate capacity to remain present with discomfort without collapsing into distraction, blame, or numbness. That cultivated steadiness prepares individuals to engage responsibly in democratic life, to show up, have difficult conversations, and act from sustained attention and compassion rather than avoidance.

Read at Deconstructing Yourself