How Not to Freak Out

 

11.11.2022 HOW NOT TO FREAK OUT I don’t know about you, but I for one could use some wise counsel right now, a little cool-down. As if I hadn’t already been concerned about the state of the planet, and of society, there’s the coverage of the US midterm elections, the oft-repeated notion that democracy is at stake, and a general sense of division among citizenry. Whatever your politics, I reckon hearing these things again and again takes some kind of toll. Thank goodness, I say, for the dharma, which offers us all ways to come to terms with whatever it is that sets us on edge, so that we can recalibrate our minds, our relationships to them, and to each other. So this Lion’s Roar Weekend Reader, I simply want to share teachings that can be of benefit to anyone who’s feeling, well, a little freaked out about the state of things. May they be of benefit to us all, deepening our sense of Wise Hope, and helping us all be of benefit to each other in turn. — Rod Meade Sperry, Digital Editorial Director, Lion’s Roar

How Not to Freak Out You’re not alone if you despair about the present and fear for the future. If you find all the bad news overwhelming, Buddhist teacher Judy Lief has some meditations to help you relieve your anxiety. It is liberating to drop the fantasy of there being a more perfect world, somehow, somewhere, and instead accept that we need to engage with the world as it is. It is our world, it is messy, but it is fertile ground for awakening. It is the same world, after all, that gave birth to the Buddha.

Yes, We Can Have Hope Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on the idea of “wise hope” and why we should open ourselves to it. As Buddhists, we know that ordinary hope is based in desire, wanting an outcome that could well be different from what will actually happen. Not getting what we hoped for is usually experienced as some kind of misfortune. Someone who is hopeful in this way has an expectation that always hovers in the background, the shadow of fear that one’s wishes will not be fulfilled. This ordinary hope is a subtle expression of fear and a form of suffering. Wise hope is not seeing things unrealistically but rather seeing things as they are, including the truth of suffering—both its existence and our capacity to transform it. It’s when we realize we don’t know what will happen that this kind of hope comes alive; in that spaciousness of uncertainty is the very space we need to act.

Love Everyone: A Guide for Spiritual Activists Real political change must be spiritual. Real spiritual practice has to be political. Buddhist teachers Sharon Salzberg and Rev. angel Kyodo williams on how we can bring the two worlds together to build a more just and compassionate society. Rev. angel Kyodo williams: It’s important not to get stuck in your own views. Even if you think yours is the right way, there’s always someone else who has another way. Then you’re in an irreconcilable conflict that doesn’t get resolved except, I think, through love. King and Gandhi understood that everyone holds some aspect of the truth. So when you’re in the pursuit of social justice, it becomes very difficult to hold onto your own idea of the truth. You’d think that the more you’re in pursuit of justice, the more you know what’s right. But it’s actually the opposite. Happiness and suffering, right and wrong, like and dislike—these are the paradoxes that exist for all of us balancing the inner life and outer life. We think it’s one or the other: either we like and agree with people, or we’re against them and we have to hate them. The question is, how do we exist in the space that holds both of these dualities at once?

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