I wrote this post over a year ago and then couldn’t bring myself to publish it…but in light of what recently happened in Nashville I feel compelled to bring it into the light…. Please do not take this as another “Hopes and Prayers.” This is just some raw thoughts which I can only hope bring someone some clarity.
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to solve the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together, and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen. Room for grief, room for relief, for suffering, for joy” -Pema Chodron
I’m dropping my son off at nursery school. He hops out of the car, slowly puts on his backpack and mask. We walk over and check him in on the school attendance app, and he gives me our usual big hug before he skips down the ramp to the playground. There is nothing unusual about this exchange, except that this morning I feel torn letting him go. This morning I want to keep holding him as long as I can. This morning is the day after the school shooting in Uvalde TX.
I try to focus my attention onto work but my thoughts turn towards the fear that something might happen; towards wanting to call every senator and representative and scream about how wrong this is; towards wanting to go back to bed and hide under the covers. And I have been here before. Every time the news has shown some incident related to a child – the family separation at the border, the child infection rate for COVID – it is as though this is no longer a distant event, but one which touches my heart directly and rips it in two.
Buddhist teachings talk about suffering in painful situations being rooted in what it calls the three poisons: attachment, aversion, and ignorance. We can be drawn to respond in one of three ways. We can cling (attachment) to what we have. We can actively seek to make it go away (aversion/anger). Or we can try and turn away from it and ignore that it even exists, obscuring the pain with whatever techniques help to numb it out (ignorance).
There is no denying the pain of this, and every other tragic school shooting, and from what I have heard from other friends it seems like most parents are all coping with this collective fear/pain/hide triad. All of these reactions are completely reasonable and may even be needed for some people for a short time. I am definitely not above a good binge watch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with some chocolate. But ignoring doesn’t make the pain go away, nor does it bring us closer to being healed. And yes, we need action, but in the heated exchanges of grief, fear and anger, little communication seems to be getting through.
“In times of pain it is only the open heart of boddhichitta that can heal.”
Buddhism says there is a fourth option than reacting via the three poisons. We could actually be with the pain. Not wallow and drown in it, but also not turn away. Just touch into it as much as we can stand to at this moment. What does this mean? It means we keep feeling even though it hurts. We find that middle space where we aren’t running from or turning away, we’re just standing in all of it, and holding our own space. In a meditation practice this can involve practices like Tonglen, imagining feeling someone else’s pain ourselves and giving them our own love and security. Or it could be sending loving-kindness (metta) to all those suffering. Or it can be simply sitting with our own feelings. But the point is to stay, gently and compassionately, with what is coming up and work to be okay with the fact that things will change.
I want to say that I have a solution, or that I have some huge insight at this moment, but all I can do is watch him run to meet his friends and feel just how fragile this innocence and joy truly is. And I know that we cannot heal, we cannot move forward, as long as we act from rage and vengeance. That the only real change may have to come from us all seeing how much we are all hurting and scared – yes even the gun advocates – and how much we are interconnected. We can only reach that space when we are willing to be with our own anger, and also see that we are all human beings.
And so in that spirit I can only say:
May all beings be happy, May all beings be healthy, May all beings be safe, And may all beings live in equanimity, free from attachment, aversion, and ignorance.
Take care of yourselves, your loved ones, and everyone, stand up and listen!