I woke this morning not knowing quite what I was feeling but not happy. Then when I sat I realised that there was something disturbing me - deep in my solar plexus, chest and throat was a sensation that only the word ‘dread’ could adequately describe. Sitting with it I was instantly caught up in the story line. The images on Channel Four News last night of what the Israeli war machine was doing to the innocent populations all around them - while they cry victim - was overwhelming. A poor woman, clutching her plainly traumatised child to her, said, “I don’t want food or shelter, I just want peace”. Writing this now my heart wants to break. Recognising I was rehearsing this horror in my mind I disciplined myself and made myself go back just to the sensations of my emotions within my body. A kind of churning heaviness in the pit of my stomach and chest, and in my throat the want to cry something out, something that was caught within me, something that just said this is absolutely not right. Sitting with this is so hard, I just want to jump up and do something but in this moment there is nothing to do but to be present with it and perhaps know that bearing witness to these events is important. That somehow acknowledging the cruelty and ignorance we are capable of may one day contribute to us doing something different.
Then as I sat that peculiar thing of a greater spacious awareness happened. Let’s not give it any special name this time. A space opened up all around me that contained my fear and the greater sadness that lay behind it. I think it was Philippa who pointed it out to me. Sitting beside me on our meditation ‘couch’ she suddenly said remember that Loch Kelly thing of as we drop our arms, slightly smiling and feeling oneself expanding out into space. That did it. The space was suddenly there, without an edge in all directions, perfectly clear and still, not in any way an altered state of consciousness and within this vastness a sadness that floated within it. Made of the same thing - just awareness itself.
NW. 15 October 2024
I don’t see a way out of where we are other than a total transformation of the human Mind into non human as the Buddha mind or the arising of a new species.
The traits of the animal kingdom are no longer necessary for survival.
We are destroying each other and our home and we are more than 8 billion and multiplying.
I just hope we manage to change before we totally destroy this beautiful
Planet and all the creatures that inhabit it.
We are at a very dangerous junction.
Last week I switched off- literally and internally- from the torrent of appalling images and reports of relentless violence and suffering in the world. I felt I had reached the limits of my capacity to witness and bear my own responses. I felt deadened and depressed. Then yesterday a computer error I couldn’t fix triggered a tidal wave of grief and tears.
I saw my feelings of despair were connected to everything that seems to be no longer as it was- from personal stuff- my eyesight, hearing, energy levels- the same for people I care about- to friendships that have changed- to democracy that seems no longer stable and safe, to the proliferation of public lies, the upsurge in apparently…
Thanks for sharing Nigel. Bearing witness to the suffering helps us to remember our common humanity and negates the apparent worthlessness of human life. The suffering is palpable Trish x
Thank you so much for this , so beautifully written. Witnessing and feeling the overwhelming pain of those we can’t reach and stop their suffering, is so unbearable and heartbreaking .
Yet perhaps in all the wholeness knowing there is kindness and compassion always present too, as we see the medical teams and charity workers risking their own lives to help their communities.
And although I never feel prayer is enough, perhaps those spoken words gives something into the space .
Thank you for writing from your heart so beautifully. I'm in tears as I read.