One Thing We Can Do Right Now

Those who live in awakened awareness see the suffering of others but do not create additional sorrow around it.

We acknowledge the contact with this human experience of life’s inevitable suffering and the questions that immediately arise: what can we do about it? How should we regard this? The answer of course is mindfulness. With mindfulness, we feel what is impinging on our mind as unpleasant or unfair because that is simply the way it is – but we have the opportunity to choose how to respond.

Usually, we just react; we hear bad news about the persecution of innocent people, and we feel indignant or outraged. We want to punish those perpetuating these indignities on others. This is our conditioned reaction – when we hear bad news, we feel angry; when we hear good news, we feel happy. But when we are mindful, we can respond instead of reacting.

With an awakened mind, based in right understanding or right view, we can liberate ourselves from the momentum of habit and reactivity. When we are mindful, we enter the natural state of the mind, pure and unconditioned, and we can respond to life with wisdom and compassion.

…If we approach the state of the world on an emotional level it’s just too much: the genocide, the exploitation of the Third World, the devastation of the environment, the unfairness that is part of every political and economic system in every country in the world. The situation doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and we have strong feelings about this. There’s so much to get angry and indignant about. What can we do? How can we help? How should we respond to these situations?

One thing we can do right now – one thing that will benefit all sentient beings – is to maintain awakened awareness. This is not something we need to put off until next week or next year. This is helpful right now to all those in all the places on Earth where ethnic battles are taking place. The simple act of awakened awareness is a way of transcending all our ethnic and cultural conditioning, our biases, prejudices and our kammic tendencies.

When we’re in a state of awakened awareness, we’re touching into a universal reality, a natural purity that connects us to all beings everywhere. Each one of us has the power to pay attention, to wake up, listen and be receptive. That much we can do, right now.

This is important to realize; otherwise, we might sit here thinking we can’t do anything, or we might worry about it, hating and blaming in anguish and despair, doubting our ability to help in any way. We may even begin to think that sitting on a cushion meditating is just indulgent and not for the welfare of anybody. It can look like we’re shutting down – and it is possible that some of us might be shutting down.

But what I’m recommending, and how I experience meditation, is as an opening up of the heart and mind. As we open, we move beyond our personal kamma and the sense of self-importance that goes along with it, learning to relax and surrender into the state of pure, attentive awareness. We enter into a universal reality rather than living out of our personal habits.

From this state, we can spread loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

This reflection by Luang Por Sumedho is from the book, Ajahn Sumedho Anthology—Volume Five, The Wheel of Truth, (pdf) pp. 51-52, 52-53.