(How can I live with so much suffering in this world?)Watching the Ken Wilber video that Charlotte posted reminded me of the pain I have been feeling lately. I’m only nineteen, and already there are times when all I perceive is suffering. In Tibet, the monks are marching peacefully to regain basic liberty; the Chinese respond violently and riots erupt. The number of children in Africa that die every hour because of malaria, poor sanitation, dirty water, AIDS, sickle-cell anemia, and starvation is staggering. How can I pay attention to this? How can I live the affluent life I am blessed with knowing that the cost of my airplane ticket to Venice is enough to support many starving families for weeks in third world countries? I am only nineteen. I have so long to go, and I am only at the beginning. What do I do, where do I go? I don’t want all the suffering that I will face, that I will feel around me? How can anyone live knowing about the world’s suffering? (A response to living Samsara - the world of human suffering. Here Wilber speaks about gaining the perspective, "Hurts more, bothers you less.")
Other times, I feel that I really have a plan figured out. I’ve got this great meditation practice – benefits certain to be reaped(?) – supportive family, intelligence, potential and drive, a great relationship, and an admirable role model to guide me through it all. I am planning to attend an education workshop in Washington this summer, which will be my first personal contact with the Integral community. Sometimes I feel so good. I’m really making progress. I see others’ suffering and their lifestyles that feed it, so I try to help. “If you’d just step back and realize that you are doing this to yourself…. Just practice!... There is a bigger You behind all this….” “Fucking semantics” as the tearful woman in Wilber’s video cries. Sometimes I am able to deliver my help modestly, unobtrusively. “But much of the time we come into social action … and we’re just a little self-righteous” (Dass, 158). I struggle against pomposity but am addicted to having the answer, something really wise to say, even if it doesn’t accord with my own experience, or even make any real sense.
How can we impel our vision without becoming self-righteous? We have to learn (self-righteousness again) to be “an environment, not an argument for social chance” (Dass, 163). So we lead by example. We’re transmitting our energetic states all the time. If your best friend is depressed, and you are spending much time with her or him, you are likely to share his or her depression. Excitement is contagious as well. I had not even paid much attention to the Obama Clinton race until they came to campus and the buzz reached swarmed me. I couldn’t wait (and neither could many others who may not have cared). With these examples, we realize that our state of consciousness moment to moment is touching those around us. We have a vision? Play it all day and you’ll begin to sell popcorn.
(Everyone knows how contagious yawning is. "Studies have found that contagious yawning is directly linked to our ability to connect with others emotionally." http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/contagious-yawn-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://health.howstuffworks.com/contagious-yawn.htm)Sometimes I’m optimistic and grounded in my vision. Then, “Conflict isn’t an obstacle. It’s an opportunity to move forward” (Dass, 167). Right now, my stomach is killing me – I’ve got minor food poisoning. But I don’t want to take Advil because I want to feel the sensation, want to learn to dissolve my resistance to pain. Whether this is productive or stupid I do not know. Other conflicts, however, are just plain painful. I suffer; they are obstacles! I try to remind myself that, as Dass says, it’s where I stand in relation to the pain, not the pain itself. So I continue to try. “You do what you do when you can. And when there’s nothing to do, and burnout tries to rear its ugly head … you M*A*S*H it” (Dass, 201). When I can’t try any longer, I usually become frustrated. I can learn to carry a little levity into more of my endeavors. That’ll keep me going. I’m only nineteen, but I have to keep going.
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