Silence in the Aftermath ?

(Dedicated to the Families in Uvalde, Texas)

I woke up this morning, as most people did, with a heavy heart after hearing about the mass shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. People all around the country are hurting, grieving, angry, and fearful. These are all real and appropriate emotions. If we didn’t feel this way, there would be something terribly wrong with us. We all want immediate action, and honestly, there should be immediate action. Unfortunately, we are not living in a time in which we, as humans, know how to deal with difficult challenges in a healthy way nor know how to help make things better. The eighteen year old shooter is a perfect example of this fact. The politicians holding the power to change policies are another example that must not be ignored. What I have seen, however, is a huge amount of compassion behind people’s anger and uprising. It is this compassion that we must recognize. It is this compassion that we must feel after the anger subsides. Compassion is the glue that binds us together as one and shows us where we are needed and how we can help. If we react from anger alone, then we are no better than the people doing the hurting. If we react from anger alone, the passion will fizzle and we will all walk back into the safety of our homes and close the door. If we react from anger alone, we may never walk out of the door at all.

I also awoke feeling heavy due to various social media memes that I read encouraging action over prayer and silence. Prayer, as a word, has a lot of baggage for many people if it is used in it’s limited way prescribed by oh so many churches around the country. Prayer is often looked at and used to summon some outside being to come and make everything better, and if they don’t, well, then “they” don’t exist, or “they” should be blamed. Meditation, in times like these, is also looked on as a terrible waste of time. As a meditation teacher and as a being who was catapulted into a new life with the help of both prayer and meditation, I think about this duality of silence vs. action most days.

You see, we have a large population of people who go directly into prayer as an action in hopes that it will make everything better. To them, it is a means to an end. How often we want “someone” to come and make the bad stuff go away. I wish it could be this way, and maybe it does seem like that at times, but for me, prayer is a time when I access something greater than my egoic reactionary self, and I ask to be lifted up to see clearly, to find answers that my lower self might not see, to ask my higher self to show me how to be courageous and keep stepping forward in the difficult times.

Sitting in silent meditation is very similar to prayer but it’s not quite the same. Meditation prepares our minds and bodies for a better path of action. It slows our thinking brain down long enough to see truth, not illusion. It helps us decipher what “is” and “what is not”. It guides us to know when to be patient and when to act, and not only that, but how to act. To me, meditation is a state of being and prayer is aspiration and guidance by something greater than me. These moments of prayer and silence might only last a moment, a few days, a few weeks, but they give us the chance to see how and when we can best serve ourselves and others. Don’t get me wrong, anger is super important as well. It tells us that action must take place, but silence, whether in prayer, a walk, a moment of grieving, or sitting on the cushion helps us center, calm, and touch into that compassion that is so needed for real change and sustainability. Anger is not sustainable, it is only the messenger.

So I encourage people not to look at prayer and meditation as the opposite of action. I encourage others not to look at prayer and meditation as complete in itself, a spiritual bypass so to speak. We are in a time of huge change and many challenges. We need it all, spiritual silence AND activism, and we need to be our best selves in order to give our all. Venting to friends and on social media is really okay, as a start, but then maybe sitting in silence so we can listen to our Higher Selves, our Higher Power, God, Creator, our Buddha Nature, our Light, whatever you want to call it, so we might be guided toward healthy next steps to becoming a devotee of compassion. Maybe this moment of silence before reacting in anger will guide us to wisdom. Can you imagine the power we will find with compassion and wisdom joined in union? That is where meaningful action will take place.

So for today, I write this blog post and contemplate. I will take a walk when I feel complete in these words. I will ask my True Nature to guide me, and when wisdom flows with compassion, perhaps answers and solutions will flow as well. It has already motivated me to write a blog post after almost a year of silence. That in itself is a step forward.