How shall we respond?

With everything that is going on in the world right now, like many others I've been finding it hard not to feel overwhelmed.  I've found myself trying to distance myself from the news, unfollow Facebook posts that lead me into demoralising discussions with people who hold the polar opposite viewpoint to mine, or tempt me to read conversations by strangers across the world who are closed to everything and everyone who does not see the world in exactly the same way that they do.  Then I start to feel bad about my non-engagement. I mean, how is anything to change in the world if we don't engage with unpleasant, disturbing and disagreeable people and situations?  How would women have ever gained the vote? Or Europe been saved from Hitler in World War II? Or precious drinking water protected from the Dakota Access Pipeline due to the actions of the Standing Rock Sioux?

And yet, in many cases I keep observing the same phenomena over and over again.  What is directly opposed, is often strengthened.  It's that old adage: when you push hard against something, it will always push back equally as hard, if not harder.  Very rarely have I witnessed people 'change their mind' as a result of an argument with someone who strongly holds the opposite opinion. All that seems to happen is that both sides become more entrenched in their views.

For example, recently a certain world leader passed a law that made abortion illegal.  Regardless of my own thoughts for or against abortion, I was impressed by the response of the Netherlands, whose immediate response was to launch an international fund to help women access abortions around the world.  I wondered if this will be more effective, in the end, than carrying out vociferous protests and dominating the media with voices of outrage and horror.  It seemed to me a unexpectedly creative response.

I was trying to figure out my personal response to all this, I read two passages by two different authors that made me look at things in a radically different way.  I can't say I'm 'there' yet, but it's somewhere I want to be, because it speaks deep truth to me even though my mind can has trouble, sometimes, grasping it.

This is the first, from Jeff Foster's 'A Way of Rest':

"Changing a Dream World:

You want to be a force for healing, you want to uplift and create, but so many questions come to visit you in your private moments.  How to change the world without opposing it in its current state?  How to transform the planet through love and acceptance, not tolerance and war? Must you rage at the status quo, take sides, become an angry missionary, live as an exhausted seeker in perpetual dissatisfaction, in order to bring about creative transformation?  Is that the most effective use of your talents? Must you live in fear, anger and blame ?

Great healing begins when we align with the universe exactly as it is, yet hold in our hearts the way we know it can be, and we simply stop comparing the two.  Keep your eyes on the prize, but do not oppose the present moment - this is the great paradox of transformation, and the secret to changing the world by not changing it at all.

It is impossible for the mind to grasp how creative, intelligent, compassionate, and spontaneous action can emerge from a place of total acceptance of Now; how doing can emerge effortlessly from non-doing.

Acceptance is not tolerance or passivity - it makes you radically alive and passionately engaged with this astonishing dream world."

And here is the second, from Laraine Herring, 'Writing Begins with the Breath': 

"Remember, when we attack, we feed that very thing we are hoping to destroy.  We give power precisely to those characteristics we wish to see disappear when we invest our precious energy into the 'fight'.  Don't engage in pursuing outward enemies; instead, strive to understand the conflicting energies inside yourself....My anger was my shadow self projecting my unacknowledged feelings onto a target that closely represented parts of the situation I still had not resolved. It showed me where I still had some work to do.  It was a gift...We can't be too careful when it comes to our shadow selves. The more intimate our relationship is with it, the more quickly we recognise its signals and integrate its messages without causing harm to people we care for....Awareness allows you to work with it without causing harm to yourself or others.  Awareness opens; fear closes.  When in doubt, choose opening."

[all italics added by me]

I can see how the 'doing' that arises from an initial place of 'non-doing' can be incredibly powerful.  It doesn't arise from the arguing, dissatisfied, fearful and angry mind, but from somewhere much deeper.  I think of the 'non-reactionary' world changers like Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Desmond Tutu, Maria Ida Giguient, Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela, among countless others, including those forgottten or never known by the world.  Yes, sure, at times they 'acted' - but from a still, centered place where they had first come face to face with the darkest shadows within themselves, so that their actions did not arise from judgement of others, but from total acceptance of how things were and passion for how things could be, for all of us.

This also echoes the approach of buddhism, in particular.  Someone acts in an outrageously racist way? Seek more friendships with individuals from that race, or look for opportunities for personal acts of generosity, or find ways to 'listen' that do not take sides but just want to understand why people feel they way they do.  This may put you in the firing line, but if one thing is sure, then it's that 'doing from a place of non-doing' certainly does not ensure you will remain protected and comfortable.  Just looking at history, I suspect the opposite is true more often than not.  

I'm not courageous.  I hate conflict. I just wish everyone could pull themselves together and get along, for heaven's sake.  But that's not accepting what is really going on this moment.  So for me, choosing 'opening' and 'acceptance' instead of fighting and reacting and resisting, is scary and uncomfortable and radical, even if, outwardly, it may look to the world as if I'm not 'doing anything especially radical' much of the time.  Trusting in myself means trusting that spontaneous action will arise within me in its own good time, however 'small' the action may be, and it will be so much more effective than all the striving and straining for change in the world.  In the heat of the moment, the hardest thing to do is often doing 'nothing', especially for someone like myself who tends to follow and act on every feeling and think about it afterwards, often with regret.  

Sometimes silence and non-reaction - particularly in the moment - can be the most resounding response of all.

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."  Aung San Suu Kyi