It’s been a difficult week for many of us. Part of my journey was through some cold/flu/whatever which took my voice. One of the silver linings of having no voice (there are a few) is that it has given me pause to think about not having a voice, not being heard, and not even having an instrument through which we can be heard.
Much of the suffering around the world is accompanied and exacerbated by the feeling that no one knows and there is no way to communicate. No voice. No megaphone. And maybe no ears open.
These past few weeks many of us across the country have been experiencing having no voice and then finding voice and then despairing because it seems we have no voice on a larger and larger scale. When we finally communicate with our elected representatives, we find that they can give voice all night long and then it is as if they had no voice. Our voices are joined in ever larger groups and venues. And our voices are reaching the courts. And the courts are speaking. We are hearing the courts. And we feel cheered. Yet funds frozen illegally and ordered by the courts to be unfrozen remain frozen. Private information taken from the Treasury and ordered by the courts to be destroyed remains out of sight and unaccounted for.
When our voices give out, we as meditators know to turn inward, to listen to our own voices, our own pain and frustration, our own anger. And we begin again - at the beginning, breath by breath, getting back in touch with what’s true now, in this moment. Not getting lost in the imaginings of a future where we have no voice. And we get in touch with our own loving kindness and compassion for ourselves and others. We realize in that settling back that we tap into a vast silence where voice and being heard are held with compassion, where healing and restoration and wisdom reside.
But where most of all a vast compassionate emptiness opens to infinite possibility.
And here’s my own take, our sense of democracy is deeply engrained and it is aligned with our values, our morality, our sense of equality, freedom, and justice for all, with our basic sense of respect for the rights and dignity of all beings. And because it is so deeply engrained in so many people, it will rise up and manifest in ways we can’t begin to imagine. That’s my belief and my hope.
As we stay connected to our own sense of compassionate emptiness, we will find ourselves able to care for ourselves and more prepared to move into wise action when the possibilities arise. Moving back and forth, pendulating, between restoration and wise action, we will find the middle way.