The World Feels Heavy…
This is going to be more of a messy, flow of consciousness today, I kindly ask you bear with me.
How many more children have to die before people wake up? How many more victims of gun violence? I refrain from saying “unwarranted” and “unnecessary” because ultimately it is all unwarranted and unnecessary.
My initial gut feeling when hearing about what happened in Texas was anger, outrage, hatred, all of those dirty, “nonspiritual” feelings that come along with such immense tragedy. I felt outrage for all of the people responsible for this violent incident, from the gunman, to the legislators, and the people who voted for legislation that allows something to happen so easily.
I am not here today to speak to you on the subject of regulation, politics, or anything of the sort, but more so to call to mind exactly how this instance entering my awareness further invokes how necessary personal practice is.
In this action I could more easily perceive how stuck I really am, and how easy it is to get swept up in the duality of otherization. When, at a deeper level, I could have just as easily have been the one holding the gun as I could have been one of the children who have to carry the trauma of that experience with them.
How is this so?
Because at the end of the day everything is informed by Karma, by causes and conditions.
The shooter was only 18. In a lot of ways, still a child himself.
Somewhere in his life, the karmic seeds ripened for him to be in a personal Hell scape where the only way he perceived out was through violence, and aggression. And because of the collective karma, his ability to get the equipment, and easily enter an Elementary School also happened.
None of this happened in a vacuum.
It was the result of years, upon years of conditioning, generational, societal, and cultural trauma that led to one young man cracking and pulling the trigger.
The pain I feel in my heart is profound because all of those children are my own, and all of those children are my loved ones, and right now they are in a tender, terrifying place where they could go down a similar path if a profound shift does not happen because at the end of the day, hurt people, hurt people.
I want to be clear, that I am in no way justifying the actions of the shooter any more than I am justifying the actions of Putin, the KKK, or Donald Trump, but what I am saying is that this moment now needs to be an invitation to do the inner work.
Find the friends who support and nurture those highest qualities within yourself and encourage you to do the same.
Hold space for your pain, grief, fear, outrage, and allow yourself to feel without needing to react.
Relish in your joy.
Express deep and profound gratitude for the love and gifts you have.
Honor your pain.
As an aspiring so-called Buddhist a lot of my practice involves a deep and profound reflection upon Impermanence and Death. From a Buddhist perspective, all compounded things are impermanent and will change. And I do so precisely because of things like what happened in Texas.
We don’t know when, how, or where we will die.
Yet, we spend our entire lives delaying happiness, postponing wellness, creating all kinds of reasons for not focusing on our self-care and personal healing journeys.
We attempt to make ourselves martyrs all the while shifting blame and accusing others for not supporting and showing up for us when - in reality - we are not showing up for ourselves.
One of the most challenging, and difficult truths I have to accept is that I am also capable of causing just as much harm as the shooter. In fact, while I have never used a gun or shot anyone I have certainly caused profound harm to others while I was in a desperate state of trying to feel mentally, and emotionally safe.
Taking care of ourselves is not crucial for ourselves but for all sentient beings.
It is a healed being who is able to show up for others, be supportive, loving, kind, and evoke the greatest amount of change.
Yet, we don’t do the work.
We put it off, we delay, and when horrific tragedies like this happens we dig our heels deeper into the belief that “the world is shit” and “nothing will ever change”
A part of me calls to that.
A part of me wants to fall into despair.
A part of me wants to give up.
But an even louder part of me wants to help the world get to a place where these occurrences are nothing more than memories of a degenerate age.
And so I consciously, with great effort, make the decision to live, and live fully for every single sentient being who does not get to. For each of the 21 victims of this tragedy, for the shooter, for the people who right now are screaming in fear, I practice. Because showing up as someone who is wounded, showing up daily as a person who is the embodiment of the pain body, will only perpetuate harm.
One of my especially favorite lines by the master Aryadeva is:
Causes of death are numerous;
Causes of life are few,
And even they may become causes of death.
We live in a world where there is only one way to be born, but so many ways to die.
The world feels heavy right now, and so I invite this heaviness to inform and call in my compassion and my love.
I remind myself that walking a path filled with hatred will ultimately cause more harm than good.
And I cry.
If anyone is interested, I will be holding a meditation and prayer this Friday, May 27th at 12 PM US EASTERN. We will come together, hold space for the pain, invoke the names of those who died, and express deep and heart-centered prayer for a worldwide shift towards compassion, and love on my Instagram @JemarcAxinto
