Nepal...

I don’t want to write about it.  But how can I not take a moment out of my very privileged life to speak about the horrific tragedy that is ongoing?  To not write about it feels akin to pretending it isn’t real, it didn’t happen.  But it did and it isn’t over.  The trauma began and now it is unfolding, one body at a time.  The death toll is 543 this morning with more than 1500 missing.  If you look at any footage of the disaster, you can’t help but wonder how anyone survived.

My heart hurts.  My brain hurts.  Tears stream down my face.  I am so sad.   I am so impotent.  I am embarrassed that my country has spent billions of dollars blowing up Iran and sent $500k in aid to “help” Nepal.  What the fuck is wrong with us????

Being a practicing Buddhist for over 40 years, I do Tonglen.  I take in their suffering and I breathe out healing light.  This is what I know to do.  I cannot “do” anything.  I am sure there will be funding campaigns I can contribute to and some of them may actually go to the people affected.  For those of you not familiar with Tonglen it is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice of "sending and taking" (exchanging self with other) designed to cultivate deep compassion by breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out peace, healing, and relief.  This is all I know to do.  To place myself in those people’s place and breathe in their pain, loss, anguish and suffering and send to them peace, healing and relief.  It doesn’t feel like enough...but it feels like something.

It is hard sometimes to find willingness to sit with pain, mine or others.  I much prefer happiness.  But I have learned a great deal sitting with suffering, mine and others.  I have grown exponentially in my interiority.  I have increased my capacity for joy and love because I was willing to experience the anguish, loss and sorrow.  This is all I know to do.

So I will continue to do Tonglen and pray for the suffering to end.  That the 1500 missing will be found safe and alive.  That those who lost everything shall be held and cared for.  That all beings be free of suffering.  

For as long as space remains,

For as long as sentient beings remain,

Until then may I too remain

To dispel the miseries of the world.

Again, still...