Doing nothing is okay.
We don’t have to engage in symbolic actions.
We don’t have to engage in dramatic actions.
We don’t have to engage in any action. We can simply allow things to be as they are.
This offers a lot of fear. It creates the fear of what happens if we don’t do anything.
The ego perceives itself as the hero in its own story. When we believe that taking action is the only thing that’s going to prevent chaos, it offers a lot of pain because the story is not true.
Often our action creates more pain than simply doing nothing. We don’t see that – even when we end up creating more problems than we solve. This turns into blame. We blame the other side for their choice instead of accepting that the problem was self-created.
In most cases it looks like trying to force acceptance through legislation. We try to make people conform. What generally happens is that when people that have been made to conform get into power, they violently swing the pendulum the other way by taking away the choice to accept anything at all.
We’ve seen this play out time and time again. Abortion rights played out this way in the United States. Canadian news link sharing on social media played out this way. Most wars play out this way. Women’s right in general are getting ready to play out this way. Religion plays out this way. Everything plays out this way eventually.
The solution is not difficult. It’s actually really easy. What’s the solution? Do nothing. Stop legislating and mandating acceptance. Allow hate to exist.
That’s hard isn’t it? We don’t like that because we think we have to fight against hate, but we don’t. Allowing it to simply be there makes it much less of a problem than it is when we try to get rid of it.
I was reading Pema Chodron’s book Welcoming the Unwelcome. She starts the book talking about allowing and accepting, which is the whole premise of her book.
On page 26 of that book she says, “If we commit to being aware of our tendency to polarize, and we counteract that by arousing bodhichitta (awake heart), we will gradually close these gaps. Then we’ll be able to see all people as fellow human beings who want to be happy just like us.”
On page 28 she does a complete about face when she says “Having compassion doesn’t mean we can’t take a stand. It’s important to speak up when we’ve been hurt, when we see others being hurt, and when we observe or experience examples of abuse of power.”
These are opposing energies. Allowing people to be happy means allowing them to do what they want, even when we don’t like what they are doing. The only thing wrong with what they are doing is our judgment of it. That’s it. To fully accept that people are allowed to be happy we have to release judgment of their actions as good or bad, right or wrong. We have to be willing to leave them alone.
Compassion goes toward everybody involved. We have compassion for people whose unhappiness causes them to do things that we don’t like. We also have compassion for anybody that is on the receiving end of those actions. But we do not interfere. We allow those things to be as they are because there is nothing wrong. Our judgment is the only thing that makes it wrong.
All experience is neutral. It just is. When we can fully accept that, then we can allow all experience, even perceived bad or wrong experience, to play out without interference.
Judging any action as good or bad is polarizing in and of itself. It is judgment that creates the polarization. If we want to do away with polarization, then we have to remove judgment and allow all experience to simply be what it is. To state that we should be speaking out against anything is a polarizing statement on its own. We can’t remove polarization when we’re still hanging onto it by encouraging people to speak out against things they don’t like.
We aren’t welcoming the unwelcome when we’re busy trying to do away with things we don’t like. To fully welcome the unwelcome we have to allow all things to be as they are, not just some of them.
By the way, expressing our feelings when we’re on the receiving end of somebody’s unwanted actions, is okay. Feel how you feel. Allow those feelings to flow through without projecting them or blaming anybody for them.
“My feelings are my responsibility, even when somebody does something to me. It is not your fault I feel this way, it is actually my choice to feel this way.”
When feelings flow through unencumbered by stories of blame, shame, guilt, and victimization, we don’t need to carry them around, project them onto anybody, or make them into souvenirs. They simply come and go freely and relatively easily. Experience is much simpler when we don’t hold onto any emotions that may be triggered by the experience.
How do we get rid of hate if we just ignore it and let it be there?
Hate in the collective is created individually. It is up to individual people to heal the pain that causes them to hate. That can’t be forced. It’s something they have to come to on their own time, in their own space, without outside intervention.
One of my favorite questions to ask is, “How much pain do you need to be in before you do something differently?”
How much pain do people who hate other people need to be in before they heal the pain? The only way to know that is to allow them to play out the hate they feel until it finally creates enough pain for them that they change it.
That’s the process times however many people are stuck in hate right now. Allow that process to continually play at the individual level until hate is gone.
When does that happen?
Who knows. Maybe it doesn’t. Our only job is to get okay with that possibility. Allow the hate to be there. Stop forcing healing or acceptance because we can’t. We can’t force people out of pain. We can’t save anybody. It’s not our job.
Inaction offers presence. Presence offers clarity. Clarity comes through inaction.
If we’re riled up about the things going on around us then we don’t have any presence, clarity, or inaction. We’re too busy arguing, defending, saving, protecting, and demanding from others to see the problems we’re self-creating. We start living a reactionary life instead of an intentional, purposeful one.
Judgment causes reaction which is why we feel the need to speak out against things. It’s an immediate reaction to a negative judgment. Awareness is the speed bump that’s designed to allow us to slow down. When we can recognize the reaction to the judgment, we have the ability to stop ourselves and change that. Inaction is the change that needs to be made because inaction is what allows us to release the judgement. It’s the judgment that’s the problem not the external experience. The experience just is. The judgment is changeable.
Humans have a natural tendency to judge. That’s the ego doing its job. We’re all born with that. Most of us had it modelled in extreme ways as children. The world is rife with judgment of all kinds from everywhere. That’s the first recognition that we have to have. Human judgment is normal.
We need something to counteract that with. Awareness is the first step in that process. It gives us that extra second to recognize that judgment is now present. Okay, what do we do with that?
Figure out where it came from. What’s the judgment based on? What belief or idea do we have that’s causing us to create judgment? Is that belief or idea true?
If experience just is then any judgment that says it is wrong or shouldn’t be happening isn’t true. Our job is to figure out how to release that story.
Ultimately it’s going to offer us non-action. When we get there and we stop judging experience, we stop needing to react. We stop needing to change it or fix it. We get better at just allowing it to be there.
Awareness offers us the ability to choose non-action. The more we can do that, the calmer the world will end up being. I know it doesn’t seem that way. It appears as though complete chaos would ensue, but it will not. If people are no longer feeling forced, they will stop reacting because no pressure will be present.
Most of the problems in the world, even collectively, are self-created and are easily fixed through non-action.
What about the things that require action like equalizing food distribution?
We have to step back from these temporarily as well to find aligned, true, and correct action that isn’t just simply a reaction to the problem. To create a permanent foundation and solution, we have to be willing to see the bigger picture via non-action first.
Fighting against the lack of distribution doesn’t solve it. Stepping back, fully understanding the problem, building a stable foundation to put a permanent solution into place, does solve the problem. But it requires conscious, intentional action to do. The need to react and over-react has to stop so that permanent solutions can be found.
Non-action, even temporarily, is the solution to most problems because it is non-action that will offer us the clarity to either fix problems that have solutions or to stop self-creating problems because we think we’re preventing other problems from happening.
Go stare at the wall until you’re uncomfortable.
Non-action will become your best friend.
Love to all.
Della
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