Embracing Vastness in a Turbulent World
A plane crash in India. A war flaring in middle-East. A senator assaulted in the halls of power. Temperatures in India nearing 125°F. Each day, our fragile world seems to fracture a little more. And we know this is not the worst. How do we hold all this grief, fear, and righteous anger without turning to numbness or despair?
By making our containers vaster.
Turbulence feels unbearable in a teacup. But that same turbulence in a wide, still lake or deep ocean becomes gentle, barely noticeable. Buddhist, Ecodharma or Reindigenizing practices invite us into this spaciousness. Through mindfulness, we drop from teacup into ocean. We begin to feel the still and deep ocean that has always been within us, steady and deep.
Grief, stress and despair does not disappear—but it no longer sinks us.
The Four Layers of Belonging help us hold what feels unholdable:
We root in our bodies with mindfulness of calming, buzzing, and grounding sensations—perhaps the hum in our chest, the warmth in our hands, or the breath in our belly. These sensations are ancestral drums that call us home.
We connect to our more-than-human kin by listening to layers of sound around us: birdsong, wind through leaves, distant thunder, even silence. These sounds reveal an oceanic presence that holds grief without rushing to fix it.
We turn toward our human community through ceremoniously sharing our pain, whether through grief rituals and storytelling. Honest witnessing multiplies our capacity to feel and still remain whole. It creates solidarity and resilience. It heals our sense of loneliness.
We surrender to Sacred Mystery by placing our burdens at the feet of Kuan Yin, Tara, Kali, or Christ. In this holy release, we are reminded we spiritually don’t carry everything alone.
Buddhist practices can become escapism. Or if we care, these practices are reverence and resilience. Like Kuan Yin, we can face the cries of the world, not because we are invincible, but because we are rooted and accompanied.
Let us make our trembling hearts wider and vaster together so that as pain intensifies, our inner ocean becomes vaster.