Andrew's blog at Joyousness

In every moment we should touch silence; then we know who we are. When there is no silence, we are living in a state of forgetfulness and life is no more real than a dream. It's so easy to forget...

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Stillness seems so hard to accomplish, yet it is never absent. It is only the gloss of meaningless activity and thinking we incessantly generate that hides it from view.

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Whatever the motives of the factions involved in the recent violence in London and elsewhere, the riots are evidence of a lack of inner peace within society as a whole.

We may think that we could never act like that but it is a rare person who has never felt anger. It is said that anger is so destructive that its flames extend way beyond anything we could imagine.

Some would argue that we should give vent to our emotions - but that is just what the rioters have done. Expressing anger always carries the risk of it turning to violent rage and we will never find inner peace if we set out to harm others. Negative emotions need to be transformed, and they can be if dealt with intelligently.

Although we may feel there is nothing we can do about recent and current events, the actions within a society reflect the collective consciousness of everyone in it. We have to guard our own consciousness, therefore, and one thing we can usefully do is ensure we bring our minds and emotions to a state of relative peacefulness by living fully present in the moment and breathing peacefully into whatever we think about or undertake. If we meditate, we should ensure our practice is good and regular.

By steadying our own consciousness, we contribute to the stability of society's consciousness, and that is most urgently needed now.

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The news this weekend is full of tragic events - the massacre and bombing in Norway, shootings at a family party in the United States, a high-speed train crash in China and many other sad stories. It is very difficult to maintain mental equanimity when reading or watching reports of such events. Sometimes we may think that it is better not to read newspapers or look at news programmes because of negative content. There may be some truth in that, because often much of the news is full of tat and gossip. But when there is tragedy, it is a different story because, as responsible people, we should not feel indifferent to another's pain.

In order to evolve and become better human beings, we have to develop both a clear head and a compassionate heart. If we shut ourselves off from the world, we are like a horse with blinkers on - we can only see what's in front of our nose. That's a distinct lack of awareness.

In truth, there is suffering everywhere and we couldn't be aware of it all, even if we wanted to. But when there is news of a tragedy, it can do two important things for us. First, it can wake us up out of our reverie - life is short and we hang onto it by a slender thread that can break at any time; second, even if we can do nothing practical to help, we can examine our own heart - is it indifferent or is it welling up with love and a desire to take away the suffering?

If neither of these things happens, it could be that we are a little numb inside - and that means we need to do some work.

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"Stop talking and thinking, then there is nowhere you cannot go. Return to the source and you gain the meaning; chase forms and you lose wholeness." Jianzhi Sengcan , died 606 AD, Third Patriarch of Chan Buddhism

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