By Tommy Housworth

Last week, I found myself ranting at a gas pump. Not, perhaps, my most mindful moment of the holiday season. It wasn’t the price of gas or the speed at which the fuel was flowing that got to me. It was the fact that – after a long and noisier than usual workday –  I wasn’t ready for a talking gas pump. A blaring, talking gas pump. 

Perhaps you’ve encountered them, the screens on gas pumps that pounce like tigers, blasting ads the moment you start your transaction. While filling my tank isn’t a particularly calming experience, on this stressful day, I welcomed the promise of quiet that such a mundane moment might offer. Instead, I found myself going after pump #3 like a comedian who’d been heckled one too many times. 

Once the storm settled, I realized that the gas pump wasn’t the chief antagonist here. Obtrusive and unnecessary? Probably. Another example of the ubiquitous encroachment of advertising into every moment of our lives? Definitely. But really, as is usually the case when I find myself frustrated, I had met the enemy and he was me. 

I spend much of my life voluntarily surrounded by noise. I get up in the morning and before my coffee even brews, I’ve got NPR streaming on my phone. I take a walk, earbuds in, with music or an audiobook keeping me company. While I work, one of my 300+ Spotify playlists provides the musical wallpaper for my day. Even meditating, I may rely upon an ambient chime or a guided practice. I like to have something – anything – to fill the void. 

If I were to play therapist on myself, I’d say I’m scared of what I might find if I spent more time dwelling in silence. Ghosts haunt my meditation on a regular basis – fear, loneliness, self-loathing… all monsters waiting for the noise to stop so they can slither out of the subconscious and onto the main stage. And of course, noise doesn’t come in solely through the ears. Social media, news articles, emails, texts, games, and all the other varied disruptors that capture our attention are, for many of us, pure head noise. 

Yet I know that within the space of silence there is more. One of the Buddhist teachings refers to “the sonorous voice of silence” which, when heard, gives rise to wisdom. Yes, I know that peace and a sense of calm also await. Potentially, anyway. So I guess I can say that I simultaneously crave and dread silence. I don’t think I’m alone.

The holidays seem especially short on silence. The season itself – which now begins the day after Halloween, if not sooner – hosts a clamorous choir of advertising and bustle as the “attention economy” jockeys for our eyes and ears. The romantic and peaceful tableau of a hushed, snow-covered Main Street, accented by nothing more than birdsong or the lone knell of a solemn bell, exists mostly only in Hallmark movies or, if we’re old enough, in our soft focus memories. These days, the season seems mostly to rattle and hum. 

I’m not a Grinch. I strive daily to be more George Bailey than Mr. Potter, more Cratchit than Scrooge. I’d just like to turn the volume down a bit on the noise outside my head and the self-inflicted tumult within. As the year draws to a close, I find myself craving a silent night. 

For years, I slipped into the local Methodist church, my Buddhist beliefs humbly tucked inside my coat pocket, to sit for their annual December Taizé service. Taizé practice varies by denomination and culture; in this chapel, it was a mostly silent service with no sermon and very little talking at all. What sound there came from a pianist playing music so gentle one might’ve thought George Winston or Philip Glass had slipped in the back door. 

In that darkened chapel illuminated only by candlelight, or at least those little battery-powered candles that mimic the modest glow of wick and wax, I found an experience both humble and holy. I felt ensconced in a hushed placidity that is mostly absent during the holidays and walked out renewed, as if a factory reset had been employed after too many days of head noise gnawing at my nervous system. 

Afterward, the Christmas lights in town seemed to glow a bit more softly. The piped-in holiday music at the grocery store was less intrusive. “This,” I thought, “is what the season should feel like.” But before long, of course, the sheen of the moment wore off and I would find myself once again consumed by noise, both imposed and cheerfully chosen. My head in my phone, my ears swimming in music and talk, my mind pinging like a pinball. 

But moments like those – and the ones I’m occasionally lucky enough to meet when I make myself sit down and sit still and notice my mind – assure me that the silence I simultaneously crave and dread is within reach if I make the choice to invite it in… and to stay with it. So I continue to show up on my cushion and reckon with silence. 

It’s when I get off the cushion that the real dance begins. Can I navigate the rest of the day with silence as my co-pilot? Can I find ways to bring the noise in my world – and in my head – down to a manageable whisper? Can a silent night – or day, or moment, or two – help deliver true peace?  

I’m counting on it.

Election years are usually stressful, and this one is wreaking a unique kind of havoc on our nervous systems. We need help to soothe our troubled minds and inspire us to stay present, doing whatever we can to keep the ship of state navigating these choppy waters. We aren’t likely to find it in contentious media, mass or social, but if we’re lucky, we might come across it somewhere else.

We might stumble upon a song that lifts our spirits. Music has long served as both balm and catalyst. Astute musicians know this and the best have found ways to help us forget our troubles, or at least feel less alone with them while also rousing us to carry on, to rise up and meet the moment. And sometimes what we need to meet the moment might come back around, revisiting us even after decades and death.

So in this time of trouble, enter Leonard Cohen, offering spiritual solace and patriotic inspiration in a singular anthem. Though this doleful Canadian poet is no longer with us, his 1992 release The Future is. In the album Cohen balanced darkness and light with agility; its centerpiece is a seven-minute song titled “Democracy,” which took him years to complete. At one point, he had written more than 50 verses for consideration.

Begun as a poem inspired in part by the fall of the Berlin Wall, amidst cheers around the world for Germany’s reunification Cohen wondered whether democracy could truly take hold. The prospect found him optimistic and also, as was his nature, a tad anxious. Pondering the possibilities, he shifted his focus to that great bastion of freedom, the United States, a nation holding high ideals yet seeming to fly and falter in equal measure, achieving great things while marginalizing many of its own citizens.

America, he said, was “where the experiment is unfolding. This is where the races really confront one another, where the classes, where the genders, even the sexual orientations confront one another. This is the real laboratory of Democracy.” Cohen saw that America was at its best when its people recognized their ideals and yet acknowledged the formidable climb still required to reach them. Peering southward from his Montreal home or perhaps eastward from his Zen monastery on Mt. Baldy in California, Cohen saw America’s potential and pitfalls.

Instead of admonishing the country for its chasmic societal gap, he offered something greater: a vision of encouragement. An invitation to realize that America was – and is – uniquely positioned to turn a majestic corner:

It’s coming to America first;
The cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range and the machinery for change,
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
And it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way.
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Known for his wry irony, as well as gloominess reinforced by his brooding baritone, Cohen delivers “Democracy” with refreshing earnestness. It is, in fact, one of his most optimistic offerings. Too poetic for radio play and too complex to be covered by jingoistic singers who prefer on-their-sleeve patriotism, “Democracy” didn’t penetrate the American consciousness much beyond the Cohen faithful when it was released.

Yet, the song has proven its merit by remaining relevant over the decades. In it, Cohen seems to be willing the arrival of true democracy, coaxing it prayerfully to grace us in all its shining, battered beauty. In a half-dozen verses, he unfolds a complicated and familiar world: the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square, the AIDS crisis, the racial divide, patriarchy, American innovation, spirituality, and sexuality. Indeed, listening to it now, it seems to have newfound relevance.

Finally, he offers his own humble sense of hope as he sings:

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean.
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

The title track of The Future with its lyrics that include “Things are going to slide in all directions…I’ve seen the future, brother, it is murder” makes it clear that Cohen was no unbridled optimist. He must have glimpsed how divided America was becoming and shared that alternate narrative alongside the hope envisioned in “Democracy.” That Cohen exited this life the day before the 2016 U.S. election may be his most poetically prophetic move.

But he left America with a roadmap. He left an anthem for these times. He left us with “Democracy.” Here are the lyrics – the six majestic verses that survived the cut from the original 50+ stanzas. And here is a link, if you’d like to listen to him sing it. May it help us all through these uncertain times, to recognize the shores of need and move past the reefs of greed and through the squalls of hate. Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on….

Democracy (listen here)

It’s coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming through a crack in the wall,
on a visionary flood of alcohol,
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don’t pretend to understand at all.
It’s coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It’s coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep
the river’s going to weep,
and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!
It’s coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on …

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Human beings crave ritual. It helps us feel at home in the world. From elaborate formal ceremonies to simple, steadying gestures, rituals mark our moments and render them memorable. The meaning we gain from them depends on the meaning we attribute to them. The rituals we choose to observe can bring comfort and purpose to our lives. 

In the quiet of your home, you light a candle in prayer. You chant a mantra, touch a photo, or methodically prepare your morning tea. You blow out a candle on a cake. Such ritual behaviors place our activities in a familiar context and imbue even our most mundane and messy moments with significance. 

Rituals can provide reassurance when we are uncertain. One explanation for why humans developed them is in an attempt to stave off danger by nudging our fears a little closer to the margins. Whether the threat is concrete or intangible, and whether the rituals are based on tradition, superstition, or both, science seems to confirm that they serve as a source of empowerment that enhances confidence, motivates greater effort, and improves our capacity for success in our endeavors. 

The reliability of rituals serves as a balm for our fears—real and imagined. They allow us to lean into something familiar, a reassuring routine that offers profound stability in the midst of inconstancy. A good friend who watches baseball says it’s a ritual that comforts her. In a world where chaos often topples order, baseball consistently promises three strikes, three outs, and nine innings as a framework of familiarity and dependability. 

The players themselves certainly believe in the value of rituals. Former Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs woke up at the same time each day, ate chicken before each game, took exactly 117 ground balls in practice, and wrote the word “Chai” (Hebrew for “life”) in the dirt before each at bat. (He isn’t Jewish, by the way.) In a sport that sees professional players crossing themselves more frequently than the staff at the Vatican and staging elaborate victory dances following every home run, we might feel it’s all a bit much. But just remember, Wade Boggs is now a Hall of Famer. 

Of course, rituals are not limited to personal behaviors. They are woven into our communities and cultures, creating a connective tissue that binds us, a collective quest for something greater than ourselves. Throughout time and all over the globe, the richness of rituals attests to their continuing value in people’s individual lives, and in our shared experience as members of the human community. 

The rain dance is performed across the world – from Indigenous tribes in North America to Aboriginal elders in Australia – to connect Heaven and Earth in supplication for an end to blistering droughts. Thousands gather each year on the former site of Kaneiji Temple in Tokyo to celebrate Hanami, a festival where more than a thousand cherry trees represent renewal and honor nature’s impermanent beauty. Eight thousand miles away in West Africa, along the banks of eastern Togo’s vast Mono River, locals gather for a complex voodoo cleansing ceremony to protect their village. In Thailand, a handful of Buddhist temples offer the San Want, a bamboo tattoo that serves as a blessing to protect recipients from their fears and enemies. On a beach in Fiji, members of the Sawau tribe walk barefoot across a bed of burning coals in a sacred ceremonial display of strength, courage, and faith.  

Closer to home, a brass band in New Orleans leads friends and family, dancing and singing, through the French Quarter and on to St. Louis Cemetery, in a ritual that is equal measures mourning and celebration. From Burning Man to the Polar Plunge, humans gather together to  share experience and are enriched by doing so.

Of course, our daily rituals may be quite simple. The morning cup of coffee, unhurriedly sipped over a game of Wordle, might be as necessary a ritual for some as a liturgy spoken in church is for others. Taking time to notice what our minds are doing, whether in formal mindfulness practice or simply sitting on our porch, is a ritual that inevitably yields insight, including becoming aware that the rituals we appreciate and observe are likely to change over time. We can always choose to adopt new ones. The possibilities are as limitless as the people practicing them. 

So recognize your rituals. Befriend them. Cherish them. Permit them to have resonance. Give them space to take deep roots. Let them run ahead of you, carrying a light that makes your path less fearful. Let them linger and play behind you, reminding you that you can drop pretenses and ease into a more untroubled version of yourself. Invite them to strengthen your connection with yourself, with others, and with the world we all share.

Rituals are our cherry blossoms, the protectors of our village, the blessings carved into our skin. From the mundane to the monumental, our rituals remind us that we have a choice: we can notice each moment and celebrate life. Rituals are the brass band that plays us home.

BY TOMMY HOUSWORTH

“I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things.” – Pete Seeger

It was, perhaps, the last thing I expected on a Saturday morning, but you never know when paying attention will pay off – even when scrolling through social media.

A member of our community Facebook group posted that a half-dozen Buddhist monks were scheduled to pass through our small town in Virginia on their 1500-mile Walk for World Peace. Originally from Thailand and now living at a monastery in New York, the monks were about halfway through a three-month trek from Key West to Niagara Falls.

They’d been walking for days through the heart of the deep South in their orange robes and shaven heads. Concerned that they might not have received a very warm reception up to that point, my wife and I hopped in the car. We parked, sipped our coffee, and patiently waited. Our hope was simply to get a photo of the monks walking past and give them a friendly, encouraging wave of support.

Soon we saw them walking briskly on the sidewalk across the road from us. We got out of the car to wave and they crossed the street and greeted us with smiles, laughter, handshakes, and warm words, all before we could even muster up a simple “Welcome!” They were happy to take photos with my wife and me before continuing on, stopping to meet others down the road. Their time with us was brief, but it left a gentle imprint. That day – that weekend – we somehow felt lighter.

Later my wife posted some of the photos on our community Facebook page, as well as to the monks’ page, which tracks their entire trip. Color me cynical, but in an era of unfettered intolerance, I anticipated comments like “What are THEY doing here?” or worse. Instead, the post received hundreds of “likes” and “loves,” as well as comments expressing joy in seeing or meeting the monks. Some asked if there was a way to provide them with food, water, supplies, or a place to stay. I was, to say the least, heartened.

One gentleman did ask (whether being sincere or snarky, I have no idea) what a handful of monks hoped to accomplish by walking for world peace. It’s true that reverberations of their meager march might not be felt in Gaza or the Ukraine. And no matter how close their travels take them to our nation’s capital, the denizens of the halls of Congress are unlikely to slow their contentious machinations to ponder what the monks’ message might mean for their efforts.

In baseball terms, the monks are playing what’s called small ball. They aren’t swinging for the fences but are gently advocating for the merest amount of progress. A bunt. A bloop single. A sacrifice fly to move a runner into scoring position. Coaches will tell you it’s one way to win games when you’re mismatched against a formidable opponent. And maybe it’s a strategy those of us hoping to make an impact where world peace is concerned might adopt.

Carrying no currency, the monks’ goal in walking is not to affect policy but to demonstrate that peace – at least a modicum of it – can be propagated through the simple acts of kindness from strangers along their journey. Offerings of bottled water, socks, and snacks serve as outward expressions of an inner craving we have for the peace these gentle men seem to embody.

In an age that tends to bend toward distrust and division, seeing these travelers offering the kindness of their example and receiving so much kindness in return reminds us of our own capacity to have small yet meaningful impacts. Generosity needn’t be life-altering. It may leave the gentlest of imprints, a momentary lightening of the spirit.

Call it the ripple effect. Our words and actions reverberate in ways our ancestors would’ve found unfathomable. We can upset a friend with a hasty text or stir a stranger’s outrage with a single social media post. We can also tender a modicum of openness and caring within those same experiences. It may seem twee, but even if we only make small differences, those small differences can create momentum. Small differences can create millions of small things.

Feeling how little we can affect war, inflation, and injustice pains us. That pain can be a reminder, inviting us to nudge our personal universe a little closer toward compassion. Perhaps the way we win this challenging game of life is by playing small ball, walking through our lives with the spirit of a monk on an intentional journey.

Given how helpless many of us feel as mere molecules in this interdependent body of humanity, our capacity to fire off a bit of goodwill – a passing pulse of positivity – may just be our superpower. It may not change the world, but it will change our world.

Our minds can sometimes seem like wild horses but even when they aren’t charging around, mindfulness takes work. For many of us, maintaining intentional awareness of the present moment is, in fact, our greatest challenge. Thankfully, there are teachers who encourage us when we stumble or get discouraged. Now and then, we encounter a teacher who guides us not by wisdom but by the rawness of their own struggles. Sometimes, instead of showing up in a tailored suit or saffron robes, they’re wearing nothing but their underwear. Let me explain.

A few years ago, on a silent meditation retreat, I met such a teacher. During the weekend event, 150 of us were invited to refrain from speaking for two and a half days. For those who don’t believe they can be quiet for 60+ hours, it’s easier than one would imagine. The silence, in fact, becomes a balm you want to protect.

One young man, though, kept pulling me out of my attempts to be present. In a retreat filled with people taking mindful steps, emanating peace, and seeking a certain kind of equanimity, this kid was a cyclonic force, a wild stallion loose in a glass factory.

Our first introduction occurred when I went to the shower at 4:40 A.M., preparing for 5:30 A.M. meditation. He charged into the bathroom in nothing but his underwear. Slamming his hand against the wall to hold himself up, he let out a bellowing sigh as he lightened his bladder. He then left the bathroom without washing his hands.

Fast-forward to mealtime, an opportunity to experience eating as a mindful, attentive experience, wherein one slowly savors the texture, taste, and nourishment the food offers. Simple bowls of soup, noodles, tofu, and vegetables become a reminder that many hands and hearts went into the food that we are enjoying. Gratitude abounds as we take upward of an hour or more to enjoy food prepared with love and attention.

Unfortunately, the cyclone didn’t get the memo. He churned through mealtime like a helicopter blade, unable to pause even when the occasional mindfulness bell rang, designating an opportunity to pause and bring our wandering minds back to the present moment. As those around him chewed slowly and thoughtfully, he fashioned his chopsticks into shovels.
I found this young man became a sort of obsession for me. “Why was he even here?” “He’s obviously NOT engaged in what we’re all trying to do here,” said Judge Thomas Housworth of the township of Judgyville (Population: one). I fixated on his behavior and slipped into bemused stricture, almost wishing for him to go against the grain so I could, in thinking him a thoughtless clod, feel better about my own mediocre mindfulness.

And so it went for another day or so, him unable to sit still, and me vacillating between curiosity and critique. Then, one of the teachers announced at breakfast that, later in the day, they would be granting short interviews to anyone who wanted to ask questions or seek advice. Silence would be broken for this opportunity should anyone care to request an audience with one of the mindfulness teachers. They had pieces of paper and pencils where you could jot down your name and your question or concern. If you wished to sign up, simply fill out a piece of paper and drop it in the neighboring basket.

Enjoying the silence, I didn’t see a reason to deviate from the day’s routine. Yet, I am constantly questioning, and maybe a new perspective on my neurosis would be beneficial. As I walked to the basket to write my name down, the young man darted in front of me. He hurriedly wrote on the paper and dropped it in the bell. Now, let he who has never snooped cast the first stone…

I walked up to the bell, started to fill out my paper, and leaned in to peek at what he had scribbled. I told myself I just wanted to know his name. I told myself it was harmless curiosity. I told myself it was okay, even though it wasn’t. My heart crumbled as I read his comments…

“I can’t seem to stay in the present moment. It’s so hard for me, and I’m really trying. Can you help me?”

My throne of superiority crumbled. Turns out what he was going through was exactly what I was going through, what likely everyone at the retreat was going through. Maybe you’re going through it as well. We’re all running from the here and now; he just happened to be doing it in his underwear at 4:40 AM or with noisy silverware in a quiet dining hall. Do I mask my neuroses better than he? Sure, I’ve had twice as many years of practice at it. Am I any less a twitchy tornado than he? No way. He’s me. I’m him. But that a young man in his twenties, restless in his own skin, had the mindfulness to recognize this and show up at a place where he could confront that confusion head-on? I suddenly realized he wasn’t a kid with a lot to learn. He was my teacher.

Our teachers appear in the most unlikely of circumstances, in the most unfashionable forms. They are transient beggars and obstinate toddlers, unsmiling strangers and difficult coworkers, vulgar poets, and, yes, unkind elected officials.

While I do not subscribe to the notion that everything happens for a reason, I try to remind myself that we can find something in any circumstance that offers an opportunity to soften, to open up, to welcome discomfort so we can work with it and find the fearlessness we were born to claim. We can also take those opportunities to harden, close off, and cast aspersions. The choice is ours. It’s always, ultimately, ours.

Many days, it’s hard to make the brave and compassionate choice. But on days that I am mindful enough to remember my young teacher, I open up to the possibilities that I can bend a little closer to the light, that I can choose to apply authentic effort in a world that, more than ever, cries out for people to keep trying. Wild horses, we’ll ride them someday.…

By Tommy Housworth

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly. 

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. 

The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ‘struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. 

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

– attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder

Hopi Nation Oraibi, Arizona

I have a tenuous relationship with water. Like many of us who grew up in the 70’s, Jaws was my baptism into hydrophobia. Pair that with a documentary I saw shortly thereafter titled Blue Water, White Death, and you’ll understand why, at eight years of age, I went on a bathing boycott for over a week, refusing to get in an enclosed space with water freely flowing on me. Truly, our family shower stall resembled nothing so much as a shark cage to my young, fearful eyes. And a bath? Hell naw.

Once I overcame this irrational trepidation, my mom signed me up for one week of swimming lessons with a private teacher in a neighbor’s pool. There’s only so much one can learn about a life skill in five hours. I fought to stay afloat, dog paddling like a wounded animal. I stroked, I kicked, but mostly, I sank. The shallows remained my friend.  

My discomfort with leaving the shore was further compounded when I was a college freshman. I was a counselor at our church’s day camp, and we took the campers to the pool at the nearby Greek Hellenic Center. Despite the presence of a half-dozen counselors and a lifeguard, one of our campers drowned that day. She was only a few feet away from me while I was in the water with my back to her. No one saw or heard her until her bloated body floated face down in the water. This sweet and gentle girl was developmentally challenged, a term not uttered in 1986. “Slow” was how she was described. She wanted to swim like her friends could, but she was ill-equipped. We didn’t know this until it was too late. The knowledge that any of us – counselors, staff, other campers – could have just turned around a few moments earlier and saved her still haunts me, shaking my conscience and faith to this day.

So, this notion of pushing to the middle of the river has always been tenuous for me, literally and metaphorically. The shore is so familiar, such safe ground, assurance beneath my feet. And yet, the waves keep coming, and we see so many people – people not unlike ourselves, really – out there in the middle of the water. Some float with ease, others flail and gasp for air between gulps of water.

Some recognized the shore no longer served them, and regardless of what was out there in the vastness of the channels, they craved the open waters. They knew they needed to grow. Others were pulled out into the currents by the churn of life – a lost spouse or parent, a wayward & vulnerable child, a homeland sinking under the weight of war and violence. We will all know this someday. We’ll all feel the relentless tug of something that causes the undertow to take us out beyond the breakers.

In my own life, my courageous wife has helped me let go of the shore—quite literally. On our first vacation together in 1996, Wendy convinced me to jump into the frigid waters of Walden Pond, reminding me I’d always regret not experiencing the full offering of Thoreau’s aquatic playground. I later considered that clumsy dip my belated baptism into adulthood.  

A few years and two kids later, she had me snorkeling along reefs in the Caribbean and jumping out of a kayak beneath a Puerto Rican moon to swim in a bioluminescent bay with our kids. My nervous system was on high alert, but I knew our kids were equally hesitant, so it was my job to put on a courageous face and appear confident that we could trust the sea — and whatever was in it — to let us explore safely.  

Then, to bring my Blue Water, White Death motif full circle, there was a snorkeling excursion in Key West that began by jumping off a deck and into the water alongside a vessel that boasted a sign reading “Shark Tours: Sightings Guaranteed.” To be transparent, that was the shortest swim of my prestigious underwater career.

Still, there’s something contagious about that spirit of courage, even if it begins as nothing more than an act, a masquerade for others. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway, as the self-help gurus say. Eventually, the turbulent waters inside ourselves begin to calm and we see that which we dreaded is somehow less daunting, less intent on destroying us than we had allowed ourselves to believe.  Fearful minds feed much more viciously than sharks ever could, and once the frenzy starts, we can exhaust ourselves by continually fighting the tempest. Or we can become the waves. It’s then we learn that surrender isn’t defeat or acquiescence. Surrender is finding flow. It’s banishing the word struggle from our vocabulary.

We are adrift in uncertain waters these days, and we are reminded of this every time we log on or tune in. Ironically, the closer we are to shore, the easier it is to be consumed by all the fear we’re exposed to. It’s only when we muster up something resembling heroism and egolessness that we can discover the sense of calm abiding, of deep trust that exists when we make our way into the river.  

There, we find we can adapt. We find we are not so alone. We find we are moving toward something, not away from it.

The waves never subside. Neither do our swimming lessons.

• • •

Tommy Housworth is a professional script and speechwriter who also writes essays, short stories, and poetry. He’s a certified mindfulness teacher through the Engaged Mindfulness Institute and a Buddhist practitioner in the Tibetan and Zen traditions. His Substack page – “A Sense of Wonder” – can be found at: tommyhousworth.substack.com.

It was perhaps the loneliest car trip I’ve ever made. I was driving from Indiana home to Colorado after delivering my son to his freshman year of college. Parents who have done the same thing may be familiar with the keen mixture of emotions that can arise during this family ritual. 

On the one hand, I was grateful that my son would have the opportunity to grow and stretch in this brave new world that he was excited to enter, and proud of the intellectual and emotional work he had done to reach the point of jumping out of the nest. There was an inexpressible sweetness in this moment. On the other hand, I felt deep in my bones that a border had been crossed. A crucial and precious part of life—his childhood, with all its joys and sorrows—was now irrevocably past. So I was also feeling sharp sadness as I headed west.

In our emotional family, as in flesh-and-blood families, we have favorite members and others we prefer to avoid. Sadness and joy are, of course, both members of our emotional family. Though we tend to view them as separate, even opposites, they often intermingle. In my experience, the charged mixture of sadness and joy is a potent expression of our inherent wakefulness. 

All our emotions have their place. There is no real enemy. Meeting sadness and joy without bias or struggle creates space and allows them to speak to our hearts and minds in the same way that natural phenomena often do. Meditation can help us open up to whatever is arising in our minds and in the world around us. This is actually the point of meditation, learning that we can live in fearless openness and relate in an authentic, dignified way with the various energies and situations that arise. Meeting whatever arises with complete openness is liberation.

The dance of sadness and joy is inescapable as we journey toward complete openness. There is a certain poignancy in simply being a living human being subject to impermanence, a basic level of sadness that lies beyond the various stories we tell ourselves about why we’re sad. Pervasive and often so subtle that we ignore it, it is deeply human. 

Sometimes that basic sadness seems gentle, sometimes it seems deep and piercing. But it’s not particularly tragic. It’s just what is. In fact, if we acknowledge that basic sadness and relate with it forthrightly, without denying it or fighting it, it helps us engage more fully in our life. It is a form of wakefulness and basic healthiness, and the source of great dignity.

To be fully human is to know both sadness and joy, and to know them together. Genuine joy does not reject sadness but accommodates it and includes it in its joyfulness. Sadness deepens and matures our intelligence. Meeting sadness with gentleness softens us and opens our heart. At the same time, joy reminds us to laugh, love, and appreciate—knowing that life passes quickly. 

Experiencing the inseparability of sadness and joy opens us to the wonder of being alive in this world. It enables us to connect deeply and authentically with others. And it enables us to inhabit life fully and sanely, both the pain and the pleasure of it, the delight and the boredom. We begin to realize that there is no fundamental problem with any of it. 

That’s a helpful thing to remember when we undertake the lonely drive home.

What do you say at this time of year? Season’s greetings? Happy holidays? While these expressions may upset folks who’d like something more specific, most of us respond well to them as gestures of good cheer. Still, they can feel a bit bland. So this season I’ve been exploring the power of a wordless way to convey goodwill.

Holiday shopping can certainly challenge our goodwill, as can holiday traffic. Headed home from Costco, I saw that a drive I normally make in less than half an hour was predicted by GPS to take 47 minutes. After sitting for a full cycle at a stoplight with only marginal movement,  I remembered a shortcut I’d used in years past and decided to take it. 

An hour and ten minutes later, having sat through many more lights than I would have had I stayed the original course, I pulled into my driveway. I wasn’t particularly surprised by that – after all, some law of the universe seems to dictate that whenever we switch to a lane or a line because we think it’s moving faster, it won’t. Someone will need a price check. A delivery truck double parks. Or for simply unfathomable reasons, things just start moving slower than molasses.

What I was surprised by is that I found myself smiling about it. After all, what can you do when traffic is bad? Well, of course, you can fret and fume. You can complain. You can drive like a maniac through the congestion in a way that’s unlikely to spread joy to the drivers around you. 

Or you can notice, as I did, that you are part of the traffic. Every vehicle (at least until self-driving cars hit the road in greater numbers) is piloted by somebody who needs to get somewhere. We are all just another somebody headed toward a destination. And this has a parallel that goes beyond the time it takes to drive from point A to point B. 

Just like we’re all part of the traffic, we’re all part of the human condition. We can fret and fume about how crazy the world is, how confusion, conflict, and chaos abound, and how other people who don’t share our opinions are to blame for that. We can even broadcast our views about how wrong others are on social media. Again, unlikely to spread joy.

But there’s another possibility. And while it may not be exactly a shortcut, it’s more likely to get us where we want to go. We could try taking a look at what one brilliant teacher described as our traffic jam of discursive thoughts. We all carry within us our own personal contribution to the collective combative congestion that afflicts the world these days.

If we do, we might begin to see ourselves as vehicles containing passengers with baggage and competing agendas. We may discover we harbor doubt about our destination, about what route will take us where we want to go, about whether we have what we need to get us there. And in the process we might discover how we are co-creating the human condition. We are the traffic.

Human beings have evolved to be in community. We long for connection. If we learn to connect with and trust our basic nature, we can engage with others from the ground of our own wakeful presence. That will make it easier to recognize that they share that ground, even if they haven’t realized it yet. And, in any case, we all share the same precious planet and the same threatened atmosphere. How we treat one another matters. 

Expressing that basic decency can transform our own lives and change the world. So in this season when we’re moved to offer greetings, instead of wondering how to express them without causing offense, consider taking advice from an old song: “If you smile at me, I will understand. ‘Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language.”

In Costco, I practiced that and was amazed by what happened. Waiting for an aisle to clear, or for somebody to get what they wanted from a display I also wanted to reach, or standing in the checkout line: any time I could catch someone’s eye, I smiled. And every single person smiled back. Sometimes with a shake of the head, a “what are ya gonna do about this mess?” wry kind of smile, but still.…

Science tells us that smiling is beneficial to our bodies. A smile is a way of salvaging sanity in a crazy world by propagating cheerfulness and inviting spaciousness to infuse our corner of space-time. Every one of us is a vehicle on a trip – from the bed to the bathroom, from home to work, from the cradle to the grave – and we all carry our share of the human karmic load. We have no choice. But a smile can lighten the load, not only for ourselves, but for everyone we meet.

It’s a beautiful greeting… and it’s good for all seasons!

by Carol Hyman

It feels risky to admit to optimism these days when doomsaying is so prevalent and irony is fashionable. But without ignoring how much work we have to do, I’m cheered by some of the changes I see unfolding around me. I don’t think it’s naïve optimism: something good is emerging in the world.

The naïve optimism and willful ignorance that are part of our human inheritance are things we need to recognize and reckon with. “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word…” go the lyrics to an old song about longing for a home on the range. Now, it’s an encouraging word that seldom is heard, and many of us long to feel at home anywhere, even if it’s just within our own skin. Maybe especially within our own skin. 

It doesn’t help that we’re fearful for the future of our most essential home, the earth. When we immerse ourselves in media – mainstream, social, or otherwise – things can seem unrelievedly grim. To the extent that the range still exists, it’s no longer a place where buffalo roam or antelope play. People are responsible for that, as well as countless other dreadful consequences arising out of our willingness to ignore how our behavior impacts our interconnected world. Extinctions. Environmental degradation. Warfare and individual violent acts. Injustice on many levels. A litany of horrors. It feels like the skies could be cloudy not just all day, but for all time.  

It’s a good thing that we are waking up to our culpability. But recognizing our responsibility can bring more clouds if it only results in feeling guilty, or depressed, or furious at others, reactions that perpetuate problems because they tend to increase society’s overall contentiousness and sap our individual resilience. To turn things around on this planet, we need to stop fighting and harness our human resources.

In the service of those goals, I’ve spent my life teaching meditation in centers devoted to contemplative disciplines. The programs might last anywhere from an evening to retreats of several weeks. We worked to create attractive spaces that would invite people to settle and appreciate simply being, with their minds and with each other. With forms and rituals that encourage going beyond habitual ways of being, we encouraged people to experience the joy and freedom that come from opening to wakeful presence in each moment. 

For decades, folks looking to move beyond the materialism that permeates our culture have come to these centers and benefited from practicing as part of a community. That world is one I cleaved to and called home. But that world, like the larger culture around it, has changed, and I’ve found myself longing for a more open space. A wider range, so to speak, with a wider range of people.

Meanwhile, the physical reality expressed as “use it or lose it” is increasingly hard for me to ignore. When I was young, people didn’t realize how important it is to maintain physical fitness. Now, whether we do it or not, everybody recognizes the value of regular exercise. When my long-time routine of taking regular walks in Vermont was disrupted by circumstances and I moved to the city, needing to take care of my body drove me, as it has many others, to the YMCA. 

The indoor pool was what attracted me, and when I decided to up my exercise game, I took advantage of the personal training program offered to members. My trainer happened to be the director of the wellness center there. One thing led, as it will, to others, and last month I started offering classes in mindfulness meditation at the Y. But first, the rigorous screening and training required of prospective teachers opened my eyes to the value of something I’d driven past countless times without much thought.

The YMCA is the oldest non-profit in Atlanta, and it’s constantly adapting to better serve the community. A recent example: at the start of the Covid lockdown, when most facilities were shuttered, resourceful people wondered how the Y could help. Recognizing an obvious need –   that with schools and daycare centers closed, first responders were hard-pressed to find safe places for their children while they worked – the Y pivoted, put safety protocols in place, and provided that haven. Now, ongoing programs attract a thriving community. Kids get help learning to read. Summer and after school activities help them develop not only sports skills but social ones. There are programs for seniors and pick-up pickleball in an air-conditioned space! 

And there are mind and body classes. That’s where I fit in, twice a week. Even though the sessions are short – an hour or less – and even though we sit not in an environment carefully curated to encourage attentive reflection but in a room more often used for body pump or turbo kick, I find myself as inspired by these classes as I ever have been by the longer gatherings I’m used to leading. 

Mostly that’s because I’m finding that wider range of people I longed for. The ones who come to these classes are a diverse lot. What we discover we have in common is seeing how, by starting with ourselves, we might actually be able to stop adding to the contentious fracas bombarding us these days. 

That people come at all, and then come back, tells me something good is happening. Thanks to research and personal experience, few doubt that working with our bodies to develop strength and stamina is good for us. Now science is gathering data on the benefits that come from working with our minds. But more importantly, as I see each week in these classes, people are finding out for themselves the old-fashioned way: they do it and see what happens.  

In 1873, the Atlanta YMCA resumed its activities after the Civil War. The same year, “Home on the Range” was first printed. The lyrics were rewritten a few times over the years, as people’s ideas and attitudes changed. The skies can sometimes be cloudy for so long that we forget: whatever the storm, in the vastness of outer space, the sun is always shining. And in the inner space of our human hearts and minds, the light of awareness is always shining. If we tune in to it and pay attention to the world, it sheds light on the possibilities around us. Then, because we’re better able to discern what roads our good intentions might actually take us down, we can choose the ones that will bring the greater good.  

Sometimes we might need to work up a sweat. But sometimes it’s enough to simply sit down and look inside. If we’re brave, we might discover something good. It’s always here. 

by Carol Hyman

If you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best. So how about this? “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…” 

Life has always been a mixed bag, as Charles Dickens so eloquently pointed out. But in the past it used to be easier to ignore other people’s suffering. These days, with satellites beaming images from one side of the planet to the other – of war, famine, natural disasters, ghastly diseases, and inconceivable cruelty – we get such vivid pictures of the forms human suffering takes that we can want to tune out. What’s a human to do? 

We can face facts. Sometimes things fall apart and sometimes things come together. Or so it appears, from our point of view. Actually, things are always simultaneously falling apart and coming together. Order and entropy. Stability and disruption. Organization and chaos. And in the midst of all that change, people try to carve out meaningful and satisfying lives. 

Then there’s the more subtle suffering that rarely makes the news but you can see on people’s faces, maybe even when you look in the mirror. Like the phantom ache amputees describe, this pain arises from the absence, not of a limb, but of the wisdom of the human heart. Something is missing and we know it. 

We could look to science for answers. But what physics tells us about the very strange nature of reality might give us pause if we actually try to apply it in our lives. Assuming that things are as they seem to be is what social psychologists call naïve realism. A more nuanced perspective would take into account what we now know about space and uncertainty. If we learn to let go of our entrenched preconceptions and habitual patterns, we can experience each moment arising, fresh and up to date. We can learn how to rest in the space we inhabit and connect with the wakeful presence. 

Wakeful presence is the source of the wisdom we need to navigate the best and worst of times. Our inner and outer perceptions can merge in open awareness and bring insight. When this happens we become vehicles by which the universe is bringing it all back home. We constantly deliver creation into experience. Or experience into creation. And words like relativity, multi-dimensionality, and entanglement become more than mere concepts. We start to actually experience the fact that matter really is just energy that has coalesced in space. And there’s so much space. Around us and within us. No wonder all our efforts to nail things down seem to keep dissolving. No wonder we try so hard to hold on. 

So where do we find wakeful presence with its wisdom that will guide us through the groundless ever-shifting landscape of life? Ironically, the answer is that it’s so close that you could say it’s hiding in plain sight. Our condition is as if we were dying of thirst while sitting on top of a vast, barely concealed reservoir. Dig down just a bit and water will spring forth, fresh and plentiful beyond our wildest dreams. But if we don’t know it’s there, or can’t find the tools to dig, we wither away, sensing all the while that something isn’t right. 

When a body is dehydrated, the person often doesn’t feel thirsty and instead develops a headache, or weakness and dizziness. Likewise, we may not know what it is that ails us. We just have a vague sense that something is missing from our lives. Indeed, we may feel we are missing our lives altogether, caught up in the speed and tedium of daily existence. Are our actions worthwhile? What meaning is there in our moments and days? To make ourselves feel better, we spin stories about what we are doing. Often we even believe them. Until things fall apart and we’re back where we started. 

Maybe it’s time we start digging? We could dig into our own experience. We could stop distracting ourselves and embrace our condition. People try to cling to youth not only because of a fear of death but also because we see in the young – and perhaps remember from our own early days – the sense of promise, of something strong and fresh and vital. We long for that vitality. We want to feel a sense of power and presence, to connect with the world. We want to be fully human. 

In our heart of hearts, we want to come together, to be comfortable in our own skin, to ease discomfort in others, and to help make the world around us a better place for the people who will come after us on this beautiful and fragile planet. Mindfulness is the tool we use to tap the reservoir. That reservoir of kindness and wisdom is our human inheritance. Claiming it is our best shot at a better future. 

So, what’s a human to do? That’s a good first question. Life is a trip. How’s your vehicle? What experience are you delivering into creation? What sort of reality do you manifest? We all convey into this world a splendid – or not so – blend of decency and confusion. Sit down and make friends with yourself. Learn to recognize what you carry with you. Then ask yourself what’s called for now, in this moment, in these circumstances. 

Sometimes it’s time for things to fall apart. And sometimes it’s time to come together. Tapping our inner resources calls for hard work. It takes discipline to break the habits of a lifetime. But if we dig deep and meet the challenge of this time – the time of our lives – we might discover that it is a far, far better thing than we ever could have imagined.