Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World

This application of mindfulness is distinct from intently focusing on developing concentration or one-pointedness. It works with cultivating the broader awareness, the kind of “network looking,” the clear comprehension (sampajanna) we’ve been looking at.

Discerning wisdom is clarity, the willingness to let go of our assumptions and agendas to see more truthfully. It is the willingness to relinquish certain habits, like being a people pleaser or a perpetually defiant rebel, to have a more open, honest perception of a situation.

It’s important to keep track of the vastness of an issue, but working to try to change things for one person, or one set of people, isn’t nothing.

A systems approach helps shift us from formulaic, mechanical responses to issues to fluid responses that see the interconnected and constantly changing elements that keep emerging.

Fortunately, when we’re committed to addressing the stubborn injustices and seemingly intractable problems of the world and we are not bound by so many assumptions, we have the chance to look at deeper patterns in our minds and in how the world works. We have the space to cultivate insight and discernment, to break out of old habitual perceptions a

with any traumatic event, we might well need time to more fully integrate, in body, mind, and spirit that “it happened.” It’s easy, along the way, to want to overexplain a shattering situation or take refuge in abstractions.

When we feel like we’re experiencing a truly terrible thing, we often don’t let the feeling exist on its own. Instead, we make it worse. Perhaps we judge ourselves for not being able to let go of the negative feeling; perhaps we ruminate extensively about the past and stew in regret or guilt; perhaps we allow ourselves to start projecting into the

Mindfulness and even lovingkindness meditation practices are commonly thought of as personal and inward-focused, but they can very much be social practices as well. When we get in touch with our own pain or the pain of others, meditation is not just a salve; it can provide the impetus to work for change.

We don’t live in isolated silos, disconnected from everyone else—it just feels that way sometimes. What happens to others inevitably affects us.

When we care, and when we know we are worthy, we can be agents of change—for ourselves and for others.