James Baraz is one of my teachers and he says that when someone asks him how he is, he has a twofold response.  First he responds in a personal way such as, I’m great, or things are going well. The second response is the one I find unique and important. He says, “and my heart is breaking for the world”. I have often thought about how we hold the reality of the world and the reality of our personal existence which sometimes feel light years apart. My personal reality is really quite good – loving family and friends, good health, stable economic situation, but I acknowledge that’s not true for all. Just in the past few days we had yet another mass shooter, this time in Virginia Beach. My heart breaks for the families and the community and for all those harmed by senseless and unnecessary violence. My heart breaks for all those wrongly incarcerated in for-profit prisons that are business as usual. My heart breaks for the environment and destruction wrought by climate change. And so on. I’m sure you can add your own story.

Sometimes people feel guilty about their good fortune especially when they know others are in difficult circumstances. Who are they to be at ease when others are not? How dare they be happy? I know I carried this around for years until I realized that my reality is my reality. Ignoring my own experience, or denigrating it, does not serve at all. Denying happiness, contentment or joy because we see others in different situations flies in the face of everything I’ve learned in the Buddhist teachings.

I have found that Buddhism teaches how to hold these two realities and I am extremely grateful to it because our lives are not simple or cut and dried. Messy is the word I like the most. Life is complex and emotions come and go all the time and we say yes to them and learn to be with them. How do we hold joy in difficult times? How do we hold grief without being dragged under? I appreciate that our tendency is to run from difficulties or throw blame in order to cut the pain we feel. We rationalize and judge and distract ourselves in a myriad of ways so we don’t have to acknowledge or feel what’s happening. This includes joy and happiness as well as the more painful emotions. We ask the question, “What is this?” and stay with the answer. Sometimes we have to give ourselves permission to be joyful – it’s really okay.

While I was in the middle of writing this I saw an Instagram post from my friend, the wonderful teacher Susan Kaiser Greenland. She quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind and still retain the ability to function.” She says that even opposites are interdependent and we can hold both. Yup.

This is the middle way, the path of equanimity and deep intimacy with our experience, whatever it is. Having this sense of balance does not mean we check out from the world. On the contrary, I have found it empowers me to be more a part of the world than ever. When we are not afraid of any emotion, we can hold them all and we can open our hearts to the suffering of all beings. “Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are.” (Nkosi Johnson)