Dear Common Ground Friends,
Many of us in Minnesota have been experiencing a great range of emotions. Some of us have felt beautiful feelings of uplift from being part of or hearing about all the service and fearless love & compassion being expressed in our community. Many of us have also felt great heartache, anger, and despair as we do our best to sense the enormity of disruption in our neighbors’ lives, with the many acts of violence and hate, and the ongoing manipulation and denial of truth.
A monk once asked Master Yunmen, a respected 9th century Chinese Chan (Zen) master to summarize the fruit of a lifetime of practice. Yunmen replied, "An appropriate response." In other words, for Yunmen, good practice naturally leads to a deepening capacity to respond nimbly and skillfully to each moment, but only moment by moment. We don’t get a full map. What has our life taught us that supports this creative, helpful engagement with all the complexity and intensity of life? And, what have we seen gets in the way of a simple, appropriate response?
I have been reading Kazu Haga’s book Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse where he encourages the “...vulnerability of not knowing and the fierceness of trying anyway… It’s surrendering to the unknown without being debilitated by it.” Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice. In his book he writes, “The problems are gargantuan. And maybe, just maybe, the appropriate response is to be small. The crises are incredibly complex. Maybe the right thing to do is the simplest thing. Maybe all we can do–all we need to do–is to continue to affirm life, create beauty, cultivate connection, and move toward healing even in the midst of collapse… Russian-Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine once said, ‘When a system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence have the capacity to shift the entire system.’ If we remain humble, acknowledge we have no idea what it’s ultimately going to take to transform society, and focus on things we know we can impact, the results may be bigger than we can imagine.”
I appreciated listening to the voices of several longtime, wise Buddhist teachers reflecting together on how to show up for our crisis around how best to relate wisely and kindly to our immigrant neighbors: Buddhist Voices For Immigration Justice.
May we learn together how best to take care of each other,
Mark Nunberg
Co-Guiding Teacher
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- Have you been directly affected by ICE activity? Need support from the Common Ground Community? Give us a call or send an email and we will try to connect you with help - if needed, we can communicate with an encrypted Signal message upon request. Also, here is a list of Free / Sliding-Scale Therapists for individuals and families who have experienced, witnessed, or been impacted by ICE activity.
- For people looking for ways to volunteer or otherwise support local immigrant families you may wish to visit these websites:
Unidos MN
Defend The 612
Stand with Minnesota - Places to Donate