Dear Common Ground Friends,
No matter the abundance of greed, hatred, and delusion being triggered in our hearts and in our world, let us make it our responsibility to set good in motion. The necessary first step is the cultivation of a heart that is stable enough to allow for a sensitivity that is both wide and deep. With steady, tender, and wise awareness, the heart naturally discerns what is onward-leading to healing and release, and what is onward-leading to more suffering, internally and externally. This is the one intervention that is always available to us. No one can take this power to transform our heart and world away from us.
The power to plant seeds for transformation is often dismissed because showing up with the soft power of wisdom and love often doesn’t appear dramatic. It has a settled energy and comes with a quiet confidence arising out of the clarity that it is wholesome. Unfortunately we have been conditioned to think that power is loud and big. I am grateful that there are many examples of this soft power of wisdom and love circulating these days. For example, so many neighbors here in the Twin Cities have gotten to know each other by creating beautiful communities dedicated to caring for those immigrant families in need. Another example of this that has captured the attention of many, many folks around the world is the 2,300-mile Walk for Peace undertaken by a group of Buddhist monks and a dog, Aloka, from Texas. After a 108-day winter journey walking single file, they recently arrived in Washington D.C. and will end this trip with a Global Loving Kindness Meditation tomorrow, Wednesday, 3:30-6:30 Central Time. Common Ground will have the video of this public meditation playing at the center in case you wish to join in with other community members. Please feel free to attend anytime during this three hour meditation session. Click these two links for more information: Walk for Peace and Global Loving Kindness Meditation.
May we all move through our lives rooted in the soft, trustworthy power of wisdom and love.
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