Working from a State of Balance, Ease, and Safety

The first podcast recorded following the shocking military coup on February 1st in Myanmar continues to offer us wisdom through difficult times. I highly encourage any listener to go back and hear the full version here. Following is a five minute video capturing some of the wisdom of the Buddhist nun from Chan Myay Myaing Monastery, put together by a meditator in appreciation.

Credit Arctic Moth for the great musical score!

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Here is Daw Viranani’s full oral text from the video:

The Dhamma is so central to this culture, and so not understood by the people who write about this place in the media from overseas when they're writing about whatever we hear about outside.  

So the understanding of Dhamma is incredibly important, not only as it, it is part of the warp and weft of the culture, but also the understanding of how am I responding to this and overlaying my own ideas on this culture that to me is quite different from mine, and holds values that are quite different from mine.

Political values, social values, Dharma values. And the bottom line is the world is messy and complicated. 

So finding an inner place of safety is up to each of us.

So really, to encourage every single person to rest back in the present moment, and to hold it with really tender kindness, the tender kindness of knowing and really, really being kind to yourself.

And touching each moment with kindness, that kind of awareness that will allow everything to be here, and then see what happens.

See for yourself, what happens. But also, the sky is still blue, the leaves are still green, nature's outside, the birds are singing, the sun's coming up and going down, there's sunsets and sunrises, flowers are blooming, there are pleasant things happening even now.  

And to notice this, as well as, and hold it in the same moment as everything else, this really helps to keep from drowning.

We can work best for others from a state of balance and ease and safety.

So you're in a safe place right now. Well, relatively, you know, there are dangers there too, but relatively safe.

And so a lot can be done from that safe place of practice. And, metta in deed, metta in speech, metta in thought.

So, using that platform of safety, for the welfare and benefit of all beings, and then allowing whatever feelings to come and then allowing them to go, it will give you a really strong, balanced place from which to do your work. 

All beings are owners of their actions.

And understanding that things unfold because of kamma, because of causes and conditions, and how complex all of that is, and how unknowable it all is. 

So who knows what tomorrow will bring. But we are all subject to come up with causes and conditions.

To take all of that together, to take the Buddha's encouragement and his instruction, to face our vulnerability and to know it's possible to be balanced with this, and to just keep going one step at a time.

That's what's resonating with me. And that's what I'm doing. And that's what I would encourage everybody to do in your own way, because that's all any of us can do. In this world, we can't control it.

But we can work with our own reactivity, so that we can rest in a free place and act and speak from a free place. 

So whatever people do, we radiate metta to them, because they are the same as we are. And we are the same as they are. There's no difference.

And for people here to know that everybody is radiating metta to them is a powerful thing! And that can do a lot of good to uplift people here.

And that is so urgently needed right now, is that kind of uplift, because there's despair.

There's hopelessness. There's anger. You can imagine everything. 

So to uplift is what we can do. And that's incredibly valuable.