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Zen
Electing Freedom | Lion’s Roar
Relieving Anxiety
The election is stressful, but avoidance won’t help. The key, says Harry Um, is taking action.
On November 8, 2016, I was at work, furiously refreshing my web browser for news about the U.S. presidential election. This was supposed to be a landslide, and although the day was still young, the initial returns were unbearably inconclusive. I could not tolerate the uncertainty, and I was acting as if my obsessive clicking would tilt the results. But if anything, it had the opposite effect, and my stomach tightened with each refresh.
A coworker walked over and tried to reassure me: “Stop it—go home. Whatever happens, we’ll get through this.”
So, I logged off, got in my car, and started driving. Along the way, I scanned the radio for news that would assuage my fears, but there was none. My stomach kept tightening.
Four years later, on November 7, 2020, I was going for a morning jog. Cars were honking everywhere, and a mob of marchers approached. At this point in my life, I had no idea what was going on in the world because I’d shut myself off from it. I was ignoring all news, social media, even my own friends and family, because I didn’t want to hear anything about politics. I didn’t think I could bear the heartache, so I was content to live in ignorance. When I finally realized who had won, I shrugged and thought, “Like it matters.”
“What can you do? What is your next step?”
It’s now 2024, and the next election is nigh. My anxiety rises with each moment. The knot in my stomach has returned.
The thing about anxiety is that it hurts. It literally hurts: the chest tightens, the neck aches, the stomach clenches. That’s why avoidance is so common—we turn away, and we get to relax. But the relief is short-lived.
Much of my anxiety comes from not knowing what to do. There’s so much information out there that is contrary to my perception of reality. At this point, I have little patience for blithe equivalences, i.e., the idea that “everyone is entitled to their own truth.” So, I want to push back and do the “right” thing, but what exactly is that? Vote? Not vote? Canvas? Protest? What if I do the wrong thing?
I’m a psychotherapist by training, and I advise my clients all the time to cope with anxiety by examining their thoughts and behaviors (the cognitive behavioral approach). Clearly my own avoidance and overcontrolling have not reduced my suffering in any meaningful way, and thoughts, such as the following, haven’t helped much either:
My person has to win. Everything would be better if my person won.
People on the other side are so stupid. They’re all evil.
Politicians are all the same. The system is rigged. It’s hopeless.
These thought patterns align with the ancient Buddhist concept of the kleshas, or unwholesome mental states: raga (attachment, in this case to a candidate); dosa (aversion, in this case to people with positions I don’t like); and moha (ignorance of reality or delusion).
In contrast, thoughts free of mental hindrances might look something like this:
My person will not end my suffering. The political pendulum has swung back and forth throughout time, and there’s much work to do no matter who wins.
No one is purely good or evil. We’re all a complicated mess, and we all want what we think is best. Judgment keeps me in a cycle of suffering.
I can do what is within my control.
That last one is especially important. As the late Korean Buddhist teacher Seung Sahn used to say, “Put it all down,” and “Only go straight.” In other words, examining thoughts is good and well, but it can be tiring. So, put them down once in a while. This doesn’t mean suppress them (which rarely works anyway), but rather relax the incessant clenching. Problems aren’t going away any time soon, and our nervous systems could use the occasional rest in order to function properly.
Wisdom and compassion can then emerge from this place of ease, so that we’re able to see more clearly and ask, “What’s next?” with less delusion. The policies passed by the next administration will affect all of us, especially the most vulnerable among us, in very real and serious ways. As teacher/activist Pablo Das noted years ago, the idea that “we” will all “get through this,” however comforting, goes against the evidence of history—especially when you consider who usually says things like that and how much privilege they tend to have. Many people have not “gotten through” it. To wish it were any other way is to put an unrealistic “demand on reality,” as the psychologist Marsha Linehan put it.
Fighting, fleeing, and freezing are all understandable urges in the face of political anxiety. But then what? You can vote, but what else can you do? “Only go straight” sometimes means putting thoughts aside so that they’re not in the way, and then focusing on what’s in front of you.
In a classic kong-an, the renowned meditation master Namcheon holds up a cat and threatens to kill it unless one of his disciples can give him an appropriate response. The question is the same for us: What can we do when confronted with suffering? What do we do when suffering is happening right in front of our eyes?
The consequences of this election can feel paralyzing, but the therapist in me recalls that since everything is always changing, everything has a cause and effect, which means that every development will result in new responses and resistances. What I do or say, no matter how big or small, can make a difference.
So, do it. Don’t overthink it. Do what comes next.
I may make some missteps along the way, and I may come into tension with those who disagree with me. But I trust that my wisdom and compassion will bend my actions toward the arc of justice.
What can you do? What is your next step? This is very confusing. And yet, at the same time, it is very clear. Only go straight.
A final kong-an: “The whole universe is on fire. Through what kind of samadhi can you escape being burned?”
Working with Anger
Cristina Moon on how physical activity cultivates clarity, calm, and more effective political action.
As Election Day approaches, many of us are getting caught in political conversations that make our cheeks burn and our temples throb. While feeling righteous and angry can maybe feel good in the short term, it can do lasting damage to our minds, bodies, and relationships. So, what can we do about the anger we experience in response to today’s politics?
The prevailing wisdom in spiritual and self-care circles is to take a break and engage in loving-kindness meditation and other calming activities as balms for our rage. But after doing exactly this for over a decade as a campaigner and activist—and finding it sorely lacking—I began my Zen training, which prescribes the complete opposite.
“Being the person we want to be, regardless of our external circumstances, takes a great deal of work.”
At Chozen-ji, the Rinzai Zen temple and martial arts dojo in Honolulu where I live, we combine rigorous seated meditation with martial and fine-arts training to go straight into the heart of what limits us, including inner rage.
One of my first teachers told me, “It’s great if you can feel calm and in control on the cushion. But what about with a sword at your throat? Or with a calligraphy brush in your hand?” His point was that it’s far more likely that you’ll be able to bring the skills of breath, posture, and concentration off the cushion if they’ve been tested in activity and, in particular, under stress. That’s why my Zen training has included several days a week of particularly aggressive kendo (the “way of the sword” or Japanese fencing) and boxing, as well as ceramics and chado (the “way of tea” or Japanese tea ceremony), which are also done at Chozen-ji with a martial discipline.
I will try to share some insight into how these core components of my Zen training—zazen (seated meditation) and physical activities like the martial arts—can be effective approaches to anger and other difficult emotions.
First of all, zazen shouldn’t feel like a subdued, solitary activity. In fact, at Chozen-ji, it resembles an intense team sport. We sit with our eyes open, focusing on a spot ten feet away on the floor, but also seeing the whole room with our peripheral vision, as if taking in a wide vista. All of our senses are open, instead of muted. We see, hear, and feel everything. It’s like we’re early humans hunting—we’re alert and ready to jump up and take action.
Most importantly, throughout our forty-five-minute sittings, we don’t move—even if a mosquito lands on our noses, even if our knees are on fire. Beginners sit for shorter periods until they can sit for forty-five minutes without moving, and those with injuries and other limitations may sit on chairs. But no gross movement is allowed. This contributes more than anything to the feeling of zazen as a team sport; everyone sees and relies on each other to keep the zazen sharp, beginning with resisting the temptation to move—not for the sake of oneself, but for everyone in the room.
Concentration is also built by counting one’s exhalations and breathing with the hara, the low abdomen below the belly button. The exhalations are long and slow, sometimes spanning as long as thirty seconds. The posture is straight and erect, with a slight forward feeling, again as if we’re ready to jump into action.
Try this kind of attentive meditation at home and you may find that it translates easily into moments of activity and that it transforms an experience. When experiencing anger, for example, what happens when you try to feel your feet on the ground, see 180 degrees in every direction, and breathe slowly with your hara?
After zazen, the best thing to do is to go out and use the body. “Zen without the accompanying physical experience,” our founders wrote in our temple’s canon, “is nothing but empty discussion.” Doing simple, repetitive, but vigorous physical work—whether it’s martial arts, endurance activities like running, or challenging manual labor like chopping wood—can dissipate difficult feelings and lead to more clarity, perspective, and calm.
Pushing through when emotions surface during routine workouts is a good way to become more familiar with and eventually unwind these emotions, especially when aided by good habits from zazen in breathing, posture, and concentration. This reduces the store of emotions one carries, making it easier to either not have difficult emotions like anger flare up in the first place, or to more effectively perceive and deal with what’s right in front of you even if anger is present. Also, pushing oneself to get out there even on days when one doesn’t feel like exercising is a powerful way to build willpower and discipline, which can be put to good use in the face of difficult circumstances.
At a higher level, after unburdening oneself of some underlying baggage and developing some strength, Zen training becomes more about refinement and finding effective action without wasted effort. Only with discipline and strength have I been able to cultivate any sense of warmth, ease, and effortlessness in my ceramics and chado. The same energy can be applied to any fine art such as cooking, painting, or arranging flowers—and to every aspect of our lives, including politics.
I’ve been known my whole life as an intense and highly political person prone to anger. I still get angry when I feel personally aggrieved or I hear certain kinds of political rhetoric. But these days, people often describe me as a composed person who imparts a feeling of calm to others, and responds to challenging views with grace.
When people say this sort of thing, I usually laugh and joke that all the training I’ve been doing better be worth something. They laugh with me, but rarely do I get the sense that they understand just how hard-earned my calmness really is. Being the person we want to be, regardless of our external circumstances, takes a great deal of work. In fact, it takes serious training. Hopefully, here, you’ve found some ways to start.
Overcoming Despair
All things are impermanent, even political situations seemingly beyond repair. Guo Gu on hope.
When I was a young novice, my teacher, Master Sheng Yen, would tell me that it’s quite normal when things don’t turn out the way one expects, and it’s uncommon for things to go smoothly. “Face everything with an ordinary mind,” he advised.
An ordinary mind, which is a mind unfazed by vexations and deluded views, is undaunted in the face of difficulties. Why undaunted? Because all things are impermanent, suffering is a part of life, and the true nature of all things is freedom. To deeply understand these principles, even in the midst of political turmoil, is to practice the buddhadharma.
Centuries ago, Chan master Mazu Daoyi (709–788) taught that the “ordinary mind is the Way” after the devastating An Lushan Rebellion, which involved eight years of political, social, economic, and intellectual upheaval during the Tang dynasty (618–907). This insurrection resulted in thirty-six million deaths, drastic migration, and infrastructural collapse that weakened the Tang empire, leading to its eventual demise. How could Mazu encourage practitioners to have an ordinary mind amidst such chaos and despair? What does this teaching mean in light of our own time?
“Working with change allows us to be creative, resourceful, and adaptive. The ordinary mind recognizes that difficulties are opportunities.”
We, too, are living in a period of great unrest fueled by political ideologies. It’s routine for politicians to try to advance their agendas at all costs and for political groups to be corrupt. We live in samsara, the world of suffering. Sentient beings here are born out of ignorance and fueled by greed and anger. So, of course it is natural for things to go wrong; it’s common for people to be selfish, even to the extent of sabotaging others. Everyone is living out their own narrative.
People typically see others through a self-referential lens, and thus are driven by the polarities of gaining and losing, having and lacking, seeking and rejecting, and, ultimately, success and failure. But, whether in politics or everyday life, there are no real winners and losers; selfing and othering harms everyone. We easily notice such unskillful behavior of other people, but we must also have the humility to recognize that we engage in the same habits. Each of us contributes to the ripening of conditions.
The ordinary mind accepts that everything changes, and it sees that change is full of potential. In the grand scheme of things, everything is workable. As long as we practice and engage with the world for the benefit of others, humanity will survive the rise and fall of any politician or ideology.
Politics is, by its very nature, an outcome-oriented activity, and the goals are often driven by self-oriented interests and views. Buddhadharma, however, is the opposite. Living in accordance with it requires that we not be fixed on self-oriented outcomes. We must act and respond to injustice and society’s ills, but we must do so with an ordinary mind, free of mental hindrances. We do what needs to be done and what can be done in any given situation, not for ourselves but for the benefit of all.
Working with change allows us to be creative, resourceful, and adaptive. The ordinary mind recognizes that difficulties are opportunities. Without adversity, how could humanity bring forth resilience and creativity? Without impermanence, how is a better future possible?
People are shaped by their upbringing and personal suffering. The ordinary mind embraces suffering as part of life. Suffering manifests only when we expect things to be otherwise; it disappears if we ground ourselves in selfless wisdom. With the acceptance of suffering, we can focus on what’s important. On the other hand, by attempting to escape suffering, we shelter ourselves in the cave of ignorance—there is no growth, no possibility, and no life. Resisting suffering, we become entangled in endless attempts to control others and to not be controlled. We see this in politics; the harder one group pushes, the harder is the pushback, thereby creating more enemies than allies. In all this, the sense of self is fortified.
Embracing suffering does not mean that we accept everything pessimistically. We simply recognize the various conditions at play, adapt to them, wait for some conditions to change, and create new conditions to help the situation. Doing what should and can be done for the benefit of all makes life meaningful.
The truth is, when we embrace suffering, we open up the possibility of working with it, even transcending it. Suffering no longer has a hold on us, obstacles turn into opportunities, and despair shifts to hope. We begin to make allies, even among those we dislike. When we’re not fixated on our own views and positions, new possibilities can arise.
It is so because the true nature of everything is freedom, and everyone consciously or unconsciously strives for this freedom. Even though, on the surface, political striving is characterized by greed and anger stemming from ignorance, the core is actually freedom. All things are without self, nothing is graspable, and living by this principle is freedom.
Mazu’s wisdom of the ordinary mind sees change and suffering as potential. Only ignorance gives the illusion of permanence, control, and power. Anything can happen at any time. A perceived loss may actually turn out to be a gain, and what appears to be a win may come at a great cost. We must face the tides of changing politics with hope and action. This is the freedom of a selfless, ordinary mind.
Coping with Grief
Feel all your feelings, says Sister True Dedication, and discover your agency.
Loss is part of democracy, just as grief is part of life. The bitter truth is that in democratic societies we take it in turns to lose and win. But boy, does it hurt when our political hopes are dashed. How can we sit in peace as cherished values and rights are threatened by a swing in the polls?
When it comes to politics, grief can feel magnified: it’s both personal and collective. Elections don’t affect everyone equally: some win more, some lose more. There are those of us whose physical safety, livelihood, and freedoms can be endangered by a certain result. So, the grief we’re feeling may be a pain that’s not ours alone, but is there in the collective consciousness, shared by millions. It may also be the pain and loss of our ancestors in us.
“Voting is an act of presence, an act of love and showing up.”
As meditation practitioners, our first task is to acknowledge and feel all the feels and allow our grief to be what it is, right here in our body. We’re called to soften the fight and open up some compassion around our loss. There’s “the story” we have about our grief, which plays out in the news, and there’s how that story viscerally feels in our body. Our challenge isn’t to numb or deny the pain, or brush it aside, but to take it on its own terms and tend to it with curiosity and gentleness.
We can be with our grief in such a way that it doesn’t pull us under. To be in the present moment means, for now, to drop the story we have about why the macro situation may be so bad, to ground ourselves in our body and breathing, and become aware of the felt reality of all the physical and emotional discomfort this moment contains. (We can return to the story as part of our deeper enquiry later.) Perhaps our political grief is showing up as weight across our shoulders, constriction on our chest, ill-ease in our gut, or rage in our hands. Mindful breathing, movement, walking meditation, and relaxation sessions offer us a chance to identify and soothe the feeling of grief in different parts of our body, giving it space and compassionate attention, so we can get some relief, and even learn from it.
It’s important to regroup with friends and loved ones after bad news, and find ways to create moments to lift up our energy and feel less alone. We may even consider taking a fast from news or social media. There may be nothing more we can do about the external result. But there’s a lot we can do to restore our inner sovereignty over our feelings so we can have clarity about how we’d like to act and live in response to that result. This is our spiritual power to reclaim our true freedom in the face of acute suffering.
As well as offering an embodied practice to tend to our grief, Buddhism also offers powerful insights that can help liberate us from fear and sorrow and give us hope.
The teachings on impermanence, signlessness, and Buddhist theories of change, action, and agency are all powerful concentrations that can free us from the idea that “all is lost” when a political situation isn’t what we’d like it to be.
First, impermanence. This is a liberating truth to hold in our sitting and walking meditation practice: no political regime, or war, or economic system will last forever, however bleak things look today. Even if our preferred candidates are elected, they won’t last forever either. The truth of impermanence contains an ever-unfolding opportunity. As the great Buddhist master Nagarjuna realized: “Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.” This realization helps us activate an energy of patience and endurance.
Second, there’s signlessness. We’re invited to challenge the idea that what we cherish always needs to take a certain form or appearance (“sign”). We may think that progress needs to look a certain way, but perhaps the way forward is through the dark. We may think an enlightened, compassionate, and just society must check certain boxes. But perhaps there’s still suffering we need to understand deeply before that collective awakening can fully ripen. There can be hollow victories that exclude too many people, as well as powerful losses that can lead to wider, more inclusive movements. Perhaps what we love and cherish is still there, still growing and ripening in its own time. Are we sure that all is lost?
As the wonderful writer Rebecca Solnit has said, “We shouldn’t assume that anything less than victory is failure.” Often the most powerful results of political action are the unintended consequences. “Direct action seldom works directly,” Solnit notes. And sometimes, she says, “What is best about political activist movements is often called forth by what is worst.”
This leads us to the third concentration: applying Buddhist theories of action, change, and agency. In Buddhism, we understand action (or “karma”) as the energy of body, speech, and mind. No election of this or that political party or regime can take from us the action and agency we have as individuals and communities to protect, save, include, nurture, and grow good seeds in the world. There are those who say that grief is love with no place to go. Perhaps there’s love in your political grief, looking for a place. Our challenge is to continue to find a channel for our love and aspiration to build a more just and beautiful future. Our love may have its field of action in our spiritual communities, in our livelihoods, in our continued political engagement.
Voting is an act of presence, an act of love and showing up. When my inner cynic wonders “Does my vote even count?” I remember the insight of Buddhist masters who affirm that “action in one place is action everywhere.” Every starfish saved is a starfish saved. Casting a vote is to enact a ritual that belongs not only to us as an individual, but to our stream of ancestors and descendants. So much has gone into giving us that vote, and the action of voting is to keep that transmission alive. As the poet Archibald MacLeish once said: “Democracy is never a thing done. It’s always something that a nation must be doing.” Voting is nothing less than an act of love and insight, an investment, and a prayer for democracy to continue long into the future—and that energy radiates into the world, no matter the result.
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