Dear Friend,
“To choose hope is to step firmly forward into the howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time, the storm will pass.”
Days 2 and 3 of the meeting between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama are collectively titled, “The Obstacles to Joy,” and one of these obstacles is despair. While the two leaders talk about so much that matters in this part of the book, anger and frustration, suffering and adversity, illness and fear, it’s this section on despair that spoke to me most.
I think part of the reason I started turning to Buddhism a few years ago is because I was trying to find a way to keep myself among the madness. I am prone to despair. When I look at the world around me, locally and wider, I sometimes can’t help but feel like there’s no hope, and no point in being good or kind, or in doing the right thing. After all, when we witness so many people acting with such selfishness and unkindness, isn’t it almost self-sabotage to remain soft to that hardness? Doesn’t it just make us the target?
I didn’t want to feel that way, though. I didn’t want to lose myself or what matters. And as it turns out, Buddhism has taught me that to be soft and kind is the real challenge. It takes courage. It’s a strength because it’s the harder thing to do.
The truth–the grace–probably is this: almost everyone wants to find that courage. There are some challenges to being authentic and caring, not the least of which are emotions like anger and fear. Anger, as these holy leaders say, is just a response to fear. When someone’s politics disagree with mine, for example, I often feel furious. How could they vote that way? Why would they do that to me? What am I really feeling? Fear that something will happen to me, that I might be hurt, and sadness that someone I love or who loves me has chosen to vote for a person who might cause that pain.
Sadness, Douglas Abrams says, is the longest lasting emotion. This makes it all the more difficult to get through anger and through despair, and back onto the road of compassion and patience, which leads to community, to love and understanding. At the same time, according to psychological studies Abrams quotes, sadness is also a teacher. “People who were in a sad mood had better judgement and memory,” he writes, “and were more motivated, more sensitive to social norms, and more generous than the happier control groups.” So, as the Archbishop puts it, “it’s so wonderful that we can be distressed. That’s part of the greatness of who we are.”
In other words, even our negative experiences, our disappointments, can be lessons in our journey to becoming. “We are growing and learning how to be human,” the Archbishop notes, and despite appearances, we’re actually getting better at this all the time. For every tragic incident or personal disappointment that we witness in life, there are so many more positive and helpful actions people make that don’t get the attention or status of the terrible ones.
It leads me to wonder, perhaps there’s more anger and despair in the world now because we’re growing and learning. If we were all happy all the time, it would mean that either everything really is perfect for everyone–an impossibility–or we’ve all stopped caring. If there’s any meaning or power to hope, this might be it. If we’re angry, if we’re despairing, it means we’re unsatisfied with the world and still want it, and ourselves, to be better.
Meditation: “We are guests here on this planet, visitors who have come for a short time, so we need to use our days wisely, to make our world a little better for everyone.” –Dalai Lama
Hopefully,
~Adam
Contemplative Reading Project 
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