There have been so many beautiful and helpful responses to the aftermath of the election. I would like to offer something a little different:

In my practice recently, I have become aware of certain universal human experiences that seem to function like fields of energy. The experiences can be love and trust, anger and fear. When these “fields” manifest in our lives, they take on a garb, the particular color and expression of our distinct, individual experience and context. But the underlying field of the experience is not our personal invention and is not unique to us.

Suffering is one of these fields. It is a universal experience that manifests in each of our lives in unique and concrete way. We can know it in personal and systemic garb, through illness or addiction, through poverty or discrimination and any other number of ways. Each garb has its set of strategies and reactions that come with it as we struggle to find the best way to address that particular kind of suffering.

But the thing about suffering is that it often tends to confuse us into thinking that our experience is separate from all others’ experiences. We focus on the garb, not the universality. As Tolstoy famously said, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Furthermore, we know from our practice that this very sense of isolation and separation is itself at the root of so much suffering. So it becomes a vicious cycle: suffering, separateness, alienation, more suffering and so it begins again.

Ironically, suffering is something that people on both sides of the political divide have in common, although the explanations and strategies concerning it vary widely. But if we can experiment with experiencing suffering as a universal field, we have a chance to open to mochin degadlut, a wider perspective. You might want to try this:

Take a seat of dignity and sense into your body.

Where is sensation arising?

What does the sensation help you notice about the climate of your heart/mind right now? Stay with whatever emotion arises in the body.

Now imagine that emotion as a huge, broad energy field that comes up from the ground and fills you, taking your shape as it does. What does it feel like?

Now imagine that this same energy field is also taking shape within others, those you agree with and those you don’t.

Return to the sensation in the body and see if you can soften a little around it. Breathe and soften. If you choose, try imagining the energy field again, in yourself and in others.

Perhaps it is possible to sense in our bones the potential of relief and the possibility of more connection, maybe even love. Perhaps that will help us discern with wisdom and generosity how we can best move forward now – for ourselves, our communities and our country.

 

With love,

Rabbi Lisa Goldstein