In my contemplation the pain and suffering in life has become ever more clear to me. I am very sad about it, but the truth is that I just don’t have strong opinions and/or beliefs about what will fix it. As a social worker and development worker I became disillusioned, not seeing the significance of my intended actions. I did not see that my actions or anyone else’s made a significant difference accept at those times that one was able to bring love, compassion and clear seeing to those moments and relations.

I struggle these days with the many opinionated and self assured voices that I encounter and often feel that I am passive and misdirected in their perception. Although I am in agreement with the observation that there is immense suffering and injustice in the world, a strong emotional reaction insisting upon the fault and responsibility for the acts of injustice and how to intervene is unsettling for me. It seems to be incomplete; their perceptions missing something fundamental in understanding of a more complicated situation.

These days I look more within and attend to what I discover there, encountering a deep sense of pain that seems to be ignited when encountering these reactions from others. I look more to be with that, listening to what I discover there in that void, being asked to explain something that is ineffable where my words are just never enough.