The following is one of my personal little “discourses.” I write these mostly as reminders to myself — things I’ve picked up from teachers, books, friends, and a lot of long-dead folks who were wiser than I am.
I tend to frame them in a student–teacher format. The “teacher” voice isn’t me claiming anything lofty; it’s just my current understanding (and likely misunderstanding
) of what I’ve been taught and what I’ve fumbled my way through in practice.
So please take it as one practitioner thinking out loud. If it resonates, great. If it’s off the mark, I’m always open to being nudged back toward center.
Anyways, here goes!
Student:
How can we remain at peace when the world these days is so full of pain and suffering? It seems that now, more than ever, our world is in chaos. I feel full of fear and anxiety, even when I sit on the mat. What can we do about this?
Teacher:
You say the world is in chaos now.
Tell me… when exactly was it not?
Every generation believes it stands at the edge of collapse. Wars, plagues, revolutions, disasters… people in every century have said, “Surely this is the darkest time.” Yet here we are: still breathing, still sitting, still asking how to live with clarity.
This does not mean the suffering you perceive is unreal. It means the feeling of unprecedented crisis is itself a recurring human experience. When the mind encounters pain, it naturally magnifies it. That is part of its survival function.
Zhuangzi reminded us that the world is in constant transformation; turmoil and harmony endlessly alternate.
Dōgen taught that practice is not reserved for peaceful eras. It is precisely in unstable times that practice reveals its necessity.
So first, understand this: the world has always contained cruelty and kindness, confusion and wisdom, destruction and renewal. This is not new. It is the basic texture of samsaric existence.
You say you feel fear and anxiety even on the mat. Good. That means you are sitting with reality, not with an imaginary bubble of calm. Zazen is not a method to eliminate fear. It is the posture in which fear can be seen clearly without immediately becoming the master of your actions.
Fear is a sensation. Anxiety is a pattern of thought and bodily arousal. They arise from causes and conditions: news, uncertainty, empathy for suffering beings, personal insecurity. They are not enemies; they are signals. Yet they are not the whole of reality either.
Events are simply events.
We label them good or bad from a narrow perspective, with limited knowledge and a short time horizon. History repeatedly shows reversals: today’s disaster becomes tomorrow’s turning point; today’s triumph becomes tomorrow’s regret.
There is an old Chinese story about an old farmer and his family. He lives with his wife and teenage son out on the frontier, and they have a strong stallion that helps with the farmwork. One day, the stallion runs away. The neighbors all tell the farmer, “What bad luck!” Yet the farmer only replies, “Bad luck, good luck — who can say?”
A couple of days later, the horse returns, bringing a few wild mares with him. “What good luck!” the neighbors all say. “Good luck, bad luck — who can say?” he replies.
The next day, while attempting to tame one of the mares, the horse bucks and sends the son flying, breaking his leg when he lands. Once more, the neighbors cry, “What bad luck!” And our farmer once more replies, “Bad luck, good luck — who can say?”
Soon after, the army comes by, looking to conscript all the young, able-bodied lads. They take all the young men of the village, except the one with the broken leg.
“Good luck, bad luck — who can say?”
This story is not about passivity. It is about humility in the face of unfolding causes and conditions. Our judgments are provisional, not final.
When you say, “The world is ending,” you are reacting to a snapshot within a vast unfolding process. The mind freezes a single frame and declares a conclusion. But reality is not a photograph, it is an ongoing film.
Even in times of darkness, quiet acts of care continue: neighbors helping neighbors, strangers showing kindness, ordinary resilience persisting unnoticed. These rarely become headlines, yet they continue ceaselessly. Light gives birth to shadow, and shadow reveals the presence of light. They arise together.
To remain at peace does not mean becoming indifferent to suffering. It means not adding secondary suffering through catastrophic imagination and helpless rumination. Peace is the capacity to act where you can, grieve where appropriate, and rest where action is not possible; all without being internally shattered by every wave of world events.
So what can you do?
First, see clearly: the chaos you perceive is real, but it is not uniquely unprecedented, nor is it the whole of reality.
Second, recognize that anxiety on the cushion is not a failure of practice; it is the practice material itself. Sit with the fear as sensation, as thought, as tightening in the chest or belly. Let it arise, remain, and pass without turning it into a story about the future of the world.
Third, act locally and concretely. You cannot hold the entire globe in your nervous system without breaking it. But you can be kind to the person in front of you, make ethical choices, and support what reduces suffering in your immediate sphere. Vast compassion expresses itself through small, steady actions, not through global emotional overload.
The world has always burned in some places and blossomed in others.
If you wait for a perfectly peaceful world before being at peace, you will never begin.
Sit in the midst of the fire.
Notice the warmth, the fear, the breath.
In that very moment, the spark of light is already present.
Gasshō,
流道-Ryūdō-Liúdào
Satlah
I tend to frame them in a student–teacher format. The “teacher” voice isn’t me claiming anything lofty; it’s just my current understanding (and likely misunderstanding
) of what I’ve been taught and what I’ve fumbled my way through in practice.So please take it as one practitioner thinking out loud. If it resonates, great. If it’s off the mark, I’m always open to being nudged back toward center.
Anyways, here goes!
Student:
How can we remain at peace when the world these days is so full of pain and suffering? It seems that now, more than ever, our world is in chaos. I feel full of fear and anxiety, even when I sit on the mat. What can we do about this?
Teacher:
You say the world is in chaos now.
Tell me… when exactly was it not?
Every generation believes it stands at the edge of collapse. Wars, plagues, revolutions, disasters… people in every century have said, “Surely this is the darkest time.” Yet here we are: still breathing, still sitting, still asking how to live with clarity.
This does not mean the suffering you perceive is unreal. It means the feeling of unprecedented crisis is itself a recurring human experience. When the mind encounters pain, it naturally magnifies it. That is part of its survival function.
Zhuangzi reminded us that the world is in constant transformation; turmoil and harmony endlessly alternate.
Dōgen taught that practice is not reserved for peaceful eras. It is precisely in unstable times that practice reveals its necessity.
So first, understand this: the world has always contained cruelty and kindness, confusion and wisdom, destruction and renewal. This is not new. It is the basic texture of samsaric existence.
You say you feel fear and anxiety even on the mat. Good. That means you are sitting with reality, not with an imaginary bubble of calm. Zazen is not a method to eliminate fear. It is the posture in which fear can be seen clearly without immediately becoming the master of your actions.
Fear is a sensation. Anxiety is a pattern of thought and bodily arousal. They arise from causes and conditions: news, uncertainty, empathy for suffering beings, personal insecurity. They are not enemies; they are signals. Yet they are not the whole of reality either.
Events are simply events.
We label them good or bad from a narrow perspective, with limited knowledge and a short time horizon. History repeatedly shows reversals: today’s disaster becomes tomorrow’s turning point; today’s triumph becomes tomorrow’s regret.
There is an old Chinese story about an old farmer and his family. He lives with his wife and teenage son out on the frontier, and they have a strong stallion that helps with the farmwork. One day, the stallion runs away. The neighbors all tell the farmer, “What bad luck!” Yet the farmer only replies, “Bad luck, good luck — who can say?”
A couple of days later, the horse returns, bringing a few wild mares with him. “What good luck!” the neighbors all say. “Good luck, bad luck — who can say?” he replies.
The next day, while attempting to tame one of the mares, the horse bucks and sends the son flying, breaking his leg when he lands. Once more, the neighbors cry, “What bad luck!” And our farmer once more replies, “Bad luck, good luck — who can say?”
Soon after, the army comes by, looking to conscript all the young, able-bodied lads. They take all the young men of the village, except the one with the broken leg.
“Good luck, bad luck — who can say?”
This story is not about passivity. It is about humility in the face of unfolding causes and conditions. Our judgments are provisional, not final.
When you say, “The world is ending,” you are reacting to a snapshot within a vast unfolding process. The mind freezes a single frame and declares a conclusion. But reality is not a photograph, it is an ongoing film.
Even in times of darkness, quiet acts of care continue: neighbors helping neighbors, strangers showing kindness, ordinary resilience persisting unnoticed. These rarely become headlines, yet they continue ceaselessly. Light gives birth to shadow, and shadow reveals the presence of light. They arise together.
To remain at peace does not mean becoming indifferent to suffering. It means not adding secondary suffering through catastrophic imagination and helpless rumination. Peace is the capacity to act where you can, grieve where appropriate, and rest where action is not possible; all without being internally shattered by every wave of world events.
So what can you do?
First, see clearly: the chaos you perceive is real, but it is not uniquely unprecedented, nor is it the whole of reality.
Second, recognize that anxiety on the cushion is not a failure of practice; it is the practice material itself. Sit with the fear as sensation, as thought, as tightening in the chest or belly. Let it arise, remain, and pass without turning it into a story about the future of the world.
Third, act locally and concretely. You cannot hold the entire globe in your nervous system without breaking it. But you can be kind to the person in front of you, make ethical choices, and support what reduces suffering in your immediate sphere. Vast compassion expresses itself through small, steady actions, not through global emotional overload.
The world has always burned in some places and blossomed in others.
If you wait for a perfectly peaceful world before being at peace, you will never begin.
Sit in the midst of the fire.
Notice the warmth, the fear, the breath.
In that very moment, the spark of light is already present.
Gasshō,
流道-Ryūdō-Liúdào
Satlah
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