As the ground shifts beneath us and we witness global upheaval, I want to offer some reflections on how spiritual practice can help us rise to meet the moment.
From renewed devastation in Gaza to acts of state violence in the U.S., it’s easy to feel rattled, outraged, or afraid. I find myself continually working to stay regulated as events unfold.
The Dharma doesn’t offer an escape from difficult emotions. It grounds us in the present and widens our view—helping us understand what we are living through and how we might respond with clarity, love, and wise action.
Widening Our View Without Turning Away
I find it helpful to reflect on history: violence and instability are not new, nor are cooperation, nonviolence, and enduring efforts toward dignity and equality. What we are facing is part of a long human struggle—one that connects us with those who have lived through hard times before and invites us to act in solidarity.
Widening our view also helps us hold our own distress with kindness, without letting it eclipse the reality that so many are facing direct violence and displacement right now. For those of us with more privilege, myself included, remembering this can help pull us out of self-preoccupation and reorient us toward care, responsibility, and action.
The Buddha taught that there is ultimately no permanent safety to be found in this world. Rather than feeling pessimistic, this helps me stay awake to the reality that everything is in flux.
Power shifts; regimes come and go, often clinging violently to control. Marginalized peoples have known this for generations. Every nation that has lived through colonization knows this truth viscerally. And everyone understands this to some degree. We do all we can to nourish and protect our loved ones, knowing that in the end we are all vulnerable to forces beyond our control.
This sober take on the human predicament isn’t meant to induce despair or helplessness. It is designed to motivate us—to loosen our habits of fear and fantasy, and instead discover a freedom available right now in how we meet an unstable world.
Refuge as a Living Practice
I’ve been drawing tremendous support from the Buddha’s teachings on refuge—three doorways to profound shelter and safety in the present moment.
First, we can turn to the Buddha for refuge. Traditionally, this means the example of the Buddha’s life of rigorous spiritual practice, unrelenting service, and the possibility of real inner freedom he embodied.
But it also means that our true refuge is not in unreliable things or shifting conditions, but in our awareness of them. Awareness—the quality of being awake—reveals both beauty and anguish, and the unceasing nature of change that can teach the heart to let go.
We can turn to the Dharma for refuge. This refers to the Buddhist path of practice, and also to nature. “Dharma” means “the way things are.” Turning to the present moment for refuge doesn’t mean accepting the status quo. It means rooting ourselves in present reality, because this is the world we are in—and the world we can work together to protect and transform.
Turning to the Dharma for refuge also means that a path to liberation—whether spiritual or collective—has innate rewards. Even when freedom feels distant, the path itself sustains us. Each step we take shapes who we are and what is possible.
Finally, we can turn to one another for refuge—to community, or sangha. We find strength, comfort, and reassurance in those who have walked before us, those who walk alongside us now, and those who are yet to come, whose future we are striving to make possible.
Turning to sangha for refuge also affirms belonging. As john powell of the Othering & Belonging Institute writes, violence depends on othering—on placing some people outside the circle of human concern. Refuge in community asks something different of us: to widen that circle, and to insist that no one is beyond dignity or care.
““Refuge in community asks us to widen the circle, and to insist that no one is beyond dignity or care.””
These refuges are not concepts to contemplate. They are living experiences we can touch in our bodies, here and now.
From Refuge to Responsibility
What can you trust when the ground falls away beneath you? Where can you turn when all that you relied on changes in an instant? What is the deepest truth you know in your bones?
These are the questions that guide me as we walk through the unknown—pointing me back to refuge, to an unshakeable inner ground that supports our work for liberation.
Refuge gives us the space to honor what’s true—our grief, rage, worry, anguish, even our numbness—and the courage to take the next step. From that steadiness, we’re called to act—to interrupt harm and refuse business as usual.
To look away or carry on as if nothing were happening in the face of violent dehumanization is to risk losing our own humanity. Beneath our immediate reactions, there can be sharp clarity about the world we long for—and the energy to do something on behalf of those being targeted.
““To look away in the face of violent dehumanization is to risk losing our own humanity.””
Our actions matter. They make a difference to our world, to one another, and crucially to our own hearts. In this stirring piece, Pablo Alvarado, co-director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, writes:
“What can we do to free ourselves and our country? Something. Anything. Just don’t remain silent. Don’t go on about your day. Do something in your community… There’s a lot you can do. Be good. Be yourself. Be human.”
Now is the time to breathe, link arms, and step forward together. Especially for those of us who still have some choices, safety, and a voice, this is a moment to use them—to look out for one another and refuse harm.
In kindness and strength,
Oren
P.S. If practicing in community feels supportive right now, or if you’d like to explore refuge—and how to live the teachings in these times—join us for the next eight weeks of Clear Dharma Sangha as we delve intoThe Foundations of the Dharma: Living the Buddhist Path.
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