Question:

I feel enormous grief around the suffering that’s in the world. How do I respond to this pain without becoming overwhelmed or numb?

Phillip Replies:

It’s certainly fine to feel grief. Knowing that it’s okay to feel grief is an important part of developing equanimity, the ability to be with your emotions as you’re feeling them. Equanimity means that you’re able to stay present to someone else’s suffering without becoming identified with them or their suffering. When you become caught up in identifying with someone else’s experience, you’re not able to be present for them, which doesn’t truly help them. Equanimity doesn’t stop you from feeling grief, but rather enables you to bear it consciously. Without equanimity you collapse into the suffering and become part of the problem.

You can develop equanimity and your capacity to be open to the suffering of the world in the following ways: 

• Do metta* (loving-kindness) practice daily.

• Do karuna* (compassion) practice when you’re walking down the street and you notice someone who’s having a difficult time.

If you do tonglen practice (the practice of breathing in the pain of the world and releasing it out), be careful that your personality doesn’t think it’s doing the practice. Our personalities aren’t capable of such a great act.

*To learn how to do metta and karuna practice read, Opening to Love.