Zen trainer Jules Shuzen Harris teaches us a three-step follow to attach with and serve those that are struggling. Illustrations by Carole Hénaff.
In occasions of doubt, disbelief, and insecurity, the follow of bearing witness may be an essential facet of our consciousness and presence.
Bearing witness may be outlined as acknowledging that one thing exists or is true. From a Buddhist perspective, and particularly the Zen Peacemakers Order, to bear witness is to embrace each the enjoyment and the struggling we encounter. Somewhat than merely observing the scenario, we grow to be the scenario. We grow to be intimate with no matter it’s—starvation, poverty, discrimination, illness, or demise.
Bearing witness invokes a way of interconnectedness, a direct realization of the wholeness of life.
Once we analyze and choose a scenario, we usually come to it with all of our concepts and routine beliefs. We’re solely in a position to see it by means of the lens of our conditioned considering. However once we shift to the follow of bearing witness, we droop our analytical considering and transfer to a spot of open consciousness. This enables the witnessing presence to grow to be one with no matter scenario we encounter.
To bear witness, we have to put aside the deal with our personal reactions and enter a spot of stillness and receptivity. Bearing witness on the earth, we’re cultivating the identical floor of open coronary heart and thoughts that we follow in our meditation.
This brings us to the query, “What’s the advantage of bearing witness follow?”
Psychologically, it permits us to attach with a spot of actual empathy. It additionally offers a form of catharsis, a launch from our emotional reactions of pity, disgrace, or concern.
Spiritually, bearing witness invokes a way of interconnectedness, of oneness, a direct realization of the wholeness of life.
Politically and socially, it permits us to see clearly all the net of causes and circumstances that create struggling, and to take efficient motion to enhance folks’s lives.
Here’s a three-step follow of bearing witness that you are able to do:
1. Determine Who Wants You
First, establish an individual or a bunch who’s disenfranchised or who’s struggling. Their scenario is perhaps one thing acquainted to us, related to one thing we ourselves have skilled, or it might be one thing completely unfamiliar to us, bringing a brand new edge to our consciousness and understanding.
2. Be There and Be Empty
Second, spend significant time with them. It is a time to let go of what we got here with, and be taught and pay attention. You may do a road retreat with the homeless. You may volunteer at a drug rehab clinic, take part in jail outreach work, or present help to sufferers and/or households in a hospice heart. You might participate within the voluntary companies provided to veterans by the VA program.
Central to this step is coming from a spot of vacancy, approaching it with willingness to grow to be actually intimate with one other’s expertise. Bearing witness requires a form of psychological and bodily give up to the scenario to permit it to completely enter into your consciousness.
3. Serve the State of affairs
After a while, ask your self, “How can I most acknowledge folks’s plight?” If they’re hungry, do I serve them a meal or do I provide you with a approach of serving to them to feed and shelter themselves? I’d say sure, it’s best to do each. To bear witness is to embrace and acknowledge the entire scenario. On a private degree, you feed them. On a systemic degree, you have interaction the system.
If there was ever a time once we wanted to bear witness, it’s now.
There are various ways in which witnessing can grow to be an lively expression of our consciousness and our empathy. Proper the place we dwell, the town council, the mayor’s workplace, governors, or legislative meeting may be introduced into this recognition of what’s calling out for consideration. On the federal degree, your congressional consultant or federal companies may be held accountable to their duties. Our private witness contains supporting organizations which might be pushing for laws and insurance policies that tackle human struggling and that promote peace and justice.
In a cultural anthropology class I took years in the past, I discovered in regards to the notion of cultural upkeep, which describes how a tradition, as a system, defends itself even when it means disguising the reality or absorbing what that tradition perceives as threats. Bearing witness is a radical act—it’s a approach of shining a light-weight on the reality and standing steadfastly in that mild.
The follow of bearing witness isn’t straightforward, but when there was ever a time once we wanted to bear witness, it’s now. Gone are the times when it was sufficient to march within the streets to result in social change. Every of us is known as upon to maneuver past our personal fastened views and open our eyes to penetrate to the true actuality of the world as it’s.