Sunday Vegetation

The good news is that most of the world is not at war – despite exaggerated claims by some talking heads that this is WW3. Catastrophising things doesn’t help, since it gives power to fear.

When meditating in times of war and polarisation, it is important not to take sides. If you find yourself on one side, one thing to do in meditation is empathically to explore what it is like being on the other side – whether as an ordinary person or as a combatant. Experience it, within you. Know that, despite media-driven appearances, people on the other side will not themselves be of one mind and in agreement – they will have a variety of reactions to their situation.

It’s also important not to judge things or take firm positions – such as wanting peace or cease-fires after a conflict has started. It is already too late, and often such a wish is premature, not doable.

There’s an honest question to ask yourself too. Is your wish for peace genuine and deep, or does it reflect a wish to stay inside a comfort zone of indifference?

I’d suggest two approaches that can help give focus to neutrality and peacebuilding. The first is humanitarian – working to understand and ease the suffering of people and environments on both sides, and to note your feelings when working with people on the other side, since this involves bridgebuilding, forgiveness and healing.

The second is to look for opportunities amidst disaster. Wars and the events that take place in them change many things, changing people’s lives and those of neighbourhoods and localities, in many cases permanently. Wars are crucibles of change, however cruel that may be, and such changes are not always negative. So meditate on those glimmers of light and possibility – on the longterm and the future. The past is being burned up, and not all of that destruction is regrettable.

So focus on possibilities, on lessons actually being learned – some of them really fundamental – and on planting seeds of healing and forwardness in the devastation of the moment. Infuse the collective psyche of humanity with these thoughts and visions.

While warfare as a whole is something that needs to end during the 21st Century – it is a tragic distraction from the main issues before us – it does shake things up and change things, and here lie opportunities. In our time, we need to make good use of the lessons that Life presents us with, because the main problem on Planet Earth is not change but ‘business as usual’. Normality is destroying our world, leading humanity down a path that will not solve the problems that it faces.

Bless the soldiers, fighters, terrorists and advocates of war and remember this: every act of violence arises from an unhealed wound. So we need to heal the wounds that lead humans to fight. These are personal, ancestral and collective.

Try to free up your thoughts and beliefs at times like this. Humanity needs to do this. We have a habit of entering the future facing backwards but, that way, we fall over more easily.

I hope this useful. I was part of a group, the Flying Squad, working with issues such as this, and we learned a lot about approaches to meditation. We disbanded the group in 2017 after twenty years of working together (it was shrinking numbers and ageing, mainly) but, as individuals, we all still do the weekly Sunday meditation. It’s a good thing to do. We left a website behind, for the record: https://www.flyingsquad.org.uk

If you need details about the Sunday meditation, go here:

https://www.palden.co.uk/meditations.html

Next week, in UK and Europe, the clocks change. So, from next weekend onwards, the meditation starts an hour later in UK and EU. In other words, the meditation stays at the same actual time when the clocks change. So, if it’s 7pm this weekend, next weekend it is 8pm. Times this weekend are below.

Love from a sunny Cornwall, Palden

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Current meditation times, on Sundays:
GMT: UK, Iceland, Ireland & Portugal: 7-7.30pm
W Europe: 8-8.30pm
E Europe, Turkiye, Israel, Palestine, Egypt: 9-9.30pm
Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, UAE: 10-10.30pm
Pakistan: midnight-00.30 Monday
India: 00.30-01.00 Monday
Oz: AEST 5-5.30am Monday
NZ: 8-8.30am Monday
Greenland: 5-5.30pm
Brazil, Argentina, Chile: 4-4.30pm
EST, Venezuela, Bolivia: 3-3.30pm
CST, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica: 2-2.30pm
MST, Mexico: 1-1.30pm
PST, West Coast North America 12noon-12.30pm