Making Peace Out of Chaos

I don’t know what we can do in this moment except stay in the boat, and when we get tossed into the ocean, grab the hull and crawl back inside to safety. That’s how it feels to me right now.

But I wonder if there’s another way to safety.

Maybe it’s too odd of an idea, but what if we could create peace in the middle of chaos, by wishing everyone well. Not as a discernment practice (you deserve my well-wishes, you don’t) but by weaving a great cloak to wrap up into  and protect ourselves with, and protect everyone else, too?

Maybe it’s a cloak of peace. Maybe it’s one of love. Maybe it’s a cloak of blessings,
like the great poet John O’Donohue once wrote.

I feel like I could use a blessing right now. Couldn’t you?

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 482. It’s good to be with you.

Last week was about making space for difficult emotions, using RAIN and ultimately letting go. That’s half of the classical instructions. The full instructions are to notice unwholesome states as they’re arising and prevent that, and when they’ve arisen anyway, let them go…and also, notice wholesome states as they’re arising and encourage that, and notice when they’ve arisen and nurture them. 

Metta is the wholesome state that feels the biggest, big enough to hold all the other wholesome states. “Metta” translates as love or lovingkindness or friendliness. I like to think of it as a form of ‘peace’. 

Metta can be a formal practice, where we practice with phrases like, “may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe, may I live with ease,” and then “may you,” “may they,” and “may all beings.” I like to include the earth, too, these days. I feel like she can use some love, and peace. 

Metta can also be a relational practice, so, maybe I offer love or peace silently to someone in front of me, or before I pick up the phone or send a text or an email. I can even do that complete strangers, as I’m walking down the street or at the market or in traffic.

I’ve had plenty of moment lately that have been hard. Maybe we all have: moments when we feel a lot – shock, despair, anger, helplessness, wanting to get on my soapbox, wanting to hide in the box. It feels easy to get swept up. When the moments are saturated by sorrow, I get swept up into hopelessness. When they’re saturated by anger, I get swept up in wanting to take someone on. 

So it feels like there’s a relentless quality, and also a lack of predictability. I’m oriented in one direction and the rug is pulled out from under me. I re-stabilize, and there goes the rug again. I feel like I’m on a stand-up paddle board in a very stormy sea. Unpredictable, relentless, and also, chaotic. 

A lot of people I’ve talked with recently are reporting feeling chaos, and not only in the big sense. They’re also feeling it on a personal level. I’m starting to wonder if we’re having some kind of sympathetic response to the world? adrienne maree brown says, “what we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system,” and I’m starting to wonder if the reverse is also true, if what’s being practiced on a systemic level sets the pattern at the personal scale.

So, metta. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and practicing with it a lot, in the ways I just mentioned and also, as a practice that radiates friendliness and really, peace, out to the world or maybe out just far enough to create a kind of cloak around me – as John O’Donohue, the late Irish poet said, to mind my life. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness definition, “present moment attention without judgment,” is the gold standard for secular practice. But I like to includes courage and grace – courage to be with the hard stuff, and grace, to do that, what?, gracefully…and what I think that means right now is, as peace. Not necessarily peace in the face of the terrible wars of the moment, but peace as a quality of heart and mind, that we can radiate outwards to infuse the moment or situation or interaction. And that we can wear like a cloak, not to keep people “out” but to provide shelter for everyone.  

Because I don’t know about you but for me, it's easy enough – and painful, and a form of suffering and unskillful, but still, easy enough – to relate to chaos at the systemic level by jumping onto my soapbox or hiding inside it. And while sometimes wisdom calls for that, I’m thinking about the times when chaos threatens to seep into my day or swamp my days, or swamp my heart. 

Then (which is “now,” as far as I’m concerned), wisdom seems like maybe it’s saying, first, take a breath. Settle in and settle down. And then, notice and relate to what’s happening with peace. Maybe say, “hi, chaos, my friend. You’re welcome, too.” 

And then, summon a sense of peace. And then without being judgmental or even discerning about who deserves peace and who doesn’t, send peace on out – to everyone, to all the beings, to the earth.  And then keep doing that, all day.

I feel like there’s always an argument against peace, even in this form: they don’t deserve it, I can’t do it, this is weird or useless or not being received the way I want. But what if we dropped all of the arguments and just radiated peace anyway? 

Maybe it sounds like magical thinking but I hope not. I’m just suggesting that metta, in the form of peace, as a practice of peace, that radiates out and permeates our offices and communities and homes and bodies – might be a good, strong, alternative, or even an antidote, to chaos.