Ease II

I often hear from people who are overwhelmed by the difficulties and tensions of our modern life and with the current condition of the world. Sometimes we look at the news of the world and think, “This is the worst I have ever seen.” It can seem so overwhelming that we are unable to do anything to help others, let alone to help ourselves out of our suffering. Originally published almost 60 years ago, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, a book by the Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton offers some advice.

In this series of notes, opinions, experiences, and reflections, Thomas Merton examines some of the most urgent questions of our age. With his characteristic forcefulness and candor, he brings the reader face-to-face with such provocative and controversial issues as the “death of God,” politics, modern life and values, and racial strife – issues that are as relevant today as they were sixty years ago. See if you can relate to his thoughts.

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.

The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

He is advising us that we first need to connect with our true nature, of calm abiding and wisdom, before entering into the world of activity. Without a strong connection to, and support from, the inner causes of peace, happiness, and joy, we are easily tossed about by the storms of emotion and conflict in the world.

When we are able to connect with and abide with our field of care and experience the enlivening of the qualities present within the field of care (within us), we are better able to rest with ease on the waves of the stormy sea of life; riding the waves as they rise and fall, but never moving from our still spot in the ocean of experience.