How To Stay Hopeful (and Sane) In Times Of Social Crisis

[Pelin]

I know this place is not where we should discuss politics and it is not what I want.

However, I find it quite hard to stay hopeful and sane during the times that my country face.

Like terrorist attacks and suicide bombings aren't enough, these days there has been a "military coup attempt" in my country. People are crazy, killing each other, you hear jet planes above your house and sonic blasts that break glasses. And the crowds on the streets, religious authorities calling people to the streets to stand in front of the tanks for God's sake. Even right now when I'm writing this there is a call from the "minaret" calling people to the streets. Here I am, at home for two days, just thinking, remembering Leo and trying to stay cheerful but something happening on the street, a message from friends or comments from family members bring me back to the reality and what a sh****y world we live in. It's like a glimpse of war, and very hard to stay hopeful.

What are your insights on this? How can one find a state of mind that is not affected by the social crisis that is going on?

[Mal]

@Pelin

Ignore it.  

[AxelK]

48 minutes ago, Mal said:

@Pelin

Ignore it.  

This is probably the worst advice you could give. Ignoring things that are uncomfortable and painful is not the way to go at all when dealing with problems. Sadly, as long as history has been recorded there has been war and terror, and that wont change anytime soon. This fact has to be accepted even if it is hard, but in order to regain peace in yourself you need to. Try to stay grounded in your own values and beliefs, whatever the external circumstances are.

Edited July 17, 2016 by AxelK

[Mal]

1 minute ago, AxelK said:

This is probably the worst advice you could give. Ignoring things that are uncomfortable and painful is not the way to go at all when dealing with problems. Sadly, as long as history has been recorded there has been war and terror, and that wont change anytime soon. This fact has to be accepted even if it is hard, but in order to regain peace in yourself you need to. Try to stay grounded in your own values and beliefs, whatever the external circumstances are.

I see.

She asked how to begin to recover from suffering.  Ignore it, that's how to recover from suffering.

If people stay grounded in values and beliefs they suffer for the rest of their lives for nothing.

Misery loves company, awakening is the beginning of seeing this world as it is, there is nothing to hold onto.

 

[Mal]

14 minutes ago, AxelK said:

This is probably the worst advice you could give. Ignoring things that are uncomfortable and painful is not the way to go at all when dealing with problems. 

Your statement assumes that I'm giving advice that I haven't field tested.  Why would somebody assume that others are giving advice that they have not field tested themselves?  

Edited July 17, 2016 by Mal

[Mal]

28 minutes ago, AxelK said:

This fact has to be accepted even if it is hard, but in order to regain peace in yourself you need to. Try to stay grounded in your own values and beliefs, whatever the external circumstances are.

This is dogma.  This is what everybody has been conditioned to do, it's got nothing to do with the end of suffering, it's all to do with holding onto a political and ideological position.

The irony of it is, this is actually the worst advice you could give, because this is the stuff wars are made of

[key]

1 hour ago, Mal said:

@Pelin

Ignore it.  

Yes it's blunt but I vouch for this.

Are you 'practicing non-duality work' ? 

Yes?  Well your problems don't exist in the way you think or see them at all. Holding onto them, thinking about them, believing that they're a problem in the first place? You're causing your own suffering.

No?  That's what you get for believing in the dream.

 

[Mal]

3 minutes ago, Kenya said:

it's blunt

It's blunt.  There is a reason it's blunt. 

[key]

2 minutes ago, Mal said:

It's blunt.  There is a reason it's blunt. 

Yes, and considering how uncompromisingly forthright you shock their belief system, they'll discard the truth in front of their eyes and most likely go tip toeing back into their misery.

[Saarah]

@Pelin I think you're indulging in thinking about it too much, you probably feel like a victim of it all too

It can be difficult to avoid thinking about it when you seem to hear all the noises you described, but you used the tag 'mindfulness' and that's what you should be of these sounds, when you hear these sounds, hear them for what they are, don't get into a whole story about what they are and about war etc etc 

If you think about anytime something 'bad' happens to us, it acts as a trigger for all the should statements we keep, we're reminded of what should and shouldn't be happening, the stories begin, but you don't have to start these stories just because you come across a trigger for them, use mindfulness to retrain the way you respond, and you end up not responding but just carrying on as you were 

 

 

 

[Mal]

@Kenya

The reason it's blunt, is because it is blunt.  That's how it came out.

Don't add layers of meaning to it, we have enough of that already!

[Mal]

@Kenya I hope you're learning something from other people's egos here

I certainly am 

 

[key]

@Mal If you count learning how much we don't actually know