Contemplative fieldnote: Fixation on social injustice had become a major obstacle to a friend’s practice & sleep. Pushed them beyond capacity to notice anger and act skilfully. This is what helped:
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1. If one fixates on local horror within a sphere of perceived influence, one forgets global horror ie: natural brutality, injustice, suffering. One also forgets the importance of personal sanity, among other things.
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2. it might be easier to relax the fixation to local horror via deliberately contextualising it in uncontrollable brutality/chaos, than it is to focus on the flip side - goodness & beauty, and so on.
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3. you don’t need to adjust the anger in the same way you don’t need to adjust the world. You do need to be acutely aware of the texture, and then you may/not be able to act accordingly. Notice the reaction to the suggestion that it doesn’t need changing. What/why/where is that?
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4. One can take limited responsibility if one thinks that is right, but it isn’t more important than your mental state. The world will be horrific either way. May as well be sane.
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5. Neither of us are qualified. We explored together and the result is she’s sleeping again. The world is still horrific, partly. She had asked a teacher and their answer was “dross”. She suggests there aren’t many good, standard answers on this topic. I think she’s right.
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End of conversation
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I should clarify - by local I meant in the sense of a specific ‘case’/group, rather than near to oneself, spatially/geographically per se. Although the latter doesn’t preclude the former.
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