Don’t Give Up, Mensch Up

Lama Surya Das, host of the Awakening Now Podcast, reminds us to look within ourselves. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a “mensch” is a Yiddish term for a good, noble person.

I think the problem the country has is “mensch-opause” and we need to mensch up a little bit, and I’m not sure we have a mensch at the helm. We may have somebody with a diagnosable condition, but I’m not going to pick on the President individually. We did vote him in. We. Whether the public majority did or not, we voted him in with our democratic process and we have to live with the consequences. I think perhaps resistance and clarifying things, clarifying ourselves, is very important now. Not passivity.

Buddhist teacher Lama Tsultrim Allione says we’re in a bit of “future shock” at the moment, but implores us not to give in to our despair:

We have to just keep trying. We have to keep going with our ecological initiatives, and feminist initiatives, and anti-racist initiatives, and so on, in the face of a big wave of something that is opposing that. I don’t know if we can trust that good will triumph over evil. From a Buddhist point of view, that’s not guaranteed. For us we have to keep our motivation to do everything we do and think everything we think for the benefit of all beings. So even the upset that we might feel, or the anger, it’s for the benefit of all beings. It needs to have that motivation.

That last thought is very important, as we’ll soon explore how we can work with our anger so that it is a benefit to us, not a detriment. Until then, may we all do our best to maintain our quietness inside.



– Written by Noah Markus on behalf of the Love Serve Remember Foundation
https://www.ramdass.org/love-time-chaos-guide-compassion-part-one/