dear gentle friends,
It’s hard to write about gentleness right now.
There are so many complicated, heart-wrenching problems on this planet that sending out short missives every week about living gently seems not at all up to what the moment demands.
But as I look around the globe and ask whether gentleness can create the causes and conditions for a better world, the answer is unequivocally yes. Settling into a space of gentleness helps us make wiser choices about almost everything, whether it’s the challenges we share on a global level — war, political paradigms, stewardship of the planet, the shape of economic and legal systems — or the more intimate realities — how you treat yourself and your loved ones; what and how you consume things, experiences and information; how you interact with the world around you. A mindset of gentleness points you in a helpful direction.
But why? Why is gentleness useful as a guiding principle?
Here are my suspicions for why living gently can be so transformative, for us on a personal level and for all of us as a global community:
(1) Gentleness invites us to be embodied
There are synonyms for gentleness – kind, humane, understanding, tender, compassionate, and moderate – but none quite capture the essence of the word because gentleness is a quality that must be felt as much as understood. This inherent connection between intellect and senses allows for a clearer and more accurate understanding of life and our world.
When our minds and bodies aren’t connected, it’s very easy for the mind to spin stories about “unreal others,” to borrow a phrase from Tara Brach. When we create unreal others we strip them of their humanness, we tell ourselves that even though we want to be happy, healthy, loved, respected, and free from suffering, these “others” don’t. When we’re embodied, it’s very difficult to not feel the common wishes of all living creatures.
(2) Gentleness asks us to see connection
Thích Nhất Hạnh introduced the term “interbeing” during the Vietnam War. At the time, our collective knowledge as a species made it possible to deny that our world is connected at every level. But now it’s clear to all that we’re inextricably part of this highly connected planet of ours. What impacts mycelium, impacts us. Weather and war on the other side of the globe effects us. The temperatures in the Atlantic influences rainfall in the Southwest.
Gentleness is a quality that exists only in relationship and action. A cat can be calico with no one around to experience its calico-ness, but a gentle cat only manifest its gentleness in how it acts and relates to itself and others. We are gentle only in how we relate to someone or something. I can gently pick up a delicate vase, I can gently speak to a grieving friend, I can gently lift my injured wrist. Living gently connects us with our world.
(3) Gentleness acknowledges our shared vulnerability
Accessing our own gentleness requires us to listen to the quiet language of life, not the in-your-face loudness that seems to pervade so much of our world. Gentleness asks us to pay attention to subtle signals from our emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations. In that quiet space, it is clear that we’re all vulnerable creatures who will experience injury, loss, illness, and death. Acknowledging the vulnerability of all living creatures — the reality of life — creates a strong and solid foundation for all skillful action.
When we’re grounded in the reality of vulnerability, it is very difficult to make decisions that are harsh, cruel, or violent because those qualities are antithetical to reality. Harshness begets harshness; cruelty begets cruelty, and violence begets more violence. It is a challenge to respond to harshness with gentleness, cruelty with kindness, and violence with peace, but the fact that something is difficult doesn’t mean it is not a worthwhile endeavor. We can try, and then we can try again and again.
Living gently is a radical choice in our world. It’s hard to stand up to the loud, harsh voices that rely on our fear and anger to make money, get votes, consolidate political power. And yet, if you’re reading this, you sense that it’s time to for change
…and gentle changes have powerful consequences.
warmly,
alison
