Lama Surya Das joins Raghu to talk about our political sea change, responding to anger, and encourage us all to find our authentic selves and “mensch up.”
How do we deal with our reactivity and anger? Lama Surya Das gives practical advice on how to deal with anger in the moment. He encourages us to use courage and compassion to “mensch up” and become our most authentic selves.
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Show Notes
Mindful Politics (Opening) – Lama Surya Das and Raghu talk about the sea change happening in American politics and their feelings about where things are going. They discuss the importance of talking to people from all different viewpoints without creating division.
“Even out your reactivity, cultivate a little more inner balance and equanimity, and you can choose to respond skillfully and wisely, rather than just blindly reacting to the habitual stimuli of somebody who is on the other side of the fence on almost every issue that you believe in.”
Building Walls around Our Hearts (26:40) – We cannot get rid of anger any more than we can bottle it up. Lama Surya talks about how to live with anger; we do this by integrating anger healthfully without letting it degenerate into rage and violence.
By putting ourselves in other people’s shoes, we can start seeing their actions with empathy instead of anger. If we understand where others are coming from we can respond without building walls around our hearts.
“Maharajji said, ‘Never throw anyone out of your heart,’ so that is one thing that I try to apply across the board. Even to the edges, where people I disagree with, detest, or can’t believe what they are doing, seem to abide.”
Moving from “Me” to “We” (39:45) – Surya Das gives advice on how to deal with our reactivity in the moment. He gives us different methods to take pause and approach things from another angle.
Finding Compassion (49:15) – If we want to “mensch up” and be our best selves, we have to have the courage to look at ourselves honestly and the compassion to change what we do not like.
Surya Das leads a meditation on bringing the warmth and spaciousness of compassion into our beings.
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Image via Bruce Rolff