Mindrolling – Ep. 343 – Dangerous Opportunity with David Silver

David Silver, Mindrolling alumni and longtime friend, joins Raghu to share wisdom on finding silver linings within the dangerous opportunity of coronavirus.

Catching up for the first time since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic, David Silver and Raghu trade stories and thoughts on how they have been dealing with the the changing times and uncertain future. Each of them have been able to find silver linings amongst the heavy clouds of our current predicament, paving a way for light to enter, no matter the circumstances.

Everyday Silver Linings

David shares a story of a run he went on earlier in the day, and the kind, positive interaction that it brought about, despite all the negative taking place. He explains there are some ameliorating flashes going on during this extremely weird time, and it’s important to focus on them. Good is happening. People are respecting each other. David agrees with what Jane Goodall shared a couple of days ago; that this is the kind of learning process that you can’t invent through education, books, lecturing or activism.

“What’s going to come out of this is a lot of loss and sadness, and then hopefully a change in the way we fit into nature, and the way we fit into this wonderful, marvelous, miraculous, beautiful planet.” – David Silver

For more on being human in the times of coronavirus, check out Ep. 122 of the Metta Hour

Dangerous Opportunity (5:57)

Times of chaos, while anxiety and fear inducing, seem to have latent within them real opportunity for both inner-growth and outer-change. Raghu brings up the Chinese wisdom concept of “dangerous opportunity” as an example of a perspective we can take to transmute fear and negativity into a helpful and inherently positive situation.

“We hope that our deepest compassion and kindness comes out and is not just confined to those of us who are working on consciousness, but those of us that have the power to make the kind of changes that can offer people a way to sustain themselves.” – Raghu Markus

Explore opportunities for repairing trauma and suffering on Ep. 25 of Rerooted

Animal Sutras (32:12)

Raghu shares with David about a book he received a few months ago, titled Animal Sutras, authored by the late Stephen Levine of the Living/Dying Project. What Stephen elucidates in the book is human’s disconnect to nature, and how we can reconnect through it. Reconnecting with nature, humans retrieve a sense of beauty and communion which helps bring about an intuitive feeling of safety and mercy, even during uncertain times.

“The warm breezes that are filled with fragrances and odors of the world, our seeing and hearing, smelling and tasting, thinking and dreaming; would all swim together. We would no longer be censoring the scintillation of energy vibrating in the alpine meadow, but instead would feel in the whole of our inner-world the changing shapes in clouds, and experience a considerable sense of safety while laying beside a trusted friend or mate. Simple kindness would evolve to profound mercy, with the inner-world melting at the edge as the eye of beauty opened, and the fear that constricted around it and limited it’s focal length, softened into trust in the process.” – Stephen Levine