Zen to War | The Liberation Issue

Featured in The Liberation Issue of Liveology Yoga Magazine.

“An object at rest will stay at rest… unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” - Newton’s 1st Law of Motion

I sit quietly on the shores of whatever body of water I can find each morning at 5 AM so that I can commune with self and the universe. For the last year – one of the most difficult years for my family – I’ve found the ability to expand my capacity to survive this world through meditation that has taken me on a journey of great inner-expansion and rest. I’ve found peace in the middle of our storm.

But what happens to a soldier once they’ve finally found peace only to realize they have to lay that peace down in order to fight – again? What happens to the kind person who is forced to use force simply to survive a system that is uniquely designed to crush us?

For some, this may sound hyperbolic. But if you’ve looked around lately, you’ll notice that there are fights raging all around us waiting to snatch whatever modicum of peace or zen we’ve been able to muster in this reality. So much hatred. So much poverty. So much cruelty. And for what?

How do we balance living in a society founded, rooted, and thriving through conflict with our individual journeys towards peace? Most of my life has been fraught with conflicts, fights for justice, standing up to whoever needed standing up to. Certainly my adult life has been filled with the same fights most of you face: the struggle to just survive – living paycheck to paycheck.