Unexpected Freedom

The Power of ParadoxThere are those who discover they can leave behind confused reactionsand become patient as the earth;undisturbed by anger, unshaken as a pillar,unperturbed as a clear and quiet pool.Dhammapada verse 95Question: How do I balance social action with dispassion andacceptance of things as they are? A sense of injustice is oftenthe motivational force to act and persevere. Given that it ismy job to challenge core practice in organisations how do Ibalance these different aspects of my practice? Not to act feelslike collusion in wrongdoing, plus I’d probably lose my job.Ajahn Munindo: It is true that we can feel caught in aconflict between, on the one hand, actually doing somethingabout the ills in society that we live in and, on the other, theway we hear the Buddha’s teaching about cultivatingdispassion. It feels like a paradox – a painful paradox – and itseems there’s some sort of contradiction. We hear theteachers telling us, ‘It’s just the way things are’. Perhaps youfeel angry and frustrated about this. Perhaps you say, ‘Thisisn’t good enough.’The world we live in is full of injustices, and there arethings going on that are simply wrong. Most of us have aclear sense that there is right behaviour and wrongbehaviour. What we struggle over is how to honour the91