On Thursday night, many of us in Britain went to bed hoping and expecting that Remain would win the EU referendum. We woke up to learn of the opposite result. Now we’re in the midst of financial and political crisis that is spreading in all directions. I share the disappointment that others are expressing and their concerns for the UK’s future; but I would like to sound a different note and consider what’s happening from the perspective of Buddhist teachings.
I start by observing my own responses. I notice how strongly I’m drawn to turning on the news or checking the internet to hear the latest twists and turns. I’m drawn back to my Facebook feed, which is filled with endless rumination from my Friends, including many Buddhists, on what’s happening, and desperate searches for a way to overturn the result.
And then I recall the Buddha’s teachings. The world is the realm of disappointment, says the Buddha – dukkha or unsatisfactoriness. The world, like our lives, is characterised by forces beyond our control – the worldly winds. Sometimes things go well – meaning that sometimes they turn out how we want them to turn out – and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they are pleasurable, sometimes they are painful. Sometimes other people like and agree with me, and at other times they don’t. Events and people are constantly changing and the things we care about – including nations, treaties and communities – are impermanent. Nothing we experience is unchanging.
When these forces affect us we try in a thousand ways to regain control. One way is by trying to understand what’s happening, even though understanding isn’t the same as changing things. We urgently want to make sense of our lives and the world we inhabit, but we often fail to acknowledge the powerful forces buried deep within our minds that shape our response – lets call them craving, aversion and delusion. We tell ourselves stories about how the world is and how it should be, and get angry or frustrated when we find that it’s different. We manage our distress by focusing obsessively on the thing that looks like a cure. It may work, but the compulsive quality of our engagement affects us in other ways. A relatively simple cause becomes a complex tangle of views, responses, actions and consequences. That happens collectively and it affects us individually, infecting the world and filling our minds.
I care about the political world and I believe that these issues will have real effects on my own life and that of my country. However, my Buddhist practice encourages me to notice the element of vanity in the thought that I have to keep up with all the latest news. In truth, it doesn’t matter that much whether I know about most of this or how much time I spend thinking about it. The draw is not real agency so much as the feeling that doing so affords me a degree of control. But that is largely an illusion, and it means that I get entangled just like everyone else. Noticing the vanity, the false hopes and the states of mind that flow from them is the start of disentangling myself.
My Buddhist practice also urges me to ask other questions. For instance, when there is so much uncertainty and confusion, how can I find clarity? When there is so much anger and division, how can I stay in touch with loving kindness? In the face of turbulence and change, how can I stay calm and clear? Equanimity is held up as an ideal for Buddhists, so how can I practice that now? I’m pretty sure that the answers to these questions don’t involve constant media watching or discussion.
If it sounds as if I am advocating resignation, disengagement and simply not caring, or that all I value is my own happiness, I say this. Firstly, in difficult times, I believe it’s more important than ever to stay calm. That commodity is likely to be in short supply. Secondly, staying calm doesn’t mean not caring or not acting. But before we act, I suggest that we need to work hard to locate the wisdom and compassion that enables us to act for the best.
Compared to the wars and tragedies that engulf some parts of the world, Brexit is hardly a calamity. But in the realm of British and European politics, it is certainly a crisis. So let us take a very deep breath. Let us notice the forces of swirling around us. And let us resolve not to be swayed by them.
The world doesn’t need more voices added to the uproar. It needs people who care deeply and remain calm, balanced and clear.
Thank you so much for this <3
Thank you, a timely piece. I have had an emotional week of fear, anger and immense sadness since the referendum, and I certainly have not always been able to remember “This is not me, this is not mine, I am not this”. And I also suffer from the difficulty that you mention of finding the balance between “resignation, disengagement and simply not caring” and getting totally entangled.
May we live in interesting times! Hah!
Thank you so much for these wise and timely words, Visvapani.
I wonder if I could add a comment (hopefully not in the spirit of “uproar”) from the perspective of a Buddhist who actively supported the Leave campaign (a pretty rare breed I must be!). I did this as somebody who hasn’t been involved in any kind of political campaigning for years, aware that such engagement often has unintended consequences and that, as you rightly observe our attachment to our own opinions can blind us to any kind of wider perspective.
I was pleased (though also surprised) at the result and am unrepentant as I still think the problems (and suffering) that would ensue if the country was seen to endorse the creation of an undemocratic, autocratic and hopelessly unwieldy European superstate would in the long run be far worse than any temporary instability produce by a Leave vote. However that is all opinion and not the main point here.
Like most people I have been shocked at the polarised and unpleasant atmosphere in the wake of the poll, including incidents of racism which I can assure nobody I met in the Leave campaign would in any way endorse. What has particularly shocked me I the anger and ill will displayed by many who consider themselves Buddhist. I wonder how many of them ever bothered to do any serious reflection on the case for Leave, or even made any attempt to have a serious conversation with an intelligent Leave supporter before making up their minds. Their seems to be an element of groupthink here and I do wonder about the ethics of resorting to social media to create an echo chamber where like-minded people reinforce each other’s resentment and negativity.
It was an interesting and eye opening experience for me. One thing that will stay in my mind relates to taking part in a couple of BBC Sussex programmes as a spokesperson for Leave. This was in the format of a recorded walk involving two walkers each on either side of the debate. When the atmosphere started getting a bit heated I quietly suggested to the producer that he ask each of us to summarise what we saw as the three best arguments of the other side. He thought this was a good idea but when the Remain supporters were asked they immediately said that there weren’t any valid arguments for leaving and that, in essence only an idiot would think like that! (One of them later apologised after I calmly summarised three good and honourable reasons to vote Remain).
I could go on all day but perhaps I could offer one other reflection to those now seeking to overturn the result. Perhaps you haven’t though much about the implications of that. I wonder if Remain had won how their supporters would have reacted if Leave campaigners started asking for another referendum in view of the orchestrated campaign of scaremongering, threats and bullying by the Establishment in the run-up. In any campaign extravagant and unprovable claims tend to be made all round and sometimes lurid and distasteful imagery is used.. That’s nothing new and in this case an exceptionally long period was available for the pubic to discern truth and untruth. All’s fair in love and referenda.
Direct democracy in the form of referenda and plebiscites has a lot of disadvantages but once you have a properly conducted election it is very dangerous for anyone to assume the right to overturn the result. It’s been pointed out that similar arguments were used against the extension of the franchise in the 19th century. If you let the plebs have a say they might be swayed to vote the “wrong” way. And if the electorate is allowed to change its mind every week the resulting chaos would rapidly undermine any form of representative democracy, especially likely to be directed at governments trying to tackle deep rooted social and environmental problems.
There is a crying need now for voices for healing, consensus and compromise. For a Buddhist that must surely involve respecting the good intentions of those who disagree with us rather than projecting our own fear and aversion onto them. It makes life so much sweeter.
Keep up the good work, Visvapani.
Michael Hoey