Socially Sustainable

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Practicing mindfulness in our relationships is beneficial in myriad ways. Mindfulness helps us to be calm, to gain self-awareness, and to develop psychologically and spiritually. When we bring this practice of being mindful to our relationships, we use conflicts as opportunities to become more present and aware of both our own and the other’s wounds. We begin to soften out knee-jerk reactions of aggression or avoidance, and instead repetitively exercise our ability to feel more compassion and understanding. Jack Kornfield writes in his book A Path with Heart:

In both child rearing and love relationships, we will inevitably encounter the same hindrances as we do in sitting meditation. We will desire to be somewhere else or with someone else. We will feel aversion, judgment and fear. We will have periods of laziness and dullness. We will get restless with one another, and we will have doubts. We can name these familiar demons and meet them in the spirit of practice. We can acknowledge the body of fear that underlies them and, together with out partner (or a friend or therapist), speak of these very difficulties as a way to deepen our love.

When we can speak of these very difficulties as a way to deepen our love, as Jack Kornfield says, we are using our mindfulness to remain present with our relationships and to give us the courage to act from a place of integrity, truth and compassion.

Being mindful in our relationships is to, among other things, practice social sustainability. It is this practice that is required of us if we are to seriously take our own and future generations into consideration. Without mindfulness and practice, we cannot grow more aware while tolerating these turbulent times of social, political and global change. Without mindfulness, it is too easy to run away from the hard work of relationship and caring for others, and in the process, to bypass our own higher development. It is too easy to be swept away by passing emotion or circumstance and to lose sight of truth or goodness. Especially now, when our culture is increasingly transitory, fragmented, and ultimately consumer and expansion driven – we must have something to anchor us.

When we take refuge in mindfulness as our anchor, our relationships become more socially sustainable. That is because we are devoted to coming back to the present, to the breath, to the relationship. We are not controlled by our fears, and so do not run away, avoid, or destroy our relationships. We are able to build a muscle for being with and tolerating our relationships with all their beauty and craziness. Because we are not constantly distracted by addiction, fantasy, or temptations, we develop a keen ability to remain with the difficult and to transform it into the work of the moment; into service, love or devotion; into communicating openly with our partner; into considering the various needs of the next generations; into building community; into doing what our heart knows to be right.

The longer we allow ourselves to be and practice in this mindful place, the more we will want to be there. We will lose a taste for the chaotic ways we used to think and behave in our relationships. We will instead find peace in our ability to remain present and to work with whatever arises. When we do this and do not run away, we will find ourselves able to build relationships, communities and cultures imbued with a great capacity to love.