Is the world falling apart?
A reflection on spiritual grounding, reducing fear, and what it means to lead with love—even when everything seems uncertain.
Is the world falling apart?
I promise to get to that question but, first, let me say…
Sometimes, my thoughts about the world scare and worry me.
If “they” dismantle social security, how will I live?
What about if Medicare goes away?
And, “Colin, you used to be such a political activist, what are you doing to help now?”
Also, just straight up: “What the hell is going to happen?”
Or, “Am I going to be ok?”
Or, “Is everyone else going to be ok?”
When I choose to get involved in these questions and the stories behind them, I get a knot in my stomach. I feel very anxious.
⏸️ Take a Moment To Reflect Here:
When Do you ever get that knot in your stomach about the world and feel anxious? Let me know in the comments.
The Futility of Fear
Then, I might find myself seeking ways to act upon my fear and anger that I hope will reduce my feelings of fear and anger.
Maybe I consider saying mean things about people on the “other side.” Maybe I will involve myself in self-righteousness and indignation. Maybe I will consider posting unkind things on social media. Maybe I will want to shout at someone about how wrong they are.
Generally, I don’t actually do these things. Why? Because none of them helps.
All of them are attempts to change the outsides in order to change my insides. Changing the world in order to change my response to it.
The thing is, I could just change my response to it directly. It’s easier than changing the world.
I could choose to respond by loving the world and everybody in it for all their faults. I could choose to be in the moment and trust it. I could choose to believe the world is as it should be.
I could also do any manner of spiritual practice that would dissolve the delusion that we are separate and there is a me to be scared for and a you to be scared of.
That might be a lot better than acting out of fear and anger in order to feel less fear and anger.
There is a line in a beautiful poem by the third ancestor of Zen Buddhism. The poem is called Trust In Mind. But it could also be called Trust In Experience or Trust In Existence.
The line goes:
“The Great Way is not difficult… just don’t pick and choose.”
⏸️ Take a Moment To Reflect Here:
When you feel fear about the world, what do you usually do with it? What might it feel like to love instead of react? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Not Spiritual Bypassing, But Something Deeper
“Spiritual bypassing” is a term that is used in communities that embrace spiritual activism or—as I prefer to call it—active spirituality.
Spiritual bypassing means using spiritual concepts to avoid taking responsibility for suffering in ourselves or others.
I can imagine that there are those among you who, reading what I wrote above, are already shaking your heads and thinking that I am advocating spiritual bypassing.
You might be thinking, “Colin, you’re using your incomplete spiritual understanding to avoid seeing the suffering in others and to avoid helping them.”
But that’s not true.
Bear with me.
It’s not true.
The Power of Intention
In fact, if you do bear with me, I will tell you a method that might make you feel more comfortable, live in love and joy, and let you help yourself and others more.
By the way, you may think we need our fear and anger. But did you know that the research categorically shows people in happiness and joy are more likely to help others than people in fear and anger?
As a quick tangent, I think it’s funny when you tell people about evidence-based research and then they say “I agree with that” or “I don’t agree with that.”
How can you agree or disagree with data-based research?
Data aside, you can just make a decision or set an intention. You simply decide: “I don’t choose to come from fear and anger. I prefer to come from joy and love.”
Say this, if you like:
I am committed to coming from joy and love. Not only that, but I am committed to helping myself and all beings all the more because I come from joy and love.
⏸️ Take a Moment To Reflect Here:
What would it be like to speak and act from love and joy—even before you feel it? Tell me in comments.
It’s How You Act, Not How You Feel
Colin, you say commit to coming from love and joy but how am I supposed to come from love and joy if my feelings are fear and anger?
To come from love and joy, you speak and act love and joy into existence. You literally create joy and love. You don’t have to feel it. You just speak and act it.
Follow these simple directions:
Tell people you feel love and joy and tell them why. Make it up if you have to. Also, choose your behavior based on how you would act if you felt love and joy. You don’t have to feel love and joy to act from love and joy.
Frequently do those two things—speak of and act from love and joy— and guess what will happen?
You will come from love and joy.
Then, you will begin to feel love and joy.
Then, you will not feel any lack.
Then, your fear and anger will subside.
Without fear and anger, we shift from operating from the lizard part of the brain to operating in the communication and collaboration part of the brain.
We become hugely creative and generous.
Guess what that means?
We help people.
Presto!
Can we let go of the spiritual bypassing argument about why we need fear and anger now?
Meet the Bodhisattva
Speaking of having no fear or anger, in Buddhism, there is the concept of a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is a mythical figure who has achieved such great enlightenment that they can enter Nirvana and have eternal peace.
But the Bodhisattva is not concerned with their own eternal peace. That would be like going to the playground while everyone else in school. So many fun things to do and no one to do them with.
Going to Nirvana alone is like that. Peaceful but terribly, terribly lonely.
Also, once you have peace, what do you even do with it?
Today: “Oh, here I am being peaceful.” Tomorrow: “Yup, it’s still peaceful.” The day after tomorrow: “Here we are. Another day of peace.” Ho hum.
So the Bodhisattva, decides not to enter Nirvana alone. The Bodhisattva says, “I’m not going to Nirvana until school is out and all of us can go to Nirvana together.”
So more or less, the Bodhisattva stays in school—Earth school—with everyone else. I mean, as the Buddhists would say it, the Bodhisattva vows to stay in the suffering realm in order to help everyone else get out of the suffering realm and we can all enter Nirvana together.
The thing is, the Bodhisattva is unconcerned with desire or anger or fear because the Bodhisattva is awake to non-duality and non-self and feels at ease. Nothing to get. Nowhere to get to.
With nothing to get and nowhere to get to, being at ease, there is nothing to suffer about.
With nothing to suffer about, there is no fear and anger to motivate the Bodhisattva.
Instead, not feeling at a loss for anything, not feeling the world needs to be different, not intrigued by any kind of result, at one with all of Creation, a whole other set of behavioral characteristics arise. Not really motivations but qualities of action.
These qualities of action are called the six paramitas or perfections. They are: generosity, virtue, patience, effort, absorption and wisdom.
With all those qualities that arise when letting go of fear and anger, how could a Bodhisattva not help the world?
And nobody could say a Bodhisattva is a spiritual bypasser.
How To Become a Bodhisattva
In the Mahayana traditions of Buddhism, there is an extremely simple instruction for becoming a Bodhisattva:
View all other things and beings as Bodhisattvas.
My friend and teacher Zen Master Jok Um (Ken Kessel) wrote that we should take every living being as our teacher:
“To take each sentient being as your teacher is to realize that you are constantly surrounded by Bodhisattvas. Whatever their intention may be, if you see them that way, that is what they become for you.”
And when you see everyone around you as Bodhisattvas who are simply trying to teach you, then your fear and anger disappear. Your world is set to rights.
When you view your world as set to rights, you too become a Bodhisattva who treats all beings and all things with generosity, virtue, patience, effort, absorption and wisdom.
The TL; DR
If you want to help the world and yourself, put down your fear and anger and instead love everything and everyone.
The Great Way is not difficult. Just don’t say good or bad.
That’s love.
So is the world falling apart?
I have an executive coaching client who runs a large philanthropic foundation. Things in the United States have changed hugely for progressive foundations and some feel their very existence is in danger.
“It’s like a bomb went off. We just have to stay still until the dust clears,” my client said.
“The dust is not going to clear,” I said.
“Then, how will we navigate?” my client asked.
“With all the dust in the air, you can no longer navigate by the landscape. You have to navigate by your compass,” I said.
Your internal compass is your life direction. It is what you choose to stand for. It is the direction you decide that you always will move in.
Because whatever happens, your next step will always be to move in the direction your compass points.
Your internal compass is your answer to this question: What am I for?
It is a decision to commit to that which is most true about you, regardless of circumstance. A choice. A combination of your individual karma—your personality, if you like—and the Bodhisattva inside you.
What My Compass Says
My internal compass points me this way: I am the future of a world filled with leaders who lead their lives and organizations from love and play and so are hugely creative and generous in helping others to be able to live in love and play.
(By the way, everyone is a leader.)
With such a compass, how can I be shaken by world events? How, when I am truly following my compass, can fear and anger move me?
Because while I sometimes fool myself into thinking I am concerned with getting somewhere or having something, my true concern is with the qualities and direction of my action.
Who I strive to choose to be: The future of a world filled with Bodhisattva leaders. Call it service. Call it love.
Whether the world is falling apart or not has no effect on who you choose to be or whether you can be it.
Whether the world is falling apart or not, who do you choose to be?
If I’m following my compass, the direction will be the same:
How do I help us now?
Our only real job is to be that truth—the original nature of how do I help us now? Doing that job is what will bring us joy and love.
Let’s Talk
Before we move on, please excuse my interrupting the post with this reminder that I moved my newsletter to Substack because it’s a place where we can converse.
This piece is about navigating chaos, not by fixing the world, but by fixing our gaze inward. By finding our compass. I’d love to hear how you stay grounded, how you deal with fear—and how you’re choosing love.
Please share your compass with us in the comments.
To do that job to the best of our ability, we need simply view everyone else as doing that job to the best of their ability.
And we can do those two things—do our job and view everyone else as doing their job—under any circumstances.
So, honestly, what do we care whether or not the world is falling apart? Either way, let’s just do our job.
With love,
Colin
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Thanks for the great post Colin!
When I find myself getting anxious about the world (which happens a lot these days when I read the news), I do a few things:
1. I stop my catastrophizing thoughts about X that did happen, which will lead to Y that is even worse, which will lead to Z, which is absolutely terrible.
2. I come back to the present moment, which always has at least something positive about it and is generally pretty great.
3. I ask myself, "how can I help?" and think about real actions I can take to try build a better world for the future.
I really enjoyed this. Greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly, I vow to abandon them.