Melanie Gin shares how she has taken refuge in The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings and the sangha as antidotes to despair and shame, and to be with suffering while standing up against injustice.
By Melanie Gin on
In December 2024, I traveled to Deer Park Monastery to support a beautiful collective aspiration: Action Wake Up, a fifteen-month residential training program for young people in mindfulness,
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Melanie Gin shares how she has taken refuge in The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings and the sangha as antidotes to despair and shame, and to be with suffering while standing up against injustice.
By Melanie Gin on
In December 2024, I traveled to Deer Park Monastery to support a beautiful collective aspiration: Action Wake Up, a fifteen-month residential training program for young people in mindfulness, community living, and social justice. I was part of a small team of six dedicated Wake Up friends, operating under the leadership of Thầy Pháp Lưu and Brother Minh Niệm.
One afternoon, I spoke with my dear friend Idris (a long-term resident at Deer Park) about the shame I have carried over the genocide in Gaza. Since October 2023, I have struggled to take wise action while a military state armed with American weapons has killed families, destroyed neighborhoods, and limited the flow of critical humanitarian aid. I haven’t known what to do or say to make the violence stop. Spiritual and activist communities I love have fractured due to political disagreement.
A few days later, at a dining table facing wintery trees, Idris approached me. “You’ve been so hard on yourself, Melanie,” they said with compassion, naming the ways in which I’ve offered care to the sangha over the years. “You are a treasure.” I cried and cried, feeling the wounds of self-hatred and anger soften and heal.
A sangha that I helped to start did not survive the emotional toll of those early days after October 7th. I did not have the clarity to understand how to “stand up against injustice” without taking sides, and I could not fulfill caretaking responsibilities. The sangha faded away. It took me a year to approach the dissolution of the sangha as anything other than personal failure. I lost confidence in my ability to organize or facilitate safe spaces for those suffering from any form of violence or oppression.
I was caught in despair for nearly a year before I arrived at Deer Park Monastery to support Action Wake Up. In planning sessions with our team, Thầy Pháp Lưu and Brother Minh Niệm inspired me with their deep faith in The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. Returning to the trainings felt like drinking from a well after scouring the desert for water—refreshing, clarifying, and healing. I touched a deep inner wisdom within me that transcended my fear of being wrong or of disappointing those I love. The trainings offered me the gift of freedom.
Connecting to the mindfulness trainings for guidance on Gaza
I share my understanding of wise thought, speech, and action in the text that follows. As I write, I recognize that there is no unchanging truth. I will continue to look for truth in my heart, and in the hearts of those who are suffering, through the practice of deep listening.
I will practice reverence for life by not supporting any act of killing in the world, or in my thinking, speech, or actions. I will practice deep looking with my sanghas to find ways to protect life, prevent war, and build peace. I will not support Israel’s military invasion and bombardment of Gaza or the ongoing genocide and abductions of the Palestinian people. And I will not support the violence, hostage-taking, and killings committed by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023.
I will practice openness and non-attachment to views while taking a clear stand against oppression and injustice in Gaza. There is no equivocation: Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people and took 200 people hostage on October 7th. The state of Israel has killed 45,000 people (and counting); forced thousands to flee homes and shelters; destroyed neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals; killed journalists, aid workers, medics, and many children. I must state clearly that Israel’s military occupation of Palestine is unjust and oppressive.
I will heal my own trauma from fifteen months working in Jerusalem and the West Bank, in close proximity to the violence of Israel’s occupation. I will get to know better the immobility and panic that arises in my body when thinking about the genocide of a people that I grew to love. I will notice if and when hatred arises, for myself and for others. I will do my very best to not let war harden my heart to anyone, not even Netanyahu, Biden, or Trump. When that is not possible, I will practice compassion to the best of my ability.
I will stand for true peace that gives all people a path to safety, shelter, clean water and food, and the absence of violence and oppression. I will resist the pressure from political actors and organizations to demonize any side. I will practice looking with the eyes of interbeing and recognizing that we are all cells in one sangha body.
I will practice loving myself through failure, and being with my deep fear of being somehow unlovable because of it. Thanks to the care of the sangha, and my involvement in Action Wake Up and other Plum Village projects, I am beginning to accept that failure is welcome, a natural risk of trying something new or being brave.
Going forth …
It feels important to acknowledge failure in order to reconcile with myself and the sangha. To allow a return to the deep well of love and forgiveness within me and within the sangha. This forgiveness frees me to do the work that is mine, to try again in new forms to work toward peace. In the healing silence of Deer Park Monastery, buoyed by Wake Up friends on the path, I was able to reinvigorate faith in myself, and in the possibility of small acts of peacebuilding to change the world.
In January 2024, when asked about a wise response to the war in Gaza, Thầy Pháp Dung spoke of our teacher, who chose three times to rebuild a village destroyed by American bombs. His message: Do not give up your hope. Do something. Start a garden. Offer kindness to a stranger or loved one. In other words, do not get stuck in the despair or horror of violence.
To my future self, and to all those who may resonate with feelings of shame, doubt, and insecurity: Know that you are one cell in a vast and beautiful sangha body. Take refuge in the teachings when caught in fear or despair. Trust in the sangha to know the next step. Do your part to work diligently toward peace. It is okay to start small.
