As humans, we are intimately connected with the world around us through our bodies. As David Attenborough says in the 2022 documentary series The Green Planet, “The world depends on plants. Every breath of air we take and every mouthful of food we eat depends on plants. This is about a parallel world, which exists alongside us and which is the basis of our own lives and to which we have paid scant attention over the years.”
Although they are often used to refer to the same thing, a useful distinction can be made between the earth and the world. The earth is around 4.5 billion years old and, as far as we know, the only planet in the known universe to support life. Like the world of plants, the human world overlays the earth and is what we’ve made of our privileged existence on this planet. Compared to the earth, the modern world is less than 300 years old and includes things like consumerism, economics, politics, cars, planes, smartphones, the internet, and social media. The world also involves culture, the arts, science, philosophy, and religion, as well as war, conflict, inequality, and the climate crisis.
We are connected with the world through our mind; through education, cultural narratives, news, conversations, social networks, and all the information from the internet and media. The human brain, encased in our skull, operates in the dark. Its neural connections and networks learn to make sense of and model our world through what enters through the senses. Our brain learns from and adapts to what we pay attention to. When something changes in the world, we naturally want to learn about and make sense of it. We watch, read, and listen to the news, and have meaningful conversations with people we know to develop our understanding.
Emotions are a bridge between the body and mind that tells us that something needs attention, drives us to act, and shows others how we feel. They can arise in response to what we see and hear through our senses, and also from the thoughts, we pay attention to. Like many of our recent ancestors, we live in turbulent times with wars, geopolitical and economic uncertainty, rising inflation, and extreme weather events, to name some of the challenges we face.
Plucking an open string of a guitar makes some untouched strings resonate with the vibrating frequencies, which is a phenomenon called sympathetic resonance. Similarly, we can resonate empathically with others, which energises our own emotions. So, it’s no surprise that we collectively experience feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, helplessness, and sometimes horror when we see the suffering going on in the world. One way of differentiating between empathy and compassion is that empathy is feeling with and compassion is feeling for. For instance, if we are feeling anxious ourselves, we are less helpful to someone who is suffering from anxiety. With compassion, we validate how they feel, understand their situation, and then see what we can do to help from a more resourceful and balanced state.
If our mind is restless, our emotions agitated and our body is tense and stressed, then how we resonate with the turbulence in the world will be amplified. With consistent practice, mindfulness can transform our restlessness, agitation, and tension into feeling peaceful, calm, and relaxed. From this state, we are more able to feel compassion and to act with openness, care and kindness.
Following the differentiation above, practicing mindfulness is more about connecting with the earth, rather than getting tangled up in the often biased, and sometimes fictional, narratives of the world. To connect with the earth, we only need to step outside to see the trees and sky and hear the birds sing to bring joy to our hearts.
Although world events may resonate with us as individuals and affect us in some way, they are generally not personal. In other words, they did not start within us. Using the power of our shared emotions, we can acknowledge the difficulties and suffering of others and respond with compassion and kindness, doing what we can to help others who are less fortunate in where they live, or the difficult conditions they find themselves under.
Suggested weekly practice
- When you watch, read, or hear the news, a film, book, or podcast notice how feelings resonate within you, knowing that they are not who you are. Mindful of feeling for rather than feeling with.
- Explore what you can do to act on your feelings of compassion with openness, care, and kindness.
- If it’s helpful, explore the distinction between the earth and the world. Which is more real and grounded? Which one is closer to the truth, and which is closer to fiction?
Guided practice
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.
- Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
- Then play the second practice to acknowledge feelings in our body that resonate with world events and to respond with openness, compassion, and kindness.
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