{"id":5542,"date":"2013-03-28T12:18:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T16:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=5542"},"modified":"2013-03-28T12:18:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T16:18:06","slug":"the-world-is-not-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/the-world-is-not-broken.html","title":{"rendered":"the world is not broken ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m working at letting go of perfection, the idea that the world is ‘broken,’ as Naomi Rachel Remen<\/a> says.\u00a0 Stop to consider this: the world is NOT broken. The people who shout at cars that take their parking places? The people in the cars who take the parking places? There\u2019s some reason for all of them. The world isn\u2019t broken.<\/p>\n

When I can bring myself to trust that, I\u2019m pretty happy. But I have to confess: it doesn\u2019t happen very often. Most of the time, I go from what seem (in my own less-than-perfect state) to be the pieces of one shattered something after another: a sister’s incredibly poor manager. The senseless death of an old friend. State politics that make me cringe.<\/p>\n

But here’s my new mantra: the world is not broken.<\/em> And I’m not its fixer…<\/p>\n

Because believing I can ‘fix’ things only makes me … well, bossy. Not a good trait, especially for a Buddhist. And yes, I consider myself an engaged Buddhist. But while I often take the (not perhaps wise) shortcut of using ‘engaged Buddhist’ and ‘social justice activist’ interchangeably, as no less than Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh<\/a> notes, they are not the same. Certainly the vast majority of engaged Buddhists will work towards social justice in some way, but social activists (obviously) come in all faith paths, including none at all.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh, in his teaching on engaged Buddhism, reminds us that the Buddha teaches the 1st Noble Truth — ill-being, or suffering — as a necessary path. We cannot undo suffering, Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh tells us, if we don’t understand it well. And it’s only by suspending the urge forward, into a changed & hoped-for future, that we can actually change our own anger, fear, hopelessness.<\/p>\n

Every time I remind myself the world is not broken — and I wish I remembered to do it more often! — I am here, in the advent of spring, in the woodpecker learning how to navigate the starling-proof feeder. I am living smack-dab in the centre of now, and the world is not at all broken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m working at letting go of perfection, the idea that the world is ‘broken,’ as Naomi Rachel Remen says.\u00a0 Stop to consider this: the world is NOT broken. The people who shout at cars that take their parking places? The people in the cars who take the parking places? There\u2019s some reason for all of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,166],"tags":[1234,11,1181,1187,262,1228,1248,476],"class_list":["post-5542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attachment","category-engaged-buddhism","tag-attachment","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-engaged-buddhism","tag-living-in-the-moment","tag-naomi-rachel-remen"],"yoast_head":"\nthe world is not broken ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019m working at letting go of perfection, the idea that the world is 'broken,' as Naomi Rachel Remen says.\u00a0 Stop to consider this: the world is NOT broken.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/the-world-is-not-broken.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the world is not broken ~ - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m working at letting go of perfection, the idea that the world is 'broken,' as Naomi Rachel Remen says.\u00a0 Stop to consider this: the world is NOT broken.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/the-world-is-not-broken.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-28T16:18:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/03\/broken-globe-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"the world is not broken ~ - Beginner's Heart","description":"I\u2019m working at letting go of perfection, the idea that the world is 'broken,' as Naomi Rachel Remen says.\u00a0 Stop to consider this: the world is NOT broken.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/03\/the-world-is-not-broken.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"the world is not broken ~ - 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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