Softening the Clenched Fist
Reflections from Plum Village on healing our world's pain
Dear Friends,
I’m writing at the end of a retreat at the Plum Village monastery in France.
This place of peace has given me much to reflect on as I’ve watched our world this past week.
This is the place Thich Nhat Hanh came in exile as war raged in his country, Vietnam, in 1966. His book The Miracle of Mindfulness, which has such a tender practicality to it, reads differently when you know that it was written as a manual for monks and nuns seeking to be healing forces for people caught on every side of terrible violence.
The origin story of the Plum Village is one of the images that have touched me, and will continue to nourish and challenge me. This plot of land in a village in the French countryside was, during World War II, a site of bitter controversy and bloody reckoning. It is said that here, members of the local community who had participated in the Nazi occupation were executed. This ground was thereafter considered haunted, ruined for habitation or building. But Thay, upon visiting the site and hearing this story, decided that this was precisely where his community should settle. They were called, as he understood, to move towards and attend to the ruptures of this world.
And on the first morning of this retreat, the monk offering a Dharma talk invited each of us to clench a fist with one of our hands. Try this, if you will: move to force that fist open with your other hand. The fist only clenches tighter — as if by its own will, a natural reaction to force. And I invite you to try, then, a counterintuitive approach: cradle the fist with your other hand. With the same naturalness, but a wholly other quality of feeling and response, the fist releases. It softens.
A sea of clenched fists is a metaphor for our world right now. This exercise brings me back to a conviction I’ve long held, but can find hard to sustain in the tormented adolescence of this century: one of the most powerful ways we can be present to our world’s pain is with a countercultural tenderness.
I like that word “calling” above, as you may know about me. So many of us are asking how we can be healing forces, what we are called to in this moment. And as instinctive and right as it is that we creatively and imaginatively ponder how we can be actively present to our world’s pain and its promise, there is a quieter calling that each of us can pick up in the places we know and live: to be a calmer of fear. To soften the fist that so many of our bodies and hearts have clenched into. Like it or not — for an action plan feels stronger — this is slow, relational, essential groundwork that we must lay if we are to find our way to our belonging to each other and our shared callings to create a transformed world we want all of our children to inhabit.
Nourishing and activating that belonging is our deepest calling at On Being. Our Wisdom Season just concluded — which you can listen to and share as a whole with this playlist — was one quiet offering. (And we’d love to hear how it landed with you.) We will be spending the next few months engaging complex conversations in the Netherlands and the UK, while preparing to produce a special short season towards healing after the U.S. election in the fall.
One thing is certain: whoever wins, my country will be as fractured as before. And so, in 2025, we are going to hit the road with a national On Being conversation we hope to build, convening as well as conversing in live events, around the U.S.
In the months ahead, you'll get the Pause in your inbox monthly. This will continue to be the place to hear all of our news and future adventures as they unfold.
I wish so fervently for you, for all of us, some respite and restoration in the months ahead — invite you, indeed, to know your need of these things precisely because of your love for this world, and your desire to be of service.
I send you my blessings, and my love – until soon!
Krista
Or listen wherever podcasts are found.
In the World
For Listening and Watching
Krista on Resonate, the Rancho La Puerta podcast
Krista really enjoyed this joyous conversation on the beauty of life's mysteries, the interplay between science and spirituality, and the transformative power of love in personal and public spheres with host Barry Shingle at Rancho La Puerta. "The Ranch" is one of the original "health resorts" and it's a place of healing — a place where she has been renewed and revitalized many times across the years.
Krista with Sarah Jones, America, Who Hurt You podcast (Coming soon)
The one and only comedian/actor/deep thinker Sarah Jones speaks with Krista about the fractured state of our country. It's a conversation marked by humor and care — and features a few of the many characters/voices Sarah brings to life in her art. Subscribe where you listen to podcasts to be alerted when the premiere episode goes live. We will also send a gentle reminder.
Krista to Host Well-Being Concert with Carnegie Hall (February 2025)
Krista will host a unique blend of mindfulness and music at Carnegie Hall's innovative Well-Being Concert series on February 1, 2025. The event will feature the music of Omar Sosa, Seckou Keita, and Gustavo Ovalles, a trio who NPR described as sounding "as if it was dropped directly from the heavens of musical compatibility." The performance is presented as part of Nuestros sonidos (“Our Sounds”), Celebrating Latin Culture in the US. Tickets go on sale August 12.
This practice reminds me of “soft belly meditation,” which I learned from Vinny Ferraro during a workshop hosted by Spirit Rock, in which we invite our bellies, often the holder of tension, anger and anxiety, to soften so that we may be open to whatever we are defended against. Because once we are open, we can begin to work with whatever we had aversion to.
Thanks, Krista. I suggested this past week that we replace the fist sign with the Peace sign. Instead of the raised, clenched fist, we raise our hands with the familiar V created with two open fingers.
"My take on where we are and a way forward:
When the wild accusations and heated rhetoric cool down (if they do), people need to remember the violence of January 6, 2021. Part of the culture of the U.S. is one of violence - assassinations are nothing new, mass shootings have been "normalized" and hateful behaviors are commonplace. The other side is that there are still people who are kind, compassionate and caring who abhor violence and who continue to work for justice and peace. It's possible to love your neighbor even if you disagree, but how about some civility and decency? Violent behaviors and hateful comments come from a place of unresolved anger and fear. Until or unless we address the causes of the disease, treating the symptoms will not make it go away. A commitment to non-violent, peaceful protests has potential for a new beginning, but it will not be easy to change the minds and reach the hearts of those who feel disenfranchised. This will take more than thoughts and prayers and those are welcome into the conversations going forward. Rather than a fist for a symbol, how about a different sign, one for peace? Is that possible?