Step outside of the shit storm.

When the train is coming, get off the tracks. With no disrespect to Brian Willson, who heroically stayed on the tracks, this is generally great advice. How does one do this? One exercise that has served me well is to mentally step back and watch what is going on, including my own role in it, as if it were a movie, or a football game, or whatever works. When I can remember to do this, I get much needed objectivity. Using the objectivity, I can see what I would tell myself to do if I weren't myself. Very often the smartest thing to do is to lay low and let the storm burn itself out. Kind of what we do when there is a tornado.

I have been watching someone very close to me be at the center of a kind of hysteria at her workplace. Every move she makes has the potential to come back and bite her. I am telling her that she can't lose by standing calmly in her integrity and let what happens happen.

I can be a real fighter if I am certain of my righteousness. So can she. But in my thinking, the only way to fight hysteria is to be calm and steady. In something like the Salem witch trials, the lives of the accused were at stake. But the trials were rigged so the women were damned if they did and damned if they didn't. It is interesting to watch the situation that when people feel that things are getting out of their control, they often turn to bullying or abusive tactics to get the feeling that they have control.

We see this happen internationally and in our own homes. What I can't really figure out is why when people are frightened, they get nasty. One of the hardest Buddhist teachings that I am trying to practice is to not gossip. Gossiping can be so satisfying. But Lama Marut teaches that even when you think gossip is constructive, it is not. Bummer. But this situation that my friend is in has been fired by gossip, rumor, bullying, and false sentimentality. She is in the strongest position of power if she steps outside and lets the others make their own karma. (make their own beds and lie in them). That's what I think at this moment.