It has become an unfortunate necessity to keep reminding oneself of the perfidy of the man who currently occupies the most influential office in our country, indeed, in the entire world. I personally feel a strong temptation to simply blot him out of my life and get on with my own affairs, trusting that the ship of state will eventually right itself. But if I allow myself to indulge in that luxury, the man has scored one more victory in his effort to silence all those who oppose him.
I lay awake for what seemed like hours last night in a state of dread and anger. The threat to this nation and the nations of the world looms more ominous by the day. The more the man feels threatened and beyond the scope of his competence, the rasher and the more intemperate he becomes. The world watches as he rips the heart and soul out of America and tramples them like a child in a temper tantrum. Its great heart of compassion is written in the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." Its soul was expressed in the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, honoring soldiers who had sacrificed their lives "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
As for the heart in today's America, Trump ordains the snatching of babies and young children from their mothers' arms. As for its soul, in a gesture of desperate self-aggrandizement, he entertained for a friendly two-hour meeting in the Oval Office a man reputed to be among the worst of human rights offenders in the world, the architect of his country's continuing international cyberwar and its nuclear weapons program, and trusted right hand of a tyrannical dictator who cemented his power in the usual way, through the murder, intimidation, and imprisonment of anyone who dared to oppose him--a "strength" that apparently Trump admires.
With his new tariffs on our allies, Trump continues on his established path of alienating our friends and accommodating the world's worst authoritarians--even as he enriches himself, his family, and his wealthy coterie of friends. He breeds corruption as easily as he breathes. He has proved himself incapable of discerning truth from lies. He offers hope and comfort to those who hate, even as he stiffs the very people who supported and continue to support him.
My deepest wish is for this nightmare to end. My instinctive reaction is to curl up in my own little shell until the storm passes. I am of an age, now, where I will not have to live for long with the results of this blighting of America and everything it has stood for in the past. I have a refuge in my meditation practice, and I live in mostly liberal California with mostly like-minded people. Both offer me escape from Trump's pollution of national politics. And yet... I could not live with myself if I were to close my eyes and simply retreat into the comforts of my life. I feel obliged to remain engaged.
Which is why I return each morning to the Buddhist practice of metta, sending out thoughts of goodwill, yes, even to Trump. On the one hand, the world would be a better place and my own mind would be more at peace if the hungry ghost that possesses that man's soul were to be exorcised and leave him free to connect with the humanity that must be somewhere buried inside. On the other, sending metta offers a means to relieve myself of the toxins that cause my own suffering in the face of so much that angers me, and causes the dread that keeps me up at night. I could only wish that I were a little more successful!
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