For today’s DM, I share, with her permission, a shortened version of a recent essay from Kaira Jewel’s Substack.* It was originally titled, “Compassion as Protection: Practicing with Those Who Cause Harm.”
Kaira Jewel lived for sixteen years as a nun in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist community in Plum Village. She and Father Adam Bucko are married and practicing deep ecumenism as a couple and as co-spiritual leaders. She is author of the very timely book, We Were Made for These Times: 10 Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption.
Kaira Jewel: Many of you have been sharing the questions that are most alive for you right now. One that came through clearly and powerfully was this: How do we practice compassion toward those who cause harm, especially when that harm is directed at us or our communities?
This is not a philosophical question. It is lived, embodied, and raw. It touches our histories of oppression, our ancestral grief, and the very real dangers we face today, like the brutal harms of immigration overreach, with ICE operating in our cities in ways that terrorize communities and separate families; staggering and widening wealth inequality; the measurable decline in young peoples’ learning, attention, and well-being driven by digital culture; escalating wars; the unraveling of systems that have held much of the world in relative peace since World War II; and the erosion of democracy, accountability, and shared norms as we see an accelerating slide toward authoritarianism.
In the Plum Village tradition, we are taught that compassion is the best protection. This teaching does not ask us to be passive, naïve, or self-sacrificing. It asks us to be wise, embodied, and rooted in reality….
When we begin to return to our bodies and allow ourselves to feel what has been unfelt, something shifts. We become more present. More human. Less reactive. Compassion becomes less of an idea and more of a lived protection.
This is why taking refuge in community matters so deeply. We are not meant to hold this alone. In community, we remember our shared humanity, our shared longing for safety and belonging, and our shared capacity to heal.
Community helps us metabolize grief, anger, and fear so that they do not harden into hatred. It also reminds us that compassion does not mean tolerating harm. We can step away, seek protection, and still wish for transformation. We can say no and keep our hearts open.
So perhaps the question is not whether we can be compassionate toward those who cause harm, but how we can stay connected to ourselves while we try. Can we offer compassion without abandoning our boundaries? Can we tend to our own pain so it does not spill outward?
Can we trust that refusing to react with hatred is itself a powerful act of resistance?
If you are feeling raw, weary, or unsure, know that you are not failing in your practice. This is the practice. Compassion grows slowly, especially in hard soil.
May we be gentle with ourselves. May we lean on community. And may our compassion, grounded in wisdom and care, be a source of protection for us and for all those we love.
* Kaira Jewel’s February 26 Newsletter.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: The New Hamlet of Plum Village, Dordogne, France. Photo by Geoff Livingston. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you lean on community to maintain your stamina and strength and common sense through dire times and ongoing chaos when you are raw, weary and unsure?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing From Global Faiths.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation, Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox.
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action, Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jennifer Lopez.
Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest.
The Lotus and the Rose: A Conversation Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity, Rev. Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo.
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations.
1 thought on “Kaira Jewel: The Role of Community in Practicing Resistance & Compassion”
Faith and being a member of several faith communities, especially spiritual webinar communities, nourishes and strengthens my spiritual journey with humanity in our ongoing human evolution with Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Her graceful abundance, and with our physical/nonphysical spiritual beings/dimensions (including our ancestors) of our evolving multiverse Co-Creation Cosmos with-in the Divine Spirit/Flow of OUR LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….