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Namaste and welcome friends. It's really lovely to be with you. Thank you so much for joining in.

I know a lot of people were looking forward very much to 2021 as a relief from the suffering of 2020.

And so here we are. And the wild ride continues onward. I heard an exchange between a patient and a doctor.

The patient said, you know, oh, doctor, I'm so so nervous. This is my first operation.

And the doctor's response was, don't worry. It's mine too.

And it feels like that's kind of like our world right now that those of us who are alive now have never been here before.

There's just so much uncertainty and responding to pandemics and the violence of an attempted coup or government.

And we're just we're all trying to get our arms around and make sense of what's going on.

As I thought of it brought to mind another story of a little boy who's asking his father, you know, where does the wind come from?

Father says, I don't know. And then the voices will, why do dogs bark? Father says, I don't know.

And he says, well, why is the earth round? And again, I don't know.

And then the voice is, Dad, are you bothered that I'm asking you so many questions? Father says, no, not at all, son. Please ask.

Otherwise, you'll never learn anything. So it feels really important right now to bring our curiosity to all that's happening, our care, not rely on answers, but really have the courage to live with the uncertainty that's here.

I had a different talk planned for tonight, but given the events of last week and how much is really churning for so many people, I shifted gears, don't worry, it won't just be a string of silly jokes.

Although maybe that would be the most probably the most healing thing we could have right now.

So, as many of you know, I do offer this weekly satchang, which is a gathering each Saturday where people come together, we meditate, and then there are different questions that are on people's minds.

And the first question that came up, I want to share with you, which is, how do we deal with our reactions to violence, to the loud, angry, hate-filled violence that we're experiencing in our midst?

How do we work with the anger that comes up in us, the fear?

And for this person, the question was not just about recent national events in the United States, but also how that anger and that fear comes up around, you know, historically around what she called toxic masculine energy, the dominating, the oppressing in her personal life.

So, as we know, the expression of aggression and violence, it's not new suffering, it plays out in every continent, it's played out through this history of our species.

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