I admit that when I saw the title of Susie Harrington’s annual online New Year’s retreat, my first impulse was to resist the notion of “serving all beings.” It felt too big, too daunting, too important, too exhausting to serve “everyone.”
Yes, despite my misgivings, I did the retreat. Some late night prompting — let’s call it insomnia — urged me to sign up last minute.
Happily I felt no pressure or guilt to be more serviceable than I already am. Rather, I felt inspired by the notion that true service — to self, to others, to the world — can be fuelled by joy in any circumstance.
Susie told a story of being at a remote wilderness campsite. The site was beautiful but loved to death. Because it was during Covid, it had been used by a lot of people not accustomed to wilderness camping, Thus, they did not know how to excrete in the woods. Consequently the immediate area was littered with piles of toilet paper, etc.
Rather than respond with anger, Susie chose compassion for the people who had acted out of ignorance. She took in the ugliness of the situation and asked herself: “If I don’t clean it up, who will?” So for the next two hours she worked methodically to tidy up the are, placing a mountain of toilet paper inside a fire pit and setting it ablaze with a sense of satisfaction.
Having been in similar situations, I was moved by this account. I sometimes feel drawn to pick up trash at a local park, or, when I had a dog, to pick up after other dogs whose owners didn’t pick up after them. I learned it is possible to do these kinds of things without resentment, grumbling, self-righteousness, or expectation of reward.
This applies to anything. Showing up at a public demonstration for something you feel strongly about. Showing up for a friend. Showing up, period.
There is joy in service that is carried out with wise effort. From a Buddhist perspective, wise effort is free of unwholesome qualities like anger, greed, and delusion. When these “root poisons” are absent, we feel a sense of lightness, of freedom, no matter what our situation. The Buddha compared our release from these burdens of anger-greed-delusion as being like the feeling we would have of being released from prison or slavery or illness.
Anytime we open our phones and scroll through the news, it’s not unlike having to confront the mess just beyond the bubble of our nice little wilderness campsite, the life we cocoon ourselves in to keep out the insanity just beyond our doorstep.
We can choose to cover our ears and eyes and ignore the chaos, or we can choose to respond like Quan Yin, or Mother Mary, who hears the cries of the world and is said to come to the assistance of all who call upon her.
We can see Quan Yin in the faces of ordinary people quietly doing what needs to be done. Most often what they do doesn’t hit the news but some does. Consider the goodness we can see as being like the tip of an iceberg.
As Susie said, “It is in not ours to save the world. It’s ours to sense our role and what is ours to do, and determine whether it’s wholesome or not.”
—Nelle Oosterom