In May 2021, Karuna organised a round table with the intention of exploring the link between meditation and right action, commitment and compassion. What does engagement really mean? And how is mediation necessary for effective and sustainable engagement?
Watch the full exchange !
Discover our speakers
Alexis Desouches is involved with Mindfulness Solidaire, an association he co-founded, in an emotional intelligence programme in places of detention and emergency shelters
Let’s start by sitting down and putting our body down. The dignity of this posture lies in the commitment we make to connect with our inner self and cultivate our own inner peace. Before we want people to be happy, let’s see how we can act so that we don’t make them suffer. Before we take care of others, let’s take care of our inner garden.
Soizic Michelot teaches meditation at the Faculty of Medicine, in hospitals and to the general public. Also passionate about the links between art and meditation, she devotes part of her activity to creating bridges between these two fields
Meditation allows us to probe what moves us, not to judge ourselves, but in order to be close to our intentions and to keep resources in the long term without burning our wings.
What can we learn from this exchange ?
Commitment is a gift of oneself to the world: the possibility of investing our inner resources in the service of a common cause. It arises from a spontaneous and impulsive emotional reaction, such as anger, often driven by a feeling of injustice.
The values behind the emotions are real driving forces, both virtuous and destructive. The practice of mindfulness allows us to grasp what drives us, to understand precisely what our affects are attached to, and thus to direct our action in an effective and sustainable way.
Meditation is a commitment to connect with our inner self in the dignity of a generally sitting posture and to transform the energies underlying our emotions. Exercising this ability to bring clarity in order to act in a sustainable and effective way is all the more essential in a world that is accelerating and in which there is constant agitation.
We are far from the clichés of a practice that would invite an emotional smoothing. On the contrary, through meditation, it is a question of bringing to light what moves us, of better understanding its foundations in order not to fall on the aggressive and reactive side but to feed the energy of lucidity that is in our emotions. Mindfulness confronts us with our inner self and stops the emotional over-reaction that paralyses effective action.
Unlike impulsive and automatic engagement, the calming produced by the exercise of meditation allows us to concentrate fully on the direction of our engagement. Thus, far from being an isolated and self-centred action, meditation is a true pillar of altruistic commitment alongside those of action and intention. Indeed, just because we direct our attention inward does not mean we stay there. Mindfulness is integrative and systemic. By focusing on the links between the body and the mind, it allows us to nourish the collective intelligence that serves the world.
To meditate is to commit oneself to taking care of our inner and outer lands, to act without adding suffering to suffering, without harming oneself and the world. It is more essential than ever to multiply the opportunities to share together what is meaningful, to always come back to our intentions and discover the richness of the experience from which things naturally set themselves in motion.
