To feel or not to feel

To feel or not to feel?

This is somewhat the main dynamic going on for me, and I think for people I meet, around this war. (Yes, I know a ceasefire has been declared, but I don't take that to mean that war is over.)

So, to feel or not to feel all the emotions that this is bringing up?

I find that when conversations start about the war, a main objective behind or under the reasonings, of which there are so, SO many, is to be distanced from the emotions that one is experiencing.
Not to feel horrified and brokenhearted to the core of my being at the sight of dead children, women, men, of grieving parents, partners and siblings, almost falling apart from not knowing how to continue living with the worst nightmare becoming their reality.

No, I can't feel that. What would happen if I did? Would I be able to function? Get up in the morning? Lead a life?

Reasonings, analysis, predictions and scenarios, and above all, justifications. How many justifications are expressed these days. How many rationalizations. Meant to sooth and quell, cool the heat, the underground rumble, threatening to erupt.

What is pushing its way out, sending shoots of liquid fire from between the cracks of dry and crumbling reason?

A bleeding heart, and crying heart, unable to ever dry up or close down completely, even after layers and layers of fear-bred logics, categorizations, views, calculations.

The main virus protection software against bleeding hearts is called "Being Right". There's an old phrase in Israel that was composed as a slogan to try and tame the wildness and recklessness of Israeli drivers (more signs of buried emotions?), which have caused more deaths than all the wars combined.
It says, "On the road, don't be right. Be wise".

Being right. So much mental effort, panicedly cheered on by emotions, is invested in getting to the point where I'm right. I try collecting opinions and expert analyses, reading some articles and ignoring many more, but more than anything, it takes emotional suppression. Because emotions are irrational, and need to be bypassed in order to see clearly and act wisely.

So, the emotions of compassion, empathy, grief, sadness, all need to be bypassed, overcome, and you need to see "beyond them".

I just read an article by an Israeli who refused to take part in this war, when we was sent a draft notification. His main point was, he couldn't disconnect. He couldn't not know, not feel, and so he couldn't do what was needed to be a good soldier. He belongs to a group called "The Courage to Refuse".

The distance that we force from our emotions of empathy doesn't mean that we become blood thirsty, necessarily. It just leads to us being willing to accept other people's devastation and annihilation. Not wanting others, THE others, to die, just willing for it to happen. Justifications and rationalizations follow in order to maintain the distance, keep the underground tunnels of smuggled buried emotions blocked, in case there accumulates a dangerous arsenal of emotions that will rise up and hurt you.

Underlying it all, is fear. And as Pema Chodron says, when you touch fear, you find a soft spot (often described as sadness). And when you touch this soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. Ineffable, uncontrived, ungraspable. But if we don't receive this training and practice it, we can spend our whole life just trying to hold together the patches of thoughts and concepts meant to cover up this basic tenderness.

I'm writing late at night, not very organized, but that's fine by me.

Daily practice: not to work so hard at not feeling. There's no need to work hard at feeling, perhaps just relaxing the grip on avoiding it, and letting things flow. I may not be able to figure out how to be right all the time, but maybe a more basic wisdom lays waiting to reveal itself. Trust in the heart.

"True love is the natural energy of our settled mind, an inexhaustible resource." - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche