We're in the mud and that's okay

On the spiritual mess and murk of becoming

My kiddo joyfully playing in the mud this morning

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve tried to write something meaningful for you. Grounding. Heart-mending.

But… nothing came.

Instead, I half-heartedly chipped away at the outline for our upcoming seminar and struggled to stay focused.

I knew when I started this newsletter that pairing Buddhism and radical social change would come with internalized pressure to say something when the world felt especially bleak. But I made a promise to myself: I wouldn’t pretend to have clarity I didn’t have. I wouldn’t perform hope I wasn’t genuinely feeling. 

I’ve done that before—back when I was teaching corporate mindfulness classes. I’d try to present myself as the polished result of practice, instead of staying rooted in the more honest, messy space in between.

And still, even with that intention, I’ve felt somewhat ashamed that I haven’t had the spiritual fortitude to offer a poignant teaching amidst the continuing overwhelm of the world’s crises.

But I’ve come to realize that expectation was misplaced.

I don’t need to write only when I’ve arrived at clarity.

I need to share the uncertainty and discomfort of being on the way—and trust that it can be held tenderly in community.

There’s a familiar image in Buddhism that might help explain this: the mud and the lotus. The lotus is a plant that grows from the murky bottom of a pond, rising through darkness before it ever blooms at the surface. The mud represents our suffering, confusion, and unsettledness. It’s not something we can escape—it’s the uncomfortable, but necessary ground from which insight and compassion blossom.

The lotus needs the mud. It can’t bypass it.

But what’s often left out of the metaphor is everything that happens in between: the long stretch of stem reaching through the dark and murky water. The part that’s not yet a flower, not fully seen, not especially pretty. The wisdom and clarity that emerge in messy, incomplete pieces.

I believe this is where many of us are right now. We’re no longer buried in the illusions of our political system and country. Not falling again for the violent and false propaganda spewing out of legacy media. We’re no longer confused about the root of our collective issues but also not completely clear on the path out either.

We’re watching the U.S. continue to fund the Israeli military as they murder starving Palestinians seeking food at aid check-points. ICE is detaining people at their immigration hearings and ripping infants out of the arms of mothers. And, just this past week, we witnessed the targeted murder of two elected Democratic officials. 

It’s mud. Thick and brutal. 

And that’s exactly where we’re being asked to show up from: not with perfect plans or insights, but with our raw outrage and messiness. Not with certainty, but with the courage to connect and act from within the mud, or maybe just above it.

This moment, full of rupture and revealing, asks something different of us: To be in community before we’re fully composed. To share before we’re fully sure. To participate before we feel ready.

So I’m reminding myself—all of us—not to wait another couple of weeks to join, share, or act on what feels necessary. We can’t wait for the mud to settle. This moment simply needs our achey, frustrated, determined selves that are still becoming.