Bearing witness
This post was originally written in September 2021, in response to a Haitian refugee crisis unfolding at U.S. borders.
Dehumanizing treatment of Haitians seeking refuge broke my heart this week (read the news here). I know I’m not alone in feeing complicit as a U.S. citizen; yet, I feel helpless to respond.
Every day, like you, I am plunged into the truth of suffering, either by the direct encounter with those who are vulnerable and at grave risk, or through our media. What might serve us in the midst of the strong tides of our times?
— Joan Halifax, Practicing the Three Tenets and G.R.A.C.E. in our Imperiled World
Everyone must find their own path here. We each have our own work to do. For me right now, that means becoming a better, braver witness. Breaking the empty pattern of looking and looking away. Seeing, naming, and engaging with the suffering around me. Even when I’m powerless to fix it.
In the process, I’m leaning on these Buddhist tenets: not-knowing, bearing witness, and compassionate action. In this framework (from Roshi Joan Halifax), witness—the encounter with another’s suffering—bridges inner self and outer world.
These tenets help me remember with some humility how I can be more intimate with and transparent to whatever is unfolding in the present moment. They help me act more skillfully…They guide me towards inclusiveness, and towards the contemplative practices that are the heart and bone of [this labor].
— Joan Halifax, Being with Dying
If you find this resonant, there are many entry points. No single teacher or tradition can claim the idea; nor must it be a spiritual or religious thing. Here are three secular writings that speak to the essence of witness, in all its pain and promise:
Bearing Witness: An Existential Position in Caring, Maria Arman, Contemporary Nurse
Bearing Witness to Climate Change, Diane Burko, Scientific American
Why Our First Responsibility Is Bearing Witness, Umair Haque
To really bear witness is a powerful thing because that is how we find our fullest possibility, or in the parlance of now, our “agency”. Our moral and ethical agency. Our social and political agency, too. In the act of witnessing, we reclaim a sense of ourselves as fully human. And only when we have a sense of ourselves as fully human can we give it [to] anyone else.
—Umair Haque, Why Our First Responsibility Is Bearing Witness
May it be so!
P.S. Email me if you’d like to read something from a particular faith tradition. I’ll do my best to find you a good resource.