Embodying Mindfulness-Based Resilience

I come to you with my own roots, my
own biases, my own identities—I identify as
a working-class woman with Jewish roots,
who has lived rurally for many decades.
I didn’t have the ability myself today to do
the exercise we’re about to explore together—I felt way too dysregulated by an ongoing
heat wave, an upcoming election, and the
humanitarian crises of Israel, Gaza, and the
West Bank. I’ve been having trouble sitting;
even in our lovely morning sangha, I can’t
stand sitting meditation. I feel like I need
to be yelling or running or breaking things.
Today, I had to stick to very, very simple
mindfulness practices: watching my steps;
feeling the texture under my feet; going outside and feeling the sun scorching my skin;
drinking a whole bunch of water. Those were
the kinds of very simple regulating systems
for this body.
I haven’t been able to adapt to unrelenting
stress and perhaps neither have you; in
fact, we don’t have a nervous system that
deals with unrelenting stress. It takes tens of
thousands of years for our hunter-gathererer
nervous system to even do a little adapting,
so we’re walking around with a nervous
system meant for a lifestyle that doesn’t
match with what we’re living.
If anything we do together doesn’t feel
right to you, know that you are in choice—
being in choice in and of itself can help
regulate your nervous system. If you need
to lie down, lie down. If you need to stand
and move around, do. If you need to sit still
or rock, try it out. You might want to look
around and make sure your surroundings are
good enough so if you feel like closing your
eyes at any point, you’ll feel safe.
Our challenge is to figure out how to regulate our nervous system. When our nervous
system is dysregulated, we’re in automatic

threat mode—our life feels threatened, even
when it’s not. In this mode, even getting
stopped by a red light at the wrong moment
can feel life-threatening in our bodies, which
respond as if we’re in existential danger. And
when we’re in danger, our brilliantly evolved
nervous system immediately tells us to either
go really fast, to fight, or to run away. You can
feel that urge to fight or run away in your body
as your arms and legs get more charged, your
heart beats fast, and your breath speeds up.
Where we put our attention becomes our
reality, so if we learn how to put our attention
on the wholesome, safe islands all around
us, we can calm our body and fool our nervous system into thinking everything is fine
so we’re no longer in a fight-or-flight mode.
When that happens, the cognitive, the receptive, the creative, the problem solving, and the
interpersonal, social self can come online.
I’m guessing many of you have a concern
for the state of our Earth and our human civilization and want to help heal the world. That
has certainly been a strong call in my life, but
following it hasn’t always been an intelligent
way for me to show up. When I was in my
early thirties, I got smitten with the idea of
getting arrested trying to stop nuclear power
plants. I have to say, there was a part of me
that was truly worried, but there was also a
part of me that found it kind of romantic to
get arrested and go to jail with a bunch of
people. It seemed like we were being very
effective, but I also noticed that there was a
lot of ego showing up in the variety of leaders—I wouldn’t call everything that happened
during those days skillful.
I might not want to participate in those
activities anymore, even though what drew
me to them still feels alive in me, but I notice
that when we’re all riled up, we don’t use our
wisdom to create wise action. We’re easily
manipulated by chaos, by other people yelling
or things going too fast, by someone taking
over a meeting, and we don’t know how to
stop when we get nervous. The very first thing
we need to know if we want to be activists
is that our action comes from a wise, broad
view.
When human beings first roamed the
Earth as hunter-gatherers, we were able to
hunt our food supply almost to extinction. We
were so clever, though, that when our animal
food supply began to dwindle, we figured
out how to make plants more productive. We
were clever in the short run, but we didn’t see
the big picture of what we were doing. This
applies to much of what human beings have
done: our shortsightedness helps us survive
because we can mobilize to danger very
quickly, but it also clouds our ability to see
the big picture. When we’re dysregulated and
highly activated, we’re focused very much on
whatever that dysregulator is.
So as activists, how do we see a big picture? How do we see the interbeing nature
of what we’re doing? We must have this cognitive perspective rather than acting out of
being all riled up. Our cognitive part allows us
to be mindful, to be curious, to see things as
they are. We need to know when we’re dysregulated and feel that in our bodies. This is
challenging because it’s so embedded in our
lifestyle and culture not to be in touch with
our bodies and the subtle and not-so-subtle
signals that tell us, “Hey, hold on a minute,
you need to settle yourself down.” So the first
step toward mindfulness and seeing the big
picture is to regulate ourselves.
WELL-BEING
I’d like to pause to take a sip of water, because that helps me regulate. I’d like us to
all have an experience of regulation, so you
might want to try a drink of water yourself—
be present for it; notice what happens before you drink and as you’re drinking. 
Now we’ll explore a mindfulness practice together. Get comfortable; we’re going
for the optimal balance between alertness

and relaxation. There’s no right or wrong
way to do this; we’re just going to spend
time noticing. We’re going for a sense of
well-being
or
good-enoughness:
good
enough not to be on high alert. You can say
hello to your body—you might not have said
hello yet today. You might enjoy taking a
deep breath. If you feel a little drowsy, you
might hold a big breath in; if you feel like
you need to regulate down, you might want
to focus your attention on a long, slow outbreath. Just notice the impact of the breath
on your body.
Just notice, just scan your body for some
part that feels good enough, relaxed enough,
or maybe even pleasant. It might just be
a slight breeze going across your cheek,
or it might be that your knee doesn’t hurt
quite as much as it did this morning. See if
you notice a place where you can rest your
attention at ease.
When your mind wanders—because
that’s the nature of the mind, it’s always on
alert for safety—just bring it back to curiosity
about anywhere inside that’s good enough
right now. Maybe it’s the sensation of weight
or solidness where your bottom is being supported, or your feet, or your knees, or your
hands. Weight can feel really good. Maybe
you can feel your heartbeat in various parts
of your body: in your throat, your chest, or
even your arms or your fingers. Notice how
observing our bodies affects how we feel
inside. 
If you feel like venturing into a different
kind of well-being, bring to mind something
that is almost always guaranteed to feel
good—it might be the image of a dear one,
a place you enjoy, an animal companion, or a
piece of music. Well-being comes in so many
different shapes and sizes, so bring to mind
just one thing that has the quality of wellbeing without any bittersweetness. Bring it to
mind in detail. What sounds might be there?
What thoughts? What are the very best
parts? Notice your body: is there anywhere
Where we put our
attention becomes our
reality, so if we learn
how to put our attention
on the wholesome, safe
islands all around us, we
can calm our body and
fool our nervous system
into thinking everything is
fine so we’re no longer in
a fight-or-flight mode.

you feel a sense of well-being, even just a
little bit, just one breath’s worth?
Rising from this sense of remembering,
you might consider putting a hand on the
part of you that is responding to your images
and holding your attention there as you water
these seeds of well-being. This strengthens
the neural pathway to this particular flavor of
well-being; the longer and more frequently
you visit this very place inside, the easier it
will be to access this sense of well-being to
help regulate your nervous system when you
need it. Maybe as you do this, you notice a
word or a body movement that feels like it
encapsulates the feeling, or maybe it’s just
one little image that helps you remember it.
Perhaps taking a deep breath in and knowing that remembering this can remind you to
revisit it at another time.
Just as you have savored this experience,
so too can you create a lifestyle where you
watch for these moments and slow down
enough to savor them when they happen,
knowing you can continue to savor them even
when that time has passed. Watering wholesome seeds in this way is foundational to our
practice of Right Effort.
Take one or two more breaths to accompany a sense of well-being.
I would encourage you to share your experience doing this exercise with someone,
because chances are that when you share
your story of well-being, the person who is
listening will light up as well. It’s important
to realize that we are built to mimic each
other’s emotional states. When somebody in
our company is agitated, we can either become agitated ourselves (if we’re not aware
So as activists,
how do we see a
big picture?
How do we see the
interbeing nature
of what we’re
doing?

that they are bringing us into their emotional
state) or we can do things to self-regulate,
which helps them to come into our sense of
well-being. 
Sister Chân Không has shared her insight
that when she was rescuing Vietnamese refugees by boat and could hold a calm presence
for them, the whole boat began to co-regulate
with her solidity, her calm. This is something
you can take into a meeting. When things get
stirred up, you can be aware: “Ah, my body is
being stirred up.” This is the practice of knowing your body and staying in touch with it so
well that when you become dysregulated, you
recognize it. We can make a big difference in
a meeting—whether we speak or not, how
regulated we are will impact others. This is
already activism: to be in community, to be at
work, to be in a movement, and to be solid,
kind, and compassionate.
Each of our states of well-being can be
developed by sitting with them, watching for
them, practicing them when we go to sleep,
when we wake up, and when we sit on the
cushion. Metta is bringing up these wholesome states of well-being and sending them
out to others. We can do this in our meetings
and with our families. Sometimes, we care so
much and things around us are so painful,
ugly, or disruptive that we can’t handle our
feelings.
After the foundation of watering wholesome
seeds and inhabiting a sense of well-being,
the next step is handling our pain for our
world. We learn to be skillful in bringing up
difficulties and wrapping our mindfulness
around them. It’s important for us to practice
knowing when we are grounded and when
we are not, when it is time to begin han-

dling difficult feelings and to put ourselves
in difficult situations, and when we have the
capacity not to be carried away. This comes
and goes. We need to guard our senses so
we’re not overworked, not overwrought, and
then we will have the resilience to take on and
work with the right amount of pain.
I liken it to roasting a marshmallow:
sometimes, you put the marshmallow on a
stick, put it in the fire, and it turns to flame.
What you have left is a yucky, black, ashy
mess that nobody wants to eat. But if you
take the marshmallow, hold it close to the
fire so it just begins to brown a little bit, then
pull it away, maybe turn it over before reaching
it back toward the flames, the marshmallow
will melt more gently and become something delicious.
It is the same with difficult feelings: if we
notice that there’s a difficult feeling arising,
we don’t have to just focus on the whole thing
and become overwhelmed. We can take a
little bit of it at a time. We can notice where
it affects our body and then pull back if, for
example, our heart starts to beat even harder.
We don’t have to do it all at once. We can take
a difficult body sensation, thought, or image
in mind and just stay with it with curiosity for
long enough to learn something. As soon as
we notice we can’t maintain that curiosity, we
go back to that sense of well-being, whatever
it is. We need to practice this when we know
we have the capacity not to be carried away.
A CONCERN
Now I want to invite you, if you feel like you
have the capacity, to bring to mind something or someone that you have a sense of
concern about. Start by remembering the
exercise we did a few minutes ago where
you had a sense of well-being. Get comfortable and start with a sense of well-being in
your body and/or mind.
Allowing your sense of concern to arise
now, tell yourself what you’re concerned
about. Bring it to mind in much the same
way as the sense of well-being: see it in your
mind’s eye. Bring it to life in as much detail
as possible, noticing what you tell yourself
and what’s happening in your mind and body.
Give it some time to become alive.
Notice if something happens in your body
when you bring this concern to mind. Just be
curious: when you’re in touch with your concern, what happens in your body? Then go
back to that sense of well-being you played
with in the first exercise, and just be curious:
maybe nothing happens, or maybe something surprising happens. Then go back to
your original sense of concern, again noticing
what happens in your body.
Do this in your own rhythm, going back
and forth, stretching yourself a little bit to
notice what your concern is made of and
what it is like to experience it. You might
notice anger or fear or grief. Continue to come
back to the refuge of your sense of well-being
as you increase your ability to be with your
concern, to be with your fear, to be with your
grief, to really see what it’s made of. This is
developing fearlessness and courage, little by
little, depending upon your own capacity.
Always end by sitting with a sense of
well-being: take some cleansing breaths, let
out whatever needs to be let out, maybe hug
yourself or put a hand on your heart and take
two more breaths.
You may choose to take several visits to
this difficulty, each time finding that new bits
of insight might reveal themselves. Go at the
speed of maintaining curiosity.
In order to see clearly and accurately, we need
to be able to handle difficult feelings. We need
to become intimate with the things we care
about. Often we run away, distance ourselves,
or jump to action because it’s so painful, but
none of this actually produces the kinds of

results we hope for. We need to be able to
look at a situation and feel fear or sadness or
anger in a way that does not carry us away so
we do not act impulsively out of fear, anger,
or grief. Instead, we will be able to collaborate
with each other and share our knowledge in a
way that creates wise action.
The first step is being in tune with our
body and knowing how to regulate it. The
second step is knowing how to handle pain
so we can see what it is made of and move
toward intelligent action.
Once we’re ready for intelligent action, we
need to have some guidance—not only collective wisdom, but an ethical compass. In our
tradition, we’re incredibly blessed to have The
Five Mindfulness Trainings and The Fourteen
Mindfulness Trainings as real guidance for
how to incorporate the biggest perspective
possible in our actions. We train ourselves to
have the insight of interbeing, which means
incorporating many, many perspectives.
Perhaps we can’t get all the perspectives, but
we can certainly get more if we can come from
a place of curiosity and mindfulness rather
than reactivity. Sangha is a living laboratory
for how to practice with kindred spirits to get
the kinds of skills that we need, and then we
can go out into the world and be in relation to
others perhaps who are not on this path but
who have similar concerns, similar commitments to the environment, to social justice,
and to supporting others. It is important for
us to be able to relax, to not be swept away
by our difficult feelings, but to be motivated
by our caring. Being able to handle our caring
in a regulated, mindful way is a gift that, along
with the Mindfulness Trainings, will guide us
into wise action.
This is an excerpt from “Activism as a Vehicle for
Awakening,” a Dharma talk given by Jo-Ann Rosen
on July 19, 2024. It has been edited for length and
clarity. You can view the full talk on Deer Park
Monastery’s YouTube channel.
sangha
Jo-ann Rosen/True River of Understanding
(Chân Tuê Hà) (she/her) received the Lamp
in 2012, practices with the EMBRACE and
Victoria Sanghas, and is a licensed marriage
and family therapist. She teaches and lectures
internationally, focusing on inner stability and
community resiliency. Jo-ann Rosen’s writings
center on a neuroscience-informed and traumasensitive approach to individual practice and
collective awakening. She lives with her partner
of forty years in the oak woodlands of Northern
California, US.

Celebrating the 40th
Anniversary of
This affectionate trip down memory
lane by outgoing publisher Hisae
Matsuda shares the backstory behind
Parallax’s publications, celebrating
the people who made the books
possible and the team of practitionerpublishing professionals guiding the
journey of tomorrow.
In 2026, Parallax Press, our community’s
publishing company, reaches the grand age
of forty. Since launching in 1986, a small
group of book lovers have brought out four
hundred titles on the art of mindful living
and Engaged Buddhism. While connected
directly to our community of readers through
mindfulness practice, Parallax Press has
become a stable presence in the American