1장
The Transformative Power of Mindfulness in Action
In a world increasingly defined by polarization and despair, Sharon Salzberg's voice cuts through the noise with startling clarity. As one of the pioneers who introduced meditation to Western audiences in the 1970s, her work has influenced millions, including celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and tech leaders at Google and Apple. "Real Change" arrived at a pivotal moment in 2020, just as the pandemic was reshaping our understanding of interconnection and essential work. The book's message-that meditation isn't just about personal serenity but about creating meaningful social change-has made it a cornerstone text for activists, healthcare workers, and anyone seeking to maintain hope amid seemingly insurmountable challenges. What makes this work particularly powerful is how it bridges ancient wisdom with contemporary struggles, offering a roadmap for those wondering: How do we stay engaged without burning out? How do we transform anger into effective action? And perhaps most importantly, how do we maintain our humanity when the world seems bent on stripping it away?
2장
Finding Agency in a World of Automatic Reactions
When confronted with stress or threat, our bodies instinctively respond in one of three ways: fight, flight, or freeze. While all three reactions serve protective functions, many of us default to one particular response. For me, freezing has always been my go-to-attempting to disappear from threatening situations, like a child covering their eyes during peekaboo. Though sometimes adaptive, giving us time to process overwhelming experiences, freezing can be particularly difficult to overcome because it lacks the inherent momentum of fighting or fleeing.
These automatic stress responses differ fundamentally from consciously directing our energy toward addressing problems. When these reactions become chronic states, they shape everything from our media consumption to our relationships and generosity. We find ourselves increasingly isolated, afraid, and despairing-bombarded with troubling news while rarely hearing inspiring visions of the future.
Many people, especially younger generations, feel trapped in systems they didn't create that contradict their values and damage the planet. This creates what journalist Diane Silver called a "soul wound that pierces a person's identity, sense of morality and relationship to society." Teaching worldwide, I've witnessed the prevalence of this moral injury, finding myself triggered by the same elements that disturbed me in childhood: authority figures' deception, shifting narratives contradicting reality, and undermined perceptions of truth.
When seeking strength amid hatred, I often contemplate water. Our concept of strength typically centers on hardness-like rock or a clenched fist-leading us to mistakenly see love as merely soft rather than strong. Water reveals multidimensional strength: it trickles, floods, pours, and soaks. It's flexible, taking any vessel's shape while remaining in constant motion. Water expresses our deepest emotions through tears of sorrow, outrage, gratitude, and joy. Though appearing weak, it carves pathways through rock over time. It may freeze temporarily but always returns to flow-reminding us we need not remain stuck.
The people who create meaningful change draw strength from diverse sources: faith traditions, traumatic losses, family values, or rejection of those values. Their efforts are sustained by community, nature, music, and poetry. As bell hooks suggested to me, "social action" extends beyond protests to include "radical thinking" or "radical practice." Art itself is a profound radical practice-as musician Rosanne Cash noted, "All art and music is political" because they develop compassion and empathy.
Meditation is often misperceived as purely internal-a retreat from life's struggles, practiced by gurus on mountaintops. While many now use mindfulness for daily challenges, fewer recognize how these practices form foundations for bold, sustainable engagement with social justice. Meditation becomes truly meaningful when extending beyond personal benefit. These practices build resilience for the long haul, clear our minds for better choices aligned with our values, teach us to process difficult emotions constructively, help focus our energies productively, improve our collaborative abilities, transform how we see ourselves and others, and cultivate the power of connection.
3장
Awakening to Our Inherent Dignity
The Statue of Liberty has long been an object of reverence for me-her compassion, dignity and strength deeply moving. The iconic inscription by Emma Lazarus naming her "the Mother of Exiles" welcomes "the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free." This powerful symbol represents a universal welcome home to our authentic selves-the part that deserves love, happiness, respect, and belonging regardless of circumstance.
This welcoming begins with agency-breathing life into abstract concepts, daring to imagine dreams becoming reality, and determining to try. Whether we've lost jobs, relationships, self-worth, or felt defined by illness, emotional distress, poverty, trauma or disenfranchisement, significant inner strength is required to move toward action.
Sometimes intense personal experiences wake us up and drive us to make a difference. While pain can cause us to turn inward, for some it progresses into expansive caring for others. Attorney Ady Barkan, diagnosed with ALS at 32, chose to continue his life's work rather than retreating. Despite facing mortality, he maintained gratitude, focusing on what he had left rather than what he'd lost. He channeled his energy into healthcare advocacy, becoming a powerful spokesperson through his very illness.
Samantha Novick, whose mother taught at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the 2018 shooting, channeled her grief into organizing a historic march against gun violence. She describes activism as both altruistic and healing: "It feels good to not just sit there and stare at the hole. It feels good to do something." Agency emerges when we move beyond simply feeling bad to taking action, breathing vitality into our caring and values.
Many people feel unworthy and immobilized by low self-esteem. Finding those who lift you up becomes essential. Viola Davis's Golden Globe acceptance speech reminded women who've experienced trauma: "There's no prerequisites to worthiness. You're born worthy." Fast-food worker Shantel Walker organized for fair wages because "my family had always let me know I was worthy, and I knew therefore I was worth more than how I was being treated."
Stories about our worth and belonging can be told explicitly or implicitly through societal structures and institutions. At the Insight Meditation Society, we chose to build a wheelchair ramp at the front entrance despite architectural challenges, because it tells wheelchair users they belong and are welcome through the main door. Bell hooks shared how seeing a rich white man place his dog in the front seat while relegating his Black maid to the back seat told a powerful story about human worth.
Sometimes our agency is constrained by systemic forces like poverty, institutionalization, or disenfranchisement. After the Soviet Union's breakup, I noticed people had little sense of agency, taking refuge in cynicism that gave a false sense of control. Having choice, belonging, and dreams are fundamental to human dignity.
Recovery Cafe in Seattle demonstrates that everyone has something to give. Founded by Killian Noe to address addiction among homeless populations, it operates on the principle that members "come to know ourselves as loved with gifts to share." Members contribute to running the cafe and supporting each other. Jenna Crow, a veteran who experienced homelessness after military sexual trauma, found her sense of worth and agency when she played flute for an agitated man and realized she could alleviate another's suffering.
With so much pain in the world, how do we focus our action? Lin-Manuel Miranda advises that while we can't let all the world's tragedies into our hearts, "the ones you do let in should count. Let them manifest action." Howard Zinn suggests finding even small organizations doing work you believe in, noting that "when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place."
4장
Transforming Anger into Courageous Action
What jolts us awake from our half-conscious, autopilot existence? Often it's unexpected suffering-our own or others'-that snaps us out of our dream state. When we're shaken awake, anger is frequently the first energy released. Anger serves as a signal emotion warning us of indignity, threat, and harm. It can establish boundaries, clarify integrity, and demand recognition of worth. While anger can mobilize us to action and give voice to injustice, it can also become destructive when we can't contain it.
In Tibetan Buddhism, anger is what we reach for when feeling weak, covering over our sense of helplessness. While anger temporarily conveys power and righteousness, eventually we must face the pain beneath it. As James Baldwin noted, "when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain." Lama Rod Owens describes anger as "the bodyguard of our woundedness," with healing requiring us to move through it to the fundamental sadness beneath. By learning not to get lost in anger but to mine its energy, we can transform it from destructive force to courageous action.
I would never tell someone their anger is illegitimate-we feel what we feel. The more we try to tamp down anger with shame, the stronger it gets. I can't imagine telling someone whose rights have been violated or whose loved ones have suffered to push away their anger. The challenge lies in honoring anger's message without being consumed by it. We must forge a new relationship with our anger, relying on its strength rather than its reactivity. This strength comes from conviction about human dignity and our universal wish for happiness.
The great irony is that paying attention to anger through mindfulness can dissolve its toxicity. This contradicts how we're typically taught to handle anger-either repressing it or seeing it as our only source of strength. Mindfulness of anger isn't about being cold or indifferent; it's about engaging with anger with presence and compassion. By feeling anger in your body and recognizing its changing nature, you can capture its energy without falling into fixation and bitterness.
Heather Yountz, a Boston immigration lawyer, describes how her relationship with anger evolved: "My anger scared me. I didn't know how to harness it." With experience, she found anger could be a focusing emotion, making her sharper in court. "Anger is like holding a hose that's running on full blast. If you're able to hold on to it, you're doing great. But the second you loosen your grip, it just goes all over the place."
Marc Solomon, author and political strategist, transformed his rage after coming out as gay into powerful activism. After attending a lovingkindness retreat, he took a year off to backpack and meditate, which helped him see "through the cobwebs" to his passion for making the world better for LGBTQ kids. "A deep sense of connectedness and purpose was one of the things I got from meditation," he explains.
To work through anger requires discernment, compassion, and a broadened perspective. When we connect to life's inevitable end, tallying wins and losses becomes less important than reflecting on whether we've been wholehearted and fully present. Some problems are "more than a one-generation fix." This perspective doesn't lead to complacency but to steadier effort without impossible hurry. Marc Solomon, who worked fifteen years on marriage equality, notes that "the people who get big things done are people with staying power."
When we investigate anger with curiosity and love-not getting embroiled in either the burning energy or the fighting-we can transform it into courage. The kind of courage that lets you act without immediate visible outcomes, that helps you do the small thing in front of you when overwhelmed by seemingly intractable problems.
5장
Moving from Grief to Resilience
The Buddha pointed out thousands of years ago that suffering is a fact of life. Or as I put it: "Some things just hurt." While some assert that pain only exists because we resist experience or have bad attitudes, I challenge this view. Simply by living, we inevitably encounter adversity and disruption. For those working to make the world kinder, the suffering they aim to alleviate often spills into their own lives as vicarious trauma or "shock of witnessing," leading to PTSD, burnout, depression, and despair. The key question becomes: How do we fully acknowledge suffering without letting it define and overtake us?
In dominant culture, pain is something to be avoided, denied, or "treated." Many feel that compassion practice should elevate us beyond "less virtuous" emotions like anger and disappointment. But true compassion begins with simple recognition-including acknowledging things that hurt. The revolutionary statement that suffering exists is liberating precisely because it doesn't prescribe how we should feel or try to rationalize our pain.
Sometimes pain reaches devastating levels-what spiritual traditions call "the dark night of the soul" or what we call "grief" in interpersonal life. This intense emotional experience isn't limited to death but can occur with any deep loss.
I once met a young soldier who came to a meditation retreat within two weeks of being released from the army. He had enlisted after a heartbreak, wanting to leave town, and out of patriotism, only to experience disillusionment and horror in Iraq. His extreme startle reflex, hypervigilance, and mistrust indicated severe trauma. When my colleague Rodney Smith observed, "Sharon, don't you see? He's grieving," my perspective shifted. Seeing his condition as grief rather than just PTSD helped me connect with his heartbreak. Grief is watching reality become molten-it's hard to take the next step when nothing seems solid.
Writer Martin Prechtel offers a helpful perspective: "Grief expressed out loud... is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses."
An activist I greatly admire is the late Myles Horton, co-founder of the Highlander Folk School, a center for education and social action. Operating as a racially integrated institution during segregation, Highlander broke Tennessee Jim Crow laws daily for over forty years. Horton's outlook sustained him: the future is malleable, "there's nothing fixed that you can't unfix." But this requires being "courageously dedicated to the long haul."
After 9/11, the Dalai Lama's simple statement "It happened" provided profound relief-helping me drop the tendency to overexplain trauma and instead recognize what was simply true. Similarly, Zen teacher Roshi Joan Halifax suggests viewing childhood traumas as "givens, not gifts"-acknowledging them without pressure to reimagine painful experiences.
Real change is born when we truly touch our sadness and pain. As we respond to our own suffering with presence and compassion, our energy for responding to others' pain increases dramatically. Resilience accretes over time as we develop the habit of courageously facing pain without freaking out. Parkland shooting survivor Samantha Novick describes her trauma as a gaping hole that, while never disappearing, has become smaller through purpose, meditation, family time, and nature.
At a discussion with the Dalai Lama on creativity, the question arose whether great art requires suffering. His response was striking: beautiful art is beautiful because of the inner transformation artists undergo during creation. What if we regarded our lives-bodies, minds, work-as our fundamental creative medium? What we want from creative people isn't their misery but their courage to break boundaries and see differently.
In Buddhist tradition, suffering isn't redemptive; everything depends on how we relate to it. We may emerge bitter and isolated or connected and caring. One ingredient in transforming our relationship to pain is having enough light to surround the darkness-openness big enough to hold the pain without collapsing into it. Suffering exists and hurts, yet we have the capacity not to add shame, rage at our lack of control, or conviction we'll never feel anything else.
6장
Nurturing Joy and Self-Care
We all long for a feeling of being at home-in our bodies, minds, and on this planet. Even our most destructive behaviors often stem from an urge toward wholeness and happiness. The wish for one's own happiness isn't selfish but constructive-it's the wellspring that allows us to serve others. When constantly confronted by injustices we want to change, we can feel guilty for never doing enough, but without self-care, we won't derive joy from our service or sustain our efforts.
Organizational cultures around social change often don't support self-care. Studies of activists show guilt and shame associated with considering personal well-being, which they perceive as conflicting with their work's selflessness. Most activists reported no conversations about self-care, with some describing a "culture of martyrdom" hostile to discussing stress symptoms. Even leaders like Rachel Gutter found themselves preaching work-life balance while sending late-night emails and skipping vacations. Self-care isn't just "me time"-it's about community, fellowship, and finding meaning. We can fight for change while still experiencing joy and gladness.
Joy exists alongside suffering-we must choose to look for it. Ady Barkan, living with ALS, finds strength in cherishing moments like his son's hug, holding onto "precious beauty" to persevere through hardship. Playwright Sarah Jones connects her most creative work to her "innately playful and happy" self. Joel Daniels finds nourishment through his daughter, who shows him "the purest form of love." When addressing societal brokenness, we must see both trauma and resilience-like Zainab Salbi realizing she wasn't acknowledging the full humanity of an Afghan woman she described only by her suffering. The civil rights movement demonstrates this balance: "People didn't march sobbing. They marched singing."
Building resilience requires balance-alternating between facing pain and finding ease. Like physical therapy, our work for change requires periodic rest. We must keep our eyes on our highest goals while watching our footing with each step. As Rene Daumal says in his mountain climbing novel, "Keep your eye fixed on the way to the top, but don't forget to look right in front of you." Relief can be found in simple joys: riding bikes, walking in nature, giving and receiving hugs-these sustain us for the journey.
Even the most brilliant activists can become trapped in depression by refusing simple joys. A friend once confessed, "I can't even allow myself to enjoy eating a banana"-his awareness of exploitation in food production had become paralyzing. This scrupulosity-pathological obsession with morality-can make us hard and self-righteous, starting with ourselves. It's the opposite of narcissism, yet equally isolating. We cling to suffering as a badge of honor despite it incapacitating us.
The problem isn't lack of empathy but rather its excess. Tania Singer distinguishes: "Compassion does not mean sharing the suffering of the other... it is characterized by feelings of warmth, concern and care." Buddhist psychology describes compassion as "the quivering of the heart in response to seeing pain" followed by "a movement toward, to see if we can be of help." The first part is empathy; the second is compassion. When we over-identify with others' suffering, empathy turns to empathic distress, where our discomfort takes center stage. True compassion implies boundaries (movement toward, not into), balance (including self-compassion), stability, and clarity.
We nourish ourselves by maintaining authenticity rather than conforming to idealized molds. Ram Dass tells a story of a man who visits a tailor named Zumbach. When the suit doesn't fit, rather than fixing it, Zumbach instructs the man to contort his body-hunching shoulders, bending knees, lifting his rear. Walking awkwardly down the street, someone compliments the suit, assuming only Zumbach could fit someone with "so many physical problems." Similarly, we contort ourselves to fit external expectations-the perfect image, the invulnerable warrior, the giver who never receives. Self-care means knowing who we are, where our boundaries lie, and being ourselves instead of praising whoever has molded our increased pain.
7장
Embracing Our Interconnectedness
We often disconnect from the humanity of others, especially those like homeless people whom society has declared "other." Yet these individuals represent our deepest fear: not belonging. They are someone's family members, and their situation reflects our society's priorities and governance. The question of how we construct our worldview and sense of self versus other is central to understanding interconnection. We are born into communities defined by race, language, ethnicity, gender and more, but how we anchor and hold these identities determines whether they connect or separate us.
Our sense of identity can be understood through both interconnection and intersectionality. Interconnection conveys what Thich Nhat Hanh calls "interbeing"-the understanding that everyone relies on everyone else, contrary to our perception of being isolated individuals. Intersectionality helps us understand how multiple identities within ourselves can confer both privilege and oppression simultaneously, depending on context. Understanding these intersections ultimately leads to appreciating interconnection-the more we see all aspects of ourselves and others, the less we view anyone as limited to a single dimension.
The Cleveland Clinic's powerful video on empathy asks: "If you could stand in someone else's shoes, hear what they hear, see what they see, feel what they feel, would you treat them differently?" Despite the humanity visible in hospitals, schools, streets and homes, we often remain disconnected from others' experiences. Pedro Noguera calls this the "Crisis of Connection"-our inability to identify with the suffering of those from different groups.
Interconnectedness can be understood intellectually but is more powerfully apprehended through direct observation. A tree, seemingly a distinct entity, actually exists as a manifestation of countless relationships. Similarly, our lives are not isolated but connected and interdependent. As Thich Nhat Hanh explains through "interbeing": just as a cloud is essential for paper to exist (no cloud, no rain; no trees, no paper), all phenomena "inter-are." This truth of our existence reveals that everything is contingent and intertwined.
Interconnectedness requires letting go of rigid differences and responding to others' needs, recognizing that caring for others is inseparable from caring for ourselves. George Mumford, who teaches mindfulness to athletes including NBA players, emphasizes that "it's always better together." He describes the "dynamic tension between the me and the we"-how to be oneself while part of something greater. True teamwork emerges when we recognize that others are "just like me"-wanting happiness, experiencing frustration, and making mistakes just as we do.
Despite our interconnected nature, many people report increasing loneliness-perceived social isolation that affects mental and physical health. Studies show loneliness can increase blood pressure and mortality risk, while stronger social connections improve health outcomes. Nearly half of Americans report feeling lonely sometimes or always, with younger people surprisingly reporting greater loneliness than retirees.
Research reveals we make split-second judgments about people based on superficial differences. Our brains instantly classify faces by sex, race, age, social status, and emotion-evolutionary adaptations for threat assessment-then unconsciously activate stereotypes about those categories. Many people experience discrimination based on perceived "otherness," whether from race, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristics.
Psychiatrist Jud Brewer discovered a literal neurological basis for the experience of "contraction versus expansion" in human consciousness. His research using fMRI scans found the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is most active in novice meditators experiencing guilt, craving, rumination, and anxiety-all sharing an experiential component of contraction. When we're threatened or afraid, we contract, close in, and create rigid boundaries. By contrast, when we dissolve our clinging to a rigid, isolating sense of "self" and corresponding "other," activity decreases in the PCC, creating a parallel sense of expansion.
Buddhist psychology suggests that respecting interconnection opens us to an unforced altruism that naturally emerges from seeing the world more accurately. As our perception clarifies, we find ourselves transformed-less afraid and feeling less alone. When we're livid reading the news, we realize that seeing others as totally disconnected activates parts of our brain associated with anxiety and fear. We contract, close up, turn away. But expanding to our interconnected reality doesn't mean abandoning discernment or the imperative to fight injustice.
8장
Finding Balance Through Equanimity
How do we maintain our sanity and open hearts amid life's constant urgencies and crises? Buddhist psychology offers equanimity (upekkha) as the answer-a balanced state born from wisdom rather than indifference or passivity. True balance isn't about dividing time equally between activities or suppressing emotions, but developing perspective that brings inner peace. This balance allows us to feel intense emotions without being overwhelmed by them, neither drowning in painful feelings nor pushing them away. With equanimity, we can recognize emotions fully while consciously choosing our responses.
The balance I'm describing isn't about equally dividing time between activities but developing perspective on life's changes. This balance comes from within, requiring wisdom and offering peace. Many of us tend toward extremes-either getting lost in painful emotions until they become toxic and seemingly part of our identity, or turning away from difficult feelings through denial and distraction. Equanimity frees us from these patterns, allowing us to feel emotions intensely while still choosing our responses.
Rather than visualizing balance as a static scale, I've come to see equanimity as a gyroscope-dynamic, responsive and self-righting when disturbed. Many of us maintain an appearance of steadiness through tension so high that the slightest breeze disrupts us. True balance includes ease-feeling unrestricted and free to respond appropriately as our world changes. A gyroscope maintains perfect balance through its powerful spinning axis that stabilizes the outer circle, gracefully righting itself when knocked. Similarly, we can develop agility and responsiveness rather than reactivity by cultivating a strong core-a sense of meaning and purpose that grounds us through changing circumstances.
Equanimity is the voice of wisdom-complete presence that can hold everything. Early in my teaching career, I realized I needed a heart as wide as the world to accommodate the wildly different circumstances people shared in their fifteen-minute interviews-from joyful engagement news to traumatic murder stories. Equanimity allows us to cradle both immense sorrow and life's wondrousness simultaneously. It's not about transcending pain to reach relief, but being fully present with both pain and joy.
James Baldwin articulated one of life's great tensions: we must simultaneously accept life as it is without rancor while refusing to accept injustices as commonplace, fighting them with all our strength. This fight, however, begins by keeping our own hearts free of hatred and despair. Cultural activist Daisy Hernandez describes recognizing this teaching on equanimity in Baldwin's words-the responsibility to hold two opposing ideas: accepting injustice's existence while fighting to vanquish it.
The Buddha described life's inevitable "eight worldly winds"-pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. No one experiences only pleasure without pain; no act elicits only praise without blame. Equanimity isn't apathy but dignity amidst change-being able to breathe and maintain presence even in turmoil. We build equanimity by reflecting on life's inevitable fluctuations, experiencing joy without fearful clinging, and facing pain while continuing to breathe.
When asked how he crossed the flood of suffering, the Buddha replied, "Without lingering, friend, and without hurrying." This delicate balance represents equanimity's essence-neither sinking by lingering nor being swept away by hurrying. Acceptance doesn't mean succumbing to circumstances or struggling against them, but using each wave's momentum to help us cross. The art lies in continually beginning again, moment by moment, without self-recrimination when we lose our balance.
When assessing the value of our actions, we typically measure against expectations and timelines. While self-awareness and goal-setting are powerful, rigid expectations about results can lead to burnout and feelings of inadequacy. The Buddhist teaching recognizes three aspects of action: intention, skillfulness, and results. Our basic motivation matters deeply-whether we act from love or hatred, self-interest or generosity.
We can easily get lost in massive numbers and statistics about suffering, which can make our individual efforts seem insignificant. While tracking the vastness of issues remains important, working to change things for even one person or animal still matters. The story of the man and boy throwing starfish back into the ocean illustrates this perfectly-when told his efforts couldn't possibly make a difference among hundreds of stranded starfish, the boy throws another one back and says, "I made a difference to that one."
We must recognize that meaningful change often unfolds on its own timeline. Those who fought in movements for civil rights, women's suffrage, or labor didn't know they would win-they acted because it was what they needed to do. Like a fallen redwood that contributes to the ecosystem for centuries after death, our actions may have impacts extending far beyond our lifetimes.
The essential spirit of activism, like meditation or service, is showing up with connection and compassion without self-importance. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that "the most precious gift we can offer others is our presence." Joanna Macy echoes this: "The main thing is that you're showing up, that you're here, and that you're finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that."
