By Tias Little, Author of The Practice Is the Path

We are committed to remaining the entire month of April apart from each other, practicing social distance. A lingering uncertainty remains—what about May and June? How can we see this through?

I feel at a loss myself, and wonder if I should while away the time playing Fortnite with my fifteen-year-old, working on a puzzle of the faithful faces at Woodstock, or watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island and Scooby Doo. I struggle to make sense of the shutdown, the distance, the enormity of the worldwide quarantine. How are others coping? Are people taking shots of vodka, getting high, sleeping late, eating more simply to get by? The medicine I have come to is a teaching I picked up from the street-wise, Bu-Jew dharma teacher Bernie Glassman. This teaching is on bearing witness.

Bearing witness suggests to be with what is, as it is happening. It is a practice in a kind of presence that doesn't deny, reject, or ignore the way things are. As witness, we are not separate, remote like a satellite, observing from on high, but rather smack-dab in the middle of it all. By bearing witness we feel whatever is arising, whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We come to witness not only the harmonious and the sublime, but also the loss, the hurt, and the fear. Bearing witness requires inner reflection and a capacity to behold the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

In the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths, the first tenet is that suffering is inherent to being. Questing on the spiritual path necessitates a face-to-face encounter with deterioration and loss. Thus we bear witness to the suffering of the world. Daily  on CNN, NPR, or Twitter we bear witness to trials of tragedy: the infected man dying alone without the comfort of family, faces of fear at the window, lovers separated, strained marriages crumbling, coffins stacked high in the morgue. In bearing witness we attune to a living tremor of sorrow. As a result, we build a kind of staying power to be with the trauma and the tears of our time.

In this strange time of social distance, we do not go cold. We do not turn away from the world, dispassionate and aloof. Rather, by bearing witness we proceed straight from the heart. Our hearts bleed concern, loving kindness, and nurturance. We acknowledge our own vulnerability and the vulnerability of all we love. In bearing witness we garner resiliency to see us through the time we are in right now and, fortified with kindness, to persevere in the time ahead, come what may.

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Tias Little synthesizes years of study in classical yoga, Sanskrit, Buddhism, anatomy, massage, and trauma healing in his dynamic, original style of teaching. One of the foremost yoga instructors in North America, he offers intensives at all major yoga conferences and institutes, including the Yoga Journal conferences, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Esalen Institute, and Omega Institute. Learn more.