Rioting Monks?

Hey, what's going on with the rioting monks? I feel myself wanting to say, "Hey, you guys are monks! What's up with that?" But instead I am feeling their strain and their pain and wondering how we might be able to collectively stay focused on the potential for good.

I absolutely believe in the critical importance of maintaining a positive future vision. But in the midst of where I live and the onslaught of bad news, I sometimes find it difficult to stay with the positive. The last couple of days I have battled a bit. I wonder how to stay awake and stay positive at the same time. I am not talking about that kind of positive where we don't really acknowledge the painful truth of our situation. I am talking about a simultaneous holding of a visceral knowing of the truth that what we are doing isn't working and holding a positive vision of our collective ability to heal it.

And if someone walks around in the world holding both this knowing and this vision, what does it look like when the person shares these knowings with someone else. One of the people in my class suggested that in some cases this sharing may not even require speech.