Between Certainty and Chaos: Finding the Middle Way in Complex Times

Written by Rebecca Crall, Wisdom Sun practitioner and Wisdom Council member. Rebecca has worked in the field of global peacebuilding and conflict prevention for over twenty years.

Sitting with Complexity: A Practice for Difficult Times

In the heart of our spiritual practice lies a paradox: how do we cultivate a sense of peace and meaning in the face of incredible political and social turmoil? As Buddhists, we are trained to look deeply, to meditate not to escape the world, but to engage it with clarity, compassion, and courage. Yet, the world often resists clarity. Our modern world is tangled with contradiction—especially in today’s political climate, where the lines between right and wrong are blurred by context, systems, and the realities of human suffering.

Yet the most pressing issues of our time—from climate change and economic inequality to racial injustice and democratic fragility—resist simple solutions. They exist in webs of interconnection that span generations, cultures, and systems of power. To engage with these realities skillfully, we need practices that help us develop what peacebuilders call "complexity thinking": the capacity to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously without collapsing into false binaries or paralyzing indecision.

Protests against the rise in bus fare, Santiago Chile.

The Peacebuilding Lens: Beyond Good and Evil

In my work in peacebuilding and conflict prevention over the last 20+ years, the most important lesson I have learned is to embrace this complexity rather than try to control it. Peacebuilding work has long recognized that sustainable transformation requires moving beyond what conflict theorist John Paul Lederach calls "the myth of the quick fix." For example, in post-conflict societies, peacebuilders must navigate layers of historical trauma, competing narratives of victimhood and justice, and the messy reality that former enemies often need to become neighbors again.

This work teaches us that complexity isn't a problem to be solved but a reality to be engaged. When peacebuilders facilitate dialogue between opposing groups, they don't aim to find a middle ground that splits the difference. Instead, they create spaces where participants can begin to see how their seemingly contradictory truths might coexist—how both communities can simultaneously be victims and perpetrators, how justice and reconciliation can be pursued together rather than in opposition.

In our current social context, this wisdom feels especially urgent. We live in a time when many traditional structures have melted away, leaving us with a sense of groundlessness and uncertainty.

Yet beneath these surface divisions lie deeper complexities that actually reveal the connectivity our binary thinking often obscures. Rural communities struggling with economic decline share many of the same concerns with urban communities facing gentrification than either group typically recognizes. Parents want safe and successful schools and education for their children, no matter where we live. The desire for safety, dignity, and belonging transcends ideological categories, even as people seek these universal needs through very different pathways.

Black Lives Matter Protests, 2019

The Meditation Cushion as Training Ground

This is where contemplative practice becomes not just personal development but civic engagement. When we sit in meditation, we encounter our own minds' tendency toward oversimplification. A painful emotion arises, and immediately we want to categorize it: good or bad, justified or neurotic, something to embrace or something to push away. But in the spaciousness of sustained attention, we begin to notice something more nuanced.

Buddhism does not ask us to retreat from this complexity. Instead, it invites us to sit with it. Not to resolve it with a slogan or judgment, but to remain fully present with the tangled, often painful truths of our world. We begin by cultivating mindfulness. On the cushion, we watch our thoughts rise and fall. Some are angry, others confused or numb. We see our desire to assign blame. We notice how we grasp at certainty—wanting a clean answer, a clear villain. But life, like the mind, rarely offers that simplicity.

This is the training: to open our hearts even as our minds struggle. In Buddhist terms, we are practicing equanimity—not neutrality, but the steadiness to stay with the whole of the situation without turning away. We can recognize that harm is happening, and at the same time hold compassion for all involved. This doesn’t mean we are passive. Compassion can be fierce. But our actions arise not from hatred or self-righteousness, but from a deep understanding of interdependence.

Thich Nhat Hanh often reminded us that understanding is the foundation of love. When we look deeply, we understand that no one stands outside of the system. Protesters, ICE agents, immigrants, and politicians all participate in a shared, often broken reality. This view can feel overwhelming—how do we respond when everything is entangled? But Buddhist practice gives us tools: to breathe, to listen, to bear witness without collapsing.

The biological world and all of its complexity.

Practicing with Uncertainty

In meditation, we learn that uncertainty isn't a temporary state to be quickly resolved but a fundamental aspect of existence to be befriended. Thoughts arise and pass away. Emotions surge and subside. Even our sense of who we are shifts from moment to moment. Rather than seeing this impermanence as threatening, contemplative traditions teach us to find freedom in not knowing—liberation from the exhausting project of maintaining fixed positions in an constantly changing world.

For example, most people across the political spectrum share the value of wanting children to be safe and to flourish. But when it comes to specific questions—about school funding, curriculum choices, public health measures, or community policing—the path forward becomes much less clear. Sitting with this complexity doesn't mean abandoning the commitment to children's wellbeing. It means holding that commitment spaciously enough to remain genuinely curious about different approaches to achieving it.

The Both/And Practice One practical way to cultivate complexity thinking is "both/and" practice—learning to hold seemingly contradictory truths simultaneously. In meditation, this might mean feeling both grateful for your life and genuinely sad about its limitations. In social engagement, we can both acknowledge progress on racial equity and recognize how much work remains. We can both appreciate global connectivity's benefits and mourn the loss of local community.

This isn't relativism where all positions are equally valid, but rather sophisticated moral reasoning that holds multiple layers of truth without oversimplification.

Implications for Action Rather than leading to paralysis, sitting with complexity actually increases our capacity for skillful action. When we're not using energy to maintain rigid positions, we have more resources for effective engagement. Developing capacity to sit with our own internal complexity makes us more effective at navigating the inevitable complexity of working with others toward shared goals.

If you resonate with what is written here then the next time you meditate, try opening yourself to something about this world of ours that is hard to hold. Bring your courage to that engagement, and more tolerance for the troubling events we are witnessing and the difficult emotions they evoke. As you sit with all of this, see if you can open a window to some complexity, stretching your internal beliefs and ideas about this situation and the people involved in it. As you explore the different viewpoints in a non-judgmental manner, see if deeper understanding of what is happening arises, and from that, maybe even greater love for all involved.