When you learn to step back and become loving awareness itself, you become a model of how to live in this magnificent and troubled human incarnation. We human beings have suffered wars and environmental disasters, earthquakes and typhoons, tornadoes and pandemics. We know how to do this. We know how to keep our hearts steady and calm. We know how to see that we're woven together in this mystery. Then we can respond—not with fear or ambition, and not with optimism or pessimism, both of which are just ideas. We can respond with the heart.