Anger, grief and fear are primary reflexes that have the potential of taking us back to our safe, sympathetic intimate environment. To the extent that we have lost connection to the capacity of our autonomic nervous system to discharge stress, emotional energies freeze and don’t get resolved. This leave residues that sour and cripple the heart. So we practice cultivating our intimate environment; it's from here we can meet and transmute these afflictive emotions with pure presence.

The Buddhadharma has many applications: liberation, ethical refinement, and also, in challenging times especially, refuge (sarana). Unlike secular modalities, the Dharma is not a set of tools; it is meant also to be a shelter from the storm that offers and emotional, even embodied, consolation. Building on the framework of the triple gem — the refuges in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha — this talk explores how the Dharma can console all of us, particular LGBTQ+ and allied folks, in the contexts of climate anxiety, pandemic trauma, and political polarization.