It's Okay to Not Be Okay

It’s Okay TO NOT BE OKAY WITH THE PANDEMIC ROCKING MUCH OF THE COUNTRY, MENTAL HEALTH IS TAKING A SERIOUS TOLL ACROSS THE NATION. AN NBC NEWS REPORT FOUND THAT NEARLY ONE IN FOUR INDIVIDUALS REPORTED FEELING ANXIOUS MORE THAN HALF OF THE PREVIOUS SEVEN DAYS, AND ONE IN FIVE REPORTED FEELING DEPRESSED.

Speakers pictured above from top to bottom: Aunty Kehaulani Lum, Reverend Noriaki Fujimori, and Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo But according to the Buddkyo Dendo Kyokai (BDK)-Fujitani Interfaith Program at Chaminade University, it’s okay to not feel okay right now.

The program, part of the School of Humanities, Arts and Design, recently invited three guest speakers to share tips on how to stay grounded when things are not okay—the virtual workshop was titled “I’m Not Okay, But It’s Okay: Finding a Middle Way.”

Aunty Kehaulani Lum, president of Ali'i Pauahi Hawaiian Civic Club, began the workshop by sharing the Native Hawaiian perspective of the current coronavirus pandemic.

“Today’s theme, ‘I’m not okay but it’s okay,’ are words that resonate deeply to Native Hawaiian people,” shared Lum. “They speak with wisdom and experience of generations of people who have survived great epidemics in these islands over the course of 200 years or more.”

Lum explained how in 1840, less than a century after British seafarers had landed in Hawai'i, nearly 84 percent of the Hawaiian population had died from diseases from which they had no immunity.

To Lum, the greatest answers in explaining our current situation come from looking at the source of the coronavirus pandemic. The virus is believed to have originated in bats in Wuhan, China—and ironically, bats are a symbol of health and longevity in Chinese culture. Specifically, says Lum, the virus was from a bat that was taken from a cave and brought to a market where humans coveted it as a delicacy. She believes there is a lesson there.

“We looked to guidance from the Kumulipo and found in the seventh era, just after the birth of the dog and the speckled bird, the springing forth of the bats,” explained Lum. She continued to share that right after the bats, the very last life form to be noted in the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian creation chant, is the man and the woman. “Can it be that by harming our older siblings through the destruction of their habitat and overconsumption, we have invited harm upon ourselves?”

Lum believes that the best medicine right now is to commit our hearts and resources to bringing peace and restoration to the natural environment. To her, doing so is “an act of grace, of holiness and total devotion to divinity—not just to ourselves, but to all of our familiar relationships.”

Reverend Noriaki Fujimori, the resident minister of Palolo Hongwanji, believes we can use this crisis as an opportunity to change our way of life.

“The Buddhist Master teaches us that encountering adversity is not always a bad thing,” says Fujimori. “It’s a chance to discover a treasure that we never knew we had.”

For Fujimori, anxiety and depression tend to stem from fear, and in most cases, we’re afraid of the unknown. But Buddhism guides people to live their life in the present—right here and right now—rather than worrying about an unknown future.

“The fear I create so easily in my mind is a preoccupation with what is going to happen in the future,” explains Fujimori. “This way of thinking has nothing to do with reality. No one knows what will happen in the future. We must find the joy in living right here and right now.”

He shared Lum’s belief that nature is healing, and explained that working in his