new year’s letter
2024 hit hard. I lost my father…
And in the last weeks, his absence became loud.I remember his quirks, the good things, the moments I thought I’d always have. And yet, I know—he’s still here with me in ways I can’t quite explain.
This year was full of other goodbyes too. A lot of letting go. And in that letting go, I felt the ache of wishing things could be different.
But isn’t that the human dilemma?
Wishing reality was anything other than what it is.
There’s war. Nobody wants it.
Except a few. I’d call them psychopaths. But in the spirit of compassion I’m trying to cultivate, let’s call them broken and disconnected. Driving destruction to fill a void they can’t even name.
Here we are. In this age of progress, people are still torturing one another. Still stuck in cycles of harm and fear. It’s the reality we have to face.
I’m writing this from a monastery that was born from the ashes of war.
A Vietnamese monk, exiled during the Vietnam War, opened it after losing everything. Years ago, he said something that I remembered this week:
People who cause pain are drowning in their own suffering.
They can’t feel their own wounds, so they can’t feel the destruction they are causing to others.
People who are inflicting pain onto others don’t need more anger.
What they need is compassion.
Compassion doesn’t excuse harm—it dissolves the distance. It lets them meet their own pain. Their own war within.
And isn’t that what we all need?
To stop running. To stop numbing. To sit with what hurts, our own pain, that of others, open our hearts to it, and let it transform us.
How do we do that?
How do we hold joy and grief in the same hands? How do we open our hearts to all of it?
How do we turn pain into something meaningful, purposeful, even beautiful?
It’s a question I’m sitting with as 2025 begins.
We rush to “fix” ourselves every new year. Set goals. Level up. Start fresh.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for leveling up. For dreaming big and starting anew.
but gooosshhh… we can’t built anything new on top of avoidance.
The only way forward is to hold both:
The vision of what’s possible.
And the capacity to sit with what’s hurting and transform it into something that is bigger than ourselves.
This monastery wouldn’t exist without the suffering its founder endured as a young monk.
It wouldn’t exist without his choice to create—not in spite of his pain, but because of it. He turned his and others’ suffering into a space where hundreds now find peace and purpose.His compassion reshaped reality.
So I bow to that.
And to 2025.
Here’s to a year of creation.
Of open hearts, clear minds, and bold action. Of attending to our pain instead of avoiding it. Of holding the shadows – and building something beautiful and true from the ashes.
It’s a lot to ask, perhaps. So I’ll begin with just one thing:
My intention for 2025 is wisdom: Knowing when to act—and from what place to act.
What’s yours? Share it with us so we can hold it into our awareness in our next meditation.
Love,
GG