As a highly sensitive person (HSP) who has known burnout personally, I am deeply mindful of my energy. I advise my HSP clients to honor their limits, knowing our tendency to overcommit and then shut down. So when I signed up for a Buddhist town hall event on immigration justice, a part of me wondered about the cost. Would the weight of the world’s suffering in that virtual space be too much to hold?
The answer came immediately. The event, titled “Buddhist Voices for Immigration Justice,” was a joint venture between the Buddhist Coalition for Democracy and the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. Livestreamed on 20 November and now freely accessible on YouTube, it drew participants from across the United States and beyond. The intention was clear from the start: all donations would be directed to the National Immigration Project, a US organization providing critical legal support and advocacy for immigrants on the ground and in the courtrooms. This practical, compassionate framing promised a purposeful, goal-focused engagement.
The evening began not with statistics or polemics, but with a grounding meditation that made space for both the suffering and the compassion that meets it. Then, the moderator, Luisa Montero-Diaz, offered a welcome that felt wonderfully affirming to my nervous system: “Welcome to all of you, and also welcome to all parts of you tonight. . . . Even your anger and your frustration and your fears, and your hopes are all welcome here tonight.”
This set the stage for a profound practice in engaged Buddhism—the integration of mindfulness and compassion into direct social action. The context for this engagement is the current landscape in the US, where a resurgence of harsh immigration policies has led to widespread fear within migrant communities. Recent executive actions have expanded deportations, limited asylum access, and intensified raids, often separating families and targeting long-term residents for minor infractions. It is within this climate of state-sanctioned violence that the Dharma was being called to respond.
The panelists, including renowned teachers such as Tara Brach and Lama Rod Owens, alongside activists and legal experts, did not shy away from this brutal reality. The audience was encouraged to look deeply at the historical roots of the US, built on a foundation of exploitation that makes the current targeting of immigrants not an anomaly, but a predictable recurrence. Lama Rod Owens, a teacher in the Kagyu school of Vajrayana, grounded the conversation in a land acknowledgment, pointing to the deep irony of discussing immigration on colonized land. He channeled the fierce, liberating energy of the female Buddha Tara, framing compassion as an active force that demands we disrupt suffering. His foundational belief, which gave this force its direction, echoed throughout the night: “Everyone deserves to be free. Everyone deserves to have the right to be safe. . . . And we all have a right to belong to community.”
This sense of shared belonging was the thread that transformed overwhelming policies into a call for intimate, embodied compassion. Tara Brach led us in a powerful meditation, framing our collective purpose through the archetype of the bodhisattva—the awakening being whose heart is wide enough to be touched by the suffering of all beings. She urged us to move beyond abstract sympathy. “Our compassion can stay in our head,” she noted, especially for those of us with privilege who live in relative “bubbles of comfort.” To truly wake up our hearts in the spirit of the bodhisattva, she guided us to imagine the visceral fear of a knock on the door that could tear a family apart, or the agony of telling a child what to do if you don’t come home. This practice of “What’s it like being you?” is the alchemy that turns distant awareness into tender, immediate compassion—the kind that must manifest as action.
Refreshingly, the call to action was not a demand to burn out on the front lines, but an invitation to find our unique, sustainable pathways. Buddhist activist and physician Dr. Marisella B. Gomez shared tangible, heartbreaking observations from the ground. Latino families in her Baltimore neighborhood are now too afraid to line up for food banks or send their children to school. She emphasized that support looks different for everyone. For some, it’s risking arrest by accompanying someone to court; for others, it’s providing monetary support or engaging in community organizing. The key, she stressed, is to honestly assess our own capacity and privilege, and to challenge ourselves to step up from that honest place.
This individualized approach was particularly resonant for me as an HSP. It mirrored the advice I give my clients: trust your gut, honor your unique circumstances, and find a pace that is both compassionate and sustainable. The evening’s legal expert, Prof. Lenni B. Benson of New York Law School, reinforced this, providing a concrete spectrum of ways to help. She encouraged us to “trust your instinct, trust your heart, your mind, your stomach” when we witness injustice. Her suggestions ranged from being a witness at courthouses and training as an accredited legal representative, to fundraising for legal aid or simply cooking a meal for an exhausted lawyer.
When a questioner voiced the weariness and anger that comes from round-the-clock protesting and volunteering, Tara Brach offered wisdom for the sensitive activist’s soul. She affirmed that anger is natural and intelligent, a sign of deep caring. The path forward, she suggested, is to go under the anger to the fear, and under the fear to the core of our caring. From that nourished, connected place, our actions can be sustained by love rather than drained by rage.
The evening closed as it began—with a collective dedication of merit, a prayer that our shared intention would ripple outward. As an HSP, I left not drained, but surprisingly resourced. The space had been skillfully held, allowing for both the horror of the truth and the profound hope of collective action. For those who wish to witness this synthesis of Dharma and justice, the recording remains a valuable resource. It was a powerful reminder that our practice does not ask us to turn away from the world’s pain, but to learn to hold it in the same heart: a heart that is wise enough to know its limits and fierce enough to act from a place of boundless, compassionate love.
Nina Müller is a Mindfulness Teacher who offers online mindfulness coaching sessions. If you would like to find out more, please visit The Mindful Practice to book a complimentary consultation.
See more
IMCW: Buddhist Voices for Immigration Justice
YouTube Video: Buddhist Voices for Immigration Justice
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