I am angry. Day in and day out, it’s impossible to scroll through social media or glance at the news without confronting the heinous crimes of the rich and powerful. Democrat or Republican, American or Norwegian, the release of the Epstein files, while still woefully incomplete, has confirmed what conspiracy theorists have been calling out all along: the reality is worse than we imagined.
And yet, the world keeps turning at the same capitalist greed speed as before. The machine grinds on. For survivors, this is a double-edged sword: the reporting reopens wounds, yet it still doesn’t begin to capture the full scope of the harm done. We get glimpses—names, dates, flight logs—but the full truth remains buried under privilege, power, and payoffs.
Abuse—emotional, physical, sexual—has long persisted in hierarchical societies. At its core, Buddhism teaches us to be good to one another. The five precepts ask us to refrain from harm: not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual misconduct, not lying, and not clouding the mind with intoxicants. And yet the spotlight on these files evokes similar transgressions within Buddhist communities: Rigpa, Shaolin Temple, Shambhala International, to name a few. The same patterns. The same protection of the powerful. The same silencing of the wounded. So what are we to do with this horrific truth?
The first instinct, for many, is deflection. Trump may be in the files, so Republicans point to Clinton. Clinton’s name appears, so Democrats point right back. We circle endlessly, placing bets like bloodthirsty spectators at the Colosseum, as if this were a sporting event and not a crime scene.
Is it just me, or has the world gone mad? Up until recently, I operated under the naive assumption that despite all our divisions—despite politics, religion, culture—the one thing we could all agree on, even hardened criminals, is that harming children through pedophilia and torture was a non-negotiable line. A big, fat no-no. And now I blink, and suddenly there are defenders. Apologists. People who would rather protect a party, a brand, a legacy, than protect children.
What can be done, some might shrug. And maybe that’s the question we should be sitting with. The Buddha taught us to see things as they are—to observe, investigate, and draw our own conclusions. Smrti—mindfulness—is not just about watching our breath. It is about bearing witness to what is, without flinching, without turning away. It is the courage to hold suffering in awareness, even when it burns.
So let us look clearly now at what’s actually in front of us.
The powerful harmed children. The connected and the wealthy used their positions to torment the most vulnerable among us. And they got away with it. For decades. With impunity. With the protection of laws designed by and for people like them.
And it isn’t just politicians and corporate tycoons who are implicated. So many of the voices we’ve been listening to—spiritual teachers, intellectuals, public figures—are allegedly in the files as well. Deepak Chopra. Noam Chomsky. Names we trusted. Names that sold us wisdom while apparently orbiting a world of unfathomable harm. The ground shifts beneath our feet, and we are left asking: who can we trust?
I saw an Instagram reel recently that struck me to the core. It said something along the lines of: “Guess who isn’t in the Epstein files? Trans people. Gay people. Immigrants of color. Poor people.”
Let that sink in. The communities blamed for society’s moral decay, scapegoated in political campaigns and dinner table arguments alike—nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, those of us who kept insisting the real danger sat in boardrooms, not in marginalized neighborhoods, were called weak.
I have spent my life being teased for being “too soft.” The work I do—serving women, showing up in recovery circles, moving gently through a world that rewards aggression—has often been dismissed as naive, weak, unnecessary. You need to grow a pair. Work hard, play hard. Toughen up. The same sayings thrown at anyone who refuses to harden.
Well. If nothing else, we can now put an image to those voices. We can see, with terrible clarity, where the “tough” ones end up. The ones who played hard. The ones who built empires on the backs of the vulnerable. The ones who mocked softness while funding nightmarish islands.
I stand firmly by being soft. And if that message hasn’t reached you yet, let me make sure it does now: we need softer, kinder voices in this world. In business. In government. In spiritual spaces. We need people who can hold grief without becoming numb. Who can witness horror without turning into perpetrators. Who can sit with the wounded and say, without flinching, I see you. I believe you. I am here.
I am tired of the world moving on. The files are released, we blink, and it’s on to the next scandal, the next distraction, the next election. But for survivors, there is no “next.” There is only the wound, reopened. There is only the long, slow work of healing in a world that would rather forget.
What are we going to do about this?
I don’t have tidy answers. What I have is this: a commitment to stay soft in a world that rewards hardness. A commitment to keep showing up in women’s spaces and recovery rooms, places where the wounded gather to heal. A commitment to name the harm, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it implicates people I once admired.
The files are out. Some semblance of the truth is surfacing. The world, for a moment, is forced to look.
What we do next—whether we turn away or walk toward—will define us.
I am walking toward. Softly, gently, but with eyes wide open.
Will you join me?
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.
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