It's a myth that spiritual people are not attached, that they're somehow above the trials and tribulations of ordinary life. Not only are they affected by things, they're tremendously affected by them. For rather than living in the realm of ideas and feelings about suffering, they live in the realm of action.
How do they know what action to take? How do they know how to heal?
When we bear witness, when we become the situation — homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death — the right action arises by itself. We don't have to worry about what to do. We don't have to figure out solutions ahead of time. Peacemaking is the functioning of bearing witness. Once we listen with our entire body and mind, loving action arises.
Loving action is right action. It's as simple as giving a hand to someone who stumbles or picking up a child who has fallen on the floor. We take such direct, natural actions every day of our lives without considering them special. And they're not special. Each is simply the best possible response to that situation in that moment.
In the Zen Peacemaker Order we commit ourselves to healing others at the same time that we heal ourselves. We don't wait to be peaceful before we begin to make peace. In fact, when we see the world as one body, it's obvious that we heal everyone at the same time that we heal ourselves, for there are no "others."
— Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness