In my last post I asked myself whether I still burn. For what? Justice for all people. Mercy. Equality. Love. And the answer was that I still do. Not as angrily, zealously, or even impulsively as when I was younger. More like glowing embers with occasional flare-ups, but definitely hot and smoldering (when not crying).

When we get older, we often see a vaster perspective of things, and for many it gets easier, reading about famine, mass killing, or another glacier melting, to turn the page: Yes, yes, I know, been there, seen that, did what I could, so be it, that’s life.

Is there wisdom there? Maybe. We see patterns and cycles, the rise of new generations and technologies, and sometimes we say, like Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Violence begets violence, and the same can be said about cruelty, abuse, and intolerance.

But often there’s also disengagement. A sense of: I did my time, now it’s up to younger folks to do theirs. There’s truth there, if only because the energy is not the same anymore. I feel here what I feel for our political leadership: Let younger folks take over, it’s their time. There will be problems and messes, which are only natural in the transfer of power and energy between generations. But the change is inevitable. There are roles for elders, and one of those roles is acknowledging and teaching patience.

I had coffee with a new friend on Sunday who works mostly with people on the autism spectrum. She told me that a few times a week she sets up for a meeting, accompanied by one of her clients who wishes to help:

“We always do the same things. I take out my computer for plugging into an electrical socket. Jane (not her real name) wants to help, so I ask her to plug the camera into both the computer and the electrical socket, and the same for the projector. She looks at the cables and can’t figure out what goes where. I show her the difference between a prong that goes into the electrical socket and the USB cables that go into the computer, I show her that they look different and, when connected, are designed to fit perfectly into the different ports. I have done this a few times a week since May, and she can’t get it though I repeat the same instructions time after time.

“Last week, I took out the equipment, prepared to give Jane the same instructions as I have in the past, only this time she showed me a USB cable, pointed to the correct port on the computer, and said: ‘This goes there, right?’ She followed through with the other cables, too. For half a year I’d told her this, and this was the first time she got it. But will she do this again next time? Will she remember? I have no idea.”

That day, I came home with a big lesson on patience. And if you say that Jane was on the spectrum, I’m reminded of Bernie telling the story that he once met a Japanese Zen priest who was taking care of a residence for mentally challenged youth, and as a way of empowering them, he ordained them as young priests. When asked how he could ordain young people who are mentally retarded (the words used then), his answer was: “In the eyes of the Buddha, we are all retarded.”

I don’t know if we’re all retarded, but we sure are deluded, trapped in a rigid sense of self that melts ever so slowly. We all need patience. We must all practice patience.

The other day I had occasion to remember Hannah Arendt, and specifically the term she coined: the banality of evil. For those of you who don’t remember, the great philosopher was sent by The New Yorker to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, where he was being tried for implementing the Final Solution of the Jewish people. I believe that Arendt’s book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, was published in its entirety in The New Yorker.

In that book, she wrote that instead of seeing a giant of evil, a grotesque, malevolent human being, Arendt, herself a Jewish refugee from Germany, said that all she saw was a bureaucrat who followed orders, accepted the basic tenets of the government for which he worked, and then scrupulously carried out its instructions. To the last minute, he saw no problem with what he’d done. It doesn’t take monsters to do great evil, Arendt wrote, it can be committed by conscientious civil servants and bureaucrats who don’t question, don’t look sideways, just do as they’re told.

Her concept of the banality of evil had detractors, including the Israeli government, which is a whole other story. So, when evil is so banal, so prevalent, everywhere and every day, how do we meet it?

My friend, Roshi Michel Dobbs, wrote this: “We can fight banality with banality- in this case, with the banality of good- the banality of sacredness.”

Yes, evil is banal. Like it or not, we’re all complicit in harmful systems that destroy this earth and both human and nonhuman beings, not because we’re colossuses of evil but because our actions manifest its banal, self-involved, insipid character.

The good news is that good is also banal. As Michel wrote: “It’s in the little day to day moments that all of our life happens- in Zen we say take care of THIS moment- hold it with your two hands. Meaning give this moment and all the people and beings in it your full attention and love.  Stop, see, and care for and about the people in your family, your neighbors, the people that you meet each day.  Take care of the people who are struggling in your neighborhood- the elderly, the poor, the homeless, those with disabilities, loneliness, or depression.  And share all your love and joy with the children.”

Day by day we are faced with a choice. Continue being the messengers of banal evil—what we eat, what we see, what we choose to look away from, carelessly consuming and devouring, giving unquestioning obedience to corporate algorithms and cultural cliches. Or we can practice banal good, giving quietly, living small, cherishing all the ordinary beings and things in life.

We can be guilty of the banality of good in every place, in every situation—and at every age.