There's nothing you can do. It's out of your hands. The only appropriate action is the action of being.

Early on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, I found myself in a hospital waiting room. A loved one was in the middle of a life-threatening emergency and was undergoing a surgical procedure.

The waiting room was empty except for me. I sat there, stunned, thinking about all the lucky twists our morning had taken. We were so close to the hospital when it had happened. I was supposed to be on the other side of town, but by some dumb wisdom I was right where I needed to be. I was able to take clear action: Call for help, flag down the paramedics, offer information about medical history. I contacted friends and family to alert them.

In the waiting room, there was nothing I could do but wait.

Nichiren Buddhists are action-oriented -- perhaps even action-obsessed -- in our approach to Buddhist practice. To many of us, the word "practice" means "doing something." Practicing the Lotus Sutra means being a busy bodhisattva.
In his book Opening the Heart of the Cosmos, Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that the Lotus Sutra is, in part, a call to action -- but appropriate action depends on one's circumstances. Sometimes, the action of non-action is needed most. From the book, chapter 19:

...We think of action and non-action as two different things. When we say, "Don't just sit there, do something!" we are urging people to act. But if someone is in a poor state of being, if they don't have enough peace, enough understanding, enough inclusiveness, if they still have a lot of anger and fear, then not only will their action have no value, it may even be harmful. The quality of our action depends on the quality of our being: skillful action arises from the foundation of being, and being is non-action. So the calm, mindful, fully present quality of our being, the quality of our non-action, is already a kind of "action" in this sense.

This passage in particular hit home for me because my earliest education in Nichiren Buddhism exhorted me to "practice hard." Maybe you can relate, too:

We have to look into every action in order to see the ground of that action, the quality of being that it arises from. Sometimes you may not "do" anything yet you are doing a lot. Sometimes you do a lot. You may be always very busy attending to so many things, but you don't really accomplish much because your activities come from a place of striving that leaves you drained and incapable of experiencing the peace and joy of the present moment. There are even those who approach Buddhist practice this way -- they practice very hard, meditating twelve hours a day, reciting the sutras, evoking the name of the Buddha, yet they are not transformed at all. Their anger, frustration, and resentment are still there.

I -- and many other Nichiren Buddhists, I suspect -- know how to storm the ramparts of life, fight hard and never accept defeat. We haven't placed much emphasis, though, on practicing Buddhism like a loved one in a hospital waiting room. What does this kind of practice look like? Again, from Thich Nhat Hanh:

Many of us try to do many things, yet the more we act the more troubled our family, society, and world become, because the foundation of our being is not yet stable enough. Try practicing the opposite: don't do anything, don't take any action right away, but improve your quality of being through meditation and mindfulness practice. To be in the here and now, fully alive, fully present, is a very positive contribution to any situation. Increasing our insight, compassion, and understanding through the practice of mindfulness is the best thing we can offer the world. This is the practice of non-practice, the attainment of non-attainment, the action of non-action. We improve the quality of our being so that we have peace and joy, and then we can offer it to our families and communities, and to the world.

Our world -- or maybe just America? -- is in the middle of a major medical emergency. So much is beyond our immediate sphere of physical action. The patient is in the operating room, and we are in the waiting room. Waiting for a presidential election. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Certainly, there are some things we can do. But we can't singlehandedly stop a war, repair a national financial meltdown or push back flood waters and wild fires.

In some emergencies, perhaps the most urgently needed action is the action of being.