In the wake of the events of September
11, a number of Buddhist teachers and practitioners have
offered thoughts and prayers for guidance during this time.
Teacher Responses
|
Best Web site Anthologies
| Suggested
Readings
A Time for
Heroes
Robert Joshin Althouse
Our hearts have been moved by many
acts of heroism in New York City during the tragic aftermath
of the destruction of the World Trade Center and the tragic
loss of over 6,000 individual lives. These events in our
world are calling each of us to respond in ways that are
heroic because they take us beyond the normal edge of our
conditioning.
The question before us is stark and
sobering. How do we respond to evil? We can not deny it.
The action of flying a commercial airliner into a building
for the purpose of inflicting maximum suffering is evil.
As a nation, we are being asked to
prepare for a different kind of war, one that may take determination
to stay the course and to fight an enemy we can not easily
identify. Serious questions arise between the balance of
our civil liberties and the need for security. If we do
not maintain this balance, we will not have defeated our
enemy, for we will have become the enemy ourselves.
So our response must include a deep
spiritual awareness about the roots of evil. We must understand
the causes of evil. If our response seeks to inflict maximum
damage and revenge upon our imagined enemy, we will easily
become like our enemy. We must decide whether our response
will be based on love or hate.
If our response is based on love,
then it will include values of non-violence. Many think
non-violence is weak, but it is the true path of spiritual
warriors and heroes. Non-violence is not a sentimental evasion
of unpleasant realities nor an avoidance of violence that
wishes it would go away. Non-violence is the practice of
opening and bearing witness to a conflict in a way that
does not exclude any voice or point of view. Though it is
often associated with a pacifism, a non-violent perspective
might advocate the protective use of force while not condoning
the punitive use of force.
If our response is based on hatred,
we will become victims of the violence and terror we seek
to eliminate. Violence robs us of our voice. It begins where
rational communication falters. Cultures that organize for
violence become systematically unreasonable and inarticulate.
This path will threaten the very freedom we seek to defend.
Love seeks to understand and to listen.
Love understands that at the heart of our human experience
is a deep insecurity and impermanence that can never be
completely fulfilled by ideas, ideologies or even religions.
We might well learn this lesson from
recalling the nature of Hitler's fascism. Fascism was based
on the idea that evil was irreversible. It was a blemish
which should be removed once and for all. Hence the fascination
with final solutions. Nazis could not tolerate uncertainty.
This inability to accept the uncertainty
of life gave rise to the belief in the finality and irreversibility
of evil. But the fabric of our world is not final - it is
in the process of being born, of becoming and the good we
do is always uncertain because suffering is constant and
love triumphs not by eliminating evil but by transforming
it. Love arises from the spiritual strength to assume the
suffering of another and to transform this through forgiveness.
Love requires the heroic act of acknowledging
evil in ourselves as well as in others. If we are honest,
we must recognize the terrorist in ourselves. Who among
us has not been offended, has not suffered injustice at
the hands of another and wanted revenge. When we feel victimized
and helpless, striking out through aggression may temporarily
feel empowering.
When we understand the relationship
between terrorist and victim, we may begin to understand
the roots of violence not only within ourselves, but in
our larger society. A society that is based on consumption
and greed is one that gives rise to terrorism and oppression
because it in a state of moral confusion.
Gandhi understood this and this was
the spiritual basis of his nonviolence. He understood that
such a society must be resisted through the practice of
non-cooperation. To address terrorism, we must address injustice
and the enormous disparity of wealth and poverty that exist
in much of the world, outside of America. We should not
really be so shocked to realize that many people in the
rest of the world, view America as a terrorist state. We
are not innocent. In fact, innocence and terrorism are just
two sides of the same coin.
To suggest such things at a time
of great national unity and patriotism may seem disloyal.
But remember that in Nazi Germany, any attempt to dialogue
with evil was always viewed as an act of weakness. A Rambo-type
strength grows with increasing fanaticism and acts of consciousness
become tinged with betrayal. As the wheel of tyranny gathers
steam, acts of tolerance are increasingly viewed as threats
which must be eliminated.
Questioning and not-knowing is unbearable.
Bearing witness to continual pain and grief is replaced
with anger and acts of aggression. Evil and good are polarized
in such a way that the evil one is demonized into a clear-cut
object which must be eliminated once and for all.
This nonordinary time calls for nonordinary
responses. We will need to decide whether our response comes
from a place of love or hate. Violence begets violence.
A violent change is no change at all. Nothing is made new.
Our need for safety and security is great but our need to
be free of tyranny is even greater. The only response that
will address this need will be one that liberates both the
terrorist and victim, both the persecutor and the one oppressed.
Robert Joshin Althouse, Zen Peacemaker
Order
