Her situation particularly reminded me of something I’d read the evening before in Jack Kornfield’s book, “The Wise Heart” and I offered her my loose recollection of Kornfield’s wise words which are: “The quieting of our mind is a political act. The world does not need more oil or energy or food. It needs less greed, less hatred, less ignorance. Even if we have inwardly taken on the political bitterness and cynicism that exists externally, we can stop and begin to heal our own suffering, our own fear, with compassion. Through meditation and inner transformation, we can learn to make our own hearts a place of peace and integrity. Each of us knows how to do this. Gandhi acknowledged, “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.”

Thanks for that! ^_^

By golly, I’m ready.

All my best to you all.

You’ve been a practitioner of Zen for a while now, I’ve been one for just a short time, really.  Right now, my practice is centered on the edges – where am I not mindful, how can I bring my breath back, how could I more mindfully approach the problem I am taking.  Where are the edges of your practice?  What new things are you finding to explore.  On the one hand, I realize that it’s all about Breathing In, Breathing Out, and if you forget, it’s back to Breathing In, Breathing Out, but I imagine that the journey your practice has taken leads you to changing challenges or concerns.  Or perhaps it hasn’t – perhaps *Practice* is all about the edges and I’m asking a silly question. ^_^

In the 10.26 Upaya newsletter, Ben Howard speaks of “Closing Doors”:

• When Thich Nhat Hanh, then a young Vietnamese monk, visited the Trappist monk Thomas Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky in 1966, Merton observed how his guest opened and closed the door. From that action alone, Merton later remarked, he could tell that Thich Nhat Hanh was “an authentic monk”.

Howard then reminds us of the “subtle gestures” of Zen.  While not new, an undoubtedly not new to many practitioners of Zen, this subtle gesture, this idea of being known as an authentic monk by the way one closes a door – this has been the, well, door into my practice right now, the way in — the way back in from the edges.  What about yourself?

How are y’all?

URGENT – PRESS RELEASE 30.09.09 5pm (VN time)

Vietnam Government reveals it hand – and turns from eviction to outright persecution

It is now clear that the police and government are not satisfied with the forced closure and violent eviction of monks and nuns from Bat Nha monastery itself, but are intent on continued, aggressive persecution of this one group of people. Blockade, threatened violence, intimidation and forced surrender of young monks and nuns Uniformed police have blockaded the Chùa Phước Huệ temple in Bảo Lộc where the 376 monastics have taken sanctuary. Police officers, numbering 200 at their peak, yesterday viciously threatened the abbot, Venerable Thai Thuan.

Last night, their campaign of intimidation – which has included attacking his reputation in thousands of flyers distributed throughout the town – culminated in a demand that the abbot surrender 15 monks and nuns. Officers even threatened to repeat at Chùa Phước Huệ temple the violence and destruction they inflicted at Bat Nha if they did not comply. Under this extreme pressure, the abbot surrendered the 15 youngest monks and nuns. They were given into police custody at midnight, and it is understood they have been taken to Saigon.

These refugee monks and nuns are very young – almost all under 25 and many under 18 years old. They are vulnerable and helpless, almost 400 in total now crowded into this small town-centre temple for refuge. Their elder monastic brothers have been separated from them, held without charge, and are under house arrest in Ha Noi and Nha Trang, their papers confiscated.

For the first time, High Buddhist Monks speak out
The head of the Buddhist Church Association of Lam Dong Province, High Venerable Hoa Thuong Phap Chieu, resigned his post yesterday. A further group of key high-profile venerables in the region have, extraordinarily, put their names to a letter condemning the violence. [document attached] They demand the peaceful resolution of the situation and testify to the violence they were subjected to in June when they attempted to travel to Bat Nha monastery in support.

Catholic support
Remarkably, the congregation of the neighboring Catholic Church has offered sanctuary to the refugee monks and nuns in the event that the Abbot of Chùa Phước Huệ is unable to resist government pressure.

Spread the word – speak out, help out if you can.

• Reverend Danny Fisher has blogged about Fr. Mychal.  I’d especially like to refer you to this article, written in 2008 in honor of the Father’s 75th birthday.
• There was an absolutely wonderful film made about Fr. Mychal – Saint of 9/11 – I highly recommend it.  You can stream it here.
• Via @UpayaChaplains today comes word of a New York Magazine lovely article “The Firemen’s Friar.”

Shannon Stapleton, a Reuters photographer, took this incredibly moving picture, shortly after Father Mychal died.

]]> http://buddingbuddhist.com/?feed=rss2&p=427 4 http://buddingbuddhist.com/?p=423 http://buddingbuddhist.com/?p=423#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:14:11 +0000 edamommy http://buddingbuddhist.com/?p=423 I wanted to share with you a passage from I Have Arrived, I Am Home.  It’s really struck a cord with me and deeply affected my daily practice.  It’s from “Awakening My Mind of Love:  Becoming a Monastic” written by Brother Chân Phap Can (True Dharma Diligence):

I remember, one day, I was in the kitchen in the Upper Hamlet when Thây walked up to me and asked, “My child, what are you doing?”  I answered quietly, “Respected Thây, I am cutting vegetables.”  “I think you are breathing, my child,” Thây said softly.  His voice was full of compassion.  I stopped suddenly. “Perhaps you have forgotten,” Thây said and walked away, with such ease and freedom.  Thây’s words have remained indelible in my mind.  When I am sitting alone, I often think of Thây’s question, “What are you doing?”  I come back to my breathing and return to the present moment.”

The weekend that followed was a long one, to say the least.  Friday it took us hours to collect the kids from the local high school.  (All of the bus riders that were en route to the area were rerouted there. Additionally, our two youngest  and their schoolmates were escorted from their school (by armed police escort) out of the neighborhood to the high school.)  It took a lot of extra time to get out of the neighborhood and even more to be allowed back in.  I’ll spare you the weekend’s gory details beyond these:

• There were hundreds of police officers in my (normally) quiet neighborhood Friday night, plus K9 patrols, plus the county’s infra-red equipped police helicopter.
• Even with all that fire-power, Pitikas was not captured until Sunday afternoon.  Because of the way the situation was handled he was given enough leeway to dart behind a shed and kill himself with the last bullet in his gun.  If we’d not had the AC running there is NO doubt we would have heard it – he wasn’t very far away.

After it was over and we had learned the details, I took the kids aside and explained what had happened.  We had been honest and open about what the man was suspected of, and what he did here, so they knew he wasn’t just a guy, so to speak, that he had been a danger to the neighborhood, and that it was good that the danger was gone.  However, we also talked about the sadness of the event.  How this man, by doing what he did, no longer had choices, no longer had any possibility of finding redemption, and so on.  Also, as John Donne said, “no man is an island….”  That was a concern for my eldest in particular – the parents of Pitikas, the deputies that were there -  all these people have been affected by Pitikas’ last decision.

My middle son was calm and relieved, and very thoughtful about the event – he seemed to take it OK. However, I’ll probably talk to him about it at a later point – he tends to hide how he feels about things.  My youngest was relieved, but also deeply worried for what would happen to Pitikas from a spiritual perspective – especially leaving things the way he did.  The fact that his sadness and concerns for Pitikas wholly overrode his own experience of fear and the relief of that fear – well, that was a beautiful and touching thing to witness.

Now for the ugly.  (I’m sure you can sort out the “bad” and the “good” of this post.)  The only way to get quick updates on the situation over the weekend was to follow a particular thread on a “local folks” online forum.  For myself, mostly I was deeply saddened by the way things turned out.  However, I was deeply concerned and a bit surprised by the attitude exhibited by some.  One example:

A little levity helps, I’m just not sure I meant it. But, there are times when the “no leash law” here has some advantages….. Get ‘em Gomez! (And the OPW Surf Crew mentioned something about pliers and a blow torch.)

There were other remarks and other events.  A neighbor and friend who lives very close to where Pitikas took his life said that one of her neighbors was patrolling up and down the street with a shotgun over his shoulder.  All in all, everyone was fine, but many were not calm and very stressed out.  However, a significant minority vocalized violent thoughts in response to this threatening incident.

I did not struggle with compassion for young (born in 1984) Matheos Pitikas.  However, when I felt moved to mention my compassion for him and ALL involved, many were unhappy with my post.  I guess many people feel that compassion is a limited resource to be spent carefully.  I tend to side with Sharon Salzberg on this, though I’m taking this quote out of context (forgive me!):

Compassion reminds us that everyone suffers.  Since that is true, do we really want some person whom we do not like to experience only more and more suffering?

Ms. Salzberg goes on to quote Longfellow:

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

So I let go of my sadness about this, and let go of the conversation – I didn’t see any point in trying to foist my opinion on people clinging to their anger and fear.  As caustic as fear is, it always amazes me how hard people will cling to it.

Looks I’ve written another long and rambling post.  Mostly I felt a need to express what I’m working on, internally, and maybe also to give words to the sadness I’ve felt over this.  If anyone out there has thoughts, I’d welcome them.

Breathing in again.
Renewal gently whispers.
Outbreath smile begins.