Repairing the World
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JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
We had a very successful zazenkai yesterday. There were eight of us, a good number considering some of our regular sangha members were on vacation. We had five calls about the event from newspaper press releases. Of the five calls, two attended. One of those two witnessed us bearing witness for Dafur at the Farmer's Market a couple of weeks ago. We can see from this that our activities in a public context are very important.
This zazenkai addressed the ways violence manifests in our lives. From the deep listening exercises, I found that anger, hurt, and fear were commonly associated with either violence itself or the thought of violence. People respond to such thoughts in so many different ways. Some are surprised, I think, They just are not prepared for the fact they can desire injury, even death, to another being. Others seem humiliated. Ashamed of either their behavior or their thoughts and angry at those who would seemingly cause such things to arise.
One of the more wonderful aspects of such exercises, I believe, is the touching aspect. By this I mean we are offered an opportunity to actually touch the seeds of such negative feelings. As we do so, we can recognize them and even transform them into powerful seeds of love and compassion.
There is one person who during dokusan revealed that once when assaulted, had an opportunity to touch deep compassion for the perpetrator. Able to see him as a person suffering as my student was suffering. Now we might think this is an effect of victimization, or similarly, a form of Stockholm syndrome, but I don't think so. My sense is that this person is stronger for this experience, more compassionate, and clearly more willing to engage the world for the sake of other victims on both sides of the scale. To affirm this, my student has taken courses in Restorative Justice and is even certified in that area.
I am reminded of one of the effects of traumatization I found when doing my doctoral research on combat veterans. It seemed that exposure to assault has the potential to heighten one's sensitivity to the moral and ethical realms of existence. This includes aesthetics. We are able to see beauty, see through the violence to the hearts that are suffering at our hands. Often this leads to the development of a deep commitment to a pro-social humanitarianism. Social justice becomes an item on our agenda and is often placed near the top of the list.
Our desire to restore is much like the Jewish concept of tikkun olam. It would seem those who have a history of suffering have a deep commitment to relieving suffering. Our suffering reveals a broken world, or as the Jewish mystics suggest a shattered world, in need of repair.
Trauma, victimization, oppression, poverty, all reveal a broken universe, or as we Buddhists like to say, a universe of dukkha (suffering like that of a wheel out of balance).
There is a way to end this suffering. That way is the Buddha way, the Middle way. the way of balanced engagement in the world. A engagement free of violence, restorative, nurturing, and compassionate,
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
We had a very successful zazenkai yesterday. There were eight of us, a good number considering some of our regular sangha members were on vacation. We had five calls about the event from newspaper press releases. Of the five calls, two attended. One of those two witnessed us bearing witness for Dafur at the Farmer's Market a couple of weeks ago. We can see from this that our activities in a public context are very important.
This zazenkai addressed the ways violence manifests in our lives. From the deep listening exercises, I found that anger, hurt, and fear were commonly associated with either violence itself or the thought of violence. People respond to such thoughts in so many different ways. Some are surprised, I think, They just are not prepared for the fact they can desire injury, even death, to another being. Others seem humiliated. Ashamed of either their behavior or their thoughts and angry at those who would seemingly cause such things to arise.
One of the more wonderful aspects of such exercises, I believe, is the touching aspect. By this I mean we are offered an opportunity to actually touch the seeds of such negative feelings. As we do so, we can recognize them and even transform them into powerful seeds of love and compassion.
There is one person who during dokusan revealed that once when assaulted, had an opportunity to touch deep compassion for the perpetrator. Able to see him as a person suffering as my student was suffering. Now we might think this is an effect of victimization, or similarly, a form of Stockholm syndrome, but I don't think so. My sense is that this person is stronger for this experience, more compassionate, and clearly more willing to engage the world for the sake of other victims on both sides of the scale. To affirm this, my student has taken courses in Restorative Justice and is even certified in that area.
I am reminded of one of the effects of traumatization I found when doing my doctoral research on combat veterans. It seemed that exposure to assault has the potential to heighten one's sensitivity to the moral and ethical realms of existence. This includes aesthetics. We are able to see beauty, see through the violence to the hearts that are suffering at our hands. Often this leads to the development of a deep commitment to a pro-social humanitarianism. Social justice becomes an item on our agenda and is often placed near the top of the list.
Our desire to restore is much like the Jewish concept of tikkun olam. It would seem those who have a history of suffering have a deep commitment to relieving suffering. Our suffering reveals a broken world, or as the Jewish mystics suggest a shattered world, in need of repair.
Trauma, victimization, oppression, poverty, all reveal a broken universe, or as we Buddhists like to say, a universe of dukkha (suffering like that of a wheel out of balance).
There is a way to end this suffering. That way is the Buddha way, the Middle way. the way of balanced engagement in the world. A engagement free of violence, restorative, nurturing, and compassionate,
Be well.