What I am about to share with you, touched my heart in a huge way, as I hope it does to yours, too. I love Thich Nhat Hanh, and when I was reading his book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, I cried. I cried tears of joy throughout the book and then I cried tears of sadness, when something happened to him during one of his speeches in America. So, it is lengthy but it is a valuable good read my Sangha. But there was one evening when Thich Nhat Hanh awoke not understanding but rather the measureless rage of one American. He had been talking in the auditorium of a wealthy Christian Church in a St. Louis suburb. As always, he emphasized the need for Americans to stop their bombing and killing in his country. There had been questions and answers when a large man stood up and spoke with searing scorn of the supposed compassion of this Mr. Hanh The man said to Thich Nhat Hanh............If you care so much about your people, Mr. Hanh, why are you here? If you care so much for the people who are wounded, why dont you spend your time with them? When he finished, the spirit of the war itself had suddenly filled the room, and it seemed hard to breathe. There was a silence...........Then Nhat Hanh began to speak........quietly, with deep calm, indeed with a sense of personal caring for the man who had just damned him. The words seemed like rain falling on fire. If you want the tree to grow, he said, it wont help to water the leaves. You have to water the roots. Many of the roots of the war are here, in your country. To help the people who are to be bombed, to try to protect them from this suffering, I Have To Come Here.......The atmosphere in the room was transformed. In Hanhs response, we had experienced an alternate possibility: The possibility........(here brought to to Christians by a Buddhist and to Americans by an enemy) of overcoming hatred with love, of breaking teh seemingly endless chain reaction of violence throughout human history. Thich Nhat Hanh explained that the mans comments had been terribly upsetting. He had wanted to respond to him with anger. So he made himself breathe deeply and very slowly in order to find a way to respond with calm and understanding. Until very recently, Thich Nhat Hanh has made no attempt to teach Western people any of the skills of meditation. what he often calls mindfulness. And this, my Sangha, brought tears to my eyes, and I wept. Thich Nhat Hanh, who is so calm and quiet and such a great teacher for all of us, no matter what religion we are or what country we were born in, he teaches us about mindfulness and compassion. And, it saddened me, that he had to go through this, but ya know what? That is life! Life is not easy, and it is not fair, but when we have the tools of Buddhism, we get by just a bit better. Because we Know better. We can reach into our teachings of the Buddha and be mindful. We cannot change others, but we can change ourselves into wonderful peaceful beings. Much love to you today and I hope you have peace this very moment in your life. I am with you! Buddha girl, Julie..........
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 17:19:21 +0000
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