Walking the Wall

I listened to a radio program called A Radio Pilgrimage with Thich Nhat Hanh that you can download from that link, or read the transcript, though I recommend listening to it as it is a great program. The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh is a truly amazing man, one who has lived through great suffering, but found a path to such great compassion for everyone. He has been instrumental in bringing the idea of Engaged Buddhism to the attention of people, understanding the need for Buddhism, for compassion and loving kindness to be active in the community and in the world.

The interviewer asked him about violence, and whether the violence of today was any different, or improved since the violence of his youth during and around the Vietnam war. He said that the violence today is just a repeating of a cycle that is nothing new. But he used the example of a lotus flower, that needs mud in order to grow, and said:

I think we have suffered a lot during the 20th century. We have created a lot of garbage. There was a lot of violence and hatred and separation. And we have not handled — we don’t know how to handle the garbage that we have created. And then we would have a sense to create a new century for peace. That is why now is very important for us to learn how to transform the garbage we have created into flowers.

He really sees much of the worlds suffering as miscommunication. People not being understood and not understanding each other that leads to misunderstanding and violence:

We live in a time when we have a very sophisticated means for communication, but communication has become very difficult between individuals and groups of people. A father cannot talk to a son, mother cannot talk to a daughter, and maybe husband cannot talk to a wife. And Israelis cannot talk to Palestinians, and Hindus cannot talk to Muslims. And that is why we have war, we have violence. That is why restoring communication is the basic work for peace, and our political and our spiritual leaders have to focus all their energy on this matter.

He calls out for greater communication, not greater weapon supplies. Being also a poet, the interviewer asked him to read a particular powem called “For Warmth” that he had written after he had heard of an African village that had been destroyed:

I hold my face between my hands         no   I am not crying I hold my face between my hands     to keep my loneliness warm         two hands protecting         two hands nourishing         two hands to prevent my soul from leaving me             in anger

He says we have to remain human in order to be compassionate:

You have the right to be angry, but you don’t have the right not to practice in order to transform your anger. You have the right to make mistakes, but you don’t have the right to continue making mistakes. You have to learn from the mistakes.

As human beings we don’t seem to be very good at learning from our mistakes, or at turning our garbage into flowers–but we don’t have the right to stop trying. The interviewer pointed out to a man at one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness retreats that a cynic would say they were all just drops in an ocean, to which he replied:

That is true. I am a drop in the ocean, but I’m also the ocean. I’m a drop in America, but I’m also America. Every pain, every confusion, every good and every bad and every ugly of America is in me. And as I’m able to transform myself and heal myself and take care of myself, I’m very conscious that I’m healing and transforming and taking care of America.

The first step is healing and transforming yourself, and in doing that we start to heal the world, and in doing that–flowers are grown.