I've been watching the events of the week and I have been amazed ~ both in myself and in humanity at large. My amazement has been of three varieties ~ amazement of how many people responded with such acts of heroism and compassion; amazement of the depths of sorrow and loss caused by Sept. 11 and amazement of how quickly many people began to advocate war.
I have spent a good deal of time this week thinking about that ~ the talk changed very quickly into preparing for war. I heard a man this morning on Religion and Ethics News Weekly say that in his mind, "Forgiveness without contrition is obscene." Forgiveness (on our part) without repenting sins (on their part) is obscene.
That one sentence represents the attitude of both sides of this conflict in my mind. The level of closedmindedness and the need to be 'right' I keep seeing is obscene. If things continue (and it's pretty reasonable to think that it will), this will be a war that cannot be won. It is not a matter of who has the bigger and better guns or the better tactics. It is not a matter of who has the higher moral ground. It cannot be won because each side is 'right' ~ each sees this as a holy war and the other side has 'sinned'or is 'evil'. In other words, "God is on their side."
Thich Nhat Hanh writes: "We need the vision of interbeing ~ we belong to each other; we cannot cut reality to pieces. The well being of 'this' is the well being of 'that', so we have to do things together. Every side is 'our side'; there is no evil side."
I can't help it ~ there is an image that has come to mind with this situation. It is an image of two brothers, standing one to each side of their father, fighting over him. They start reaching across his legs and shoving each other as they yell, "Dad likes me best!!" or "Uh uh ~ he likes me best, poopyhead!" The father meanwhile, just stands there and watches the situation. It's not that he doesn't care ~ it's just something that the boys will have to settle on their own, while he hopes that they will come to realize that there really can't be one that he loves the best.
Thich Nhat Hanh also writes (and I paraphrase a bit): "Each person has his or her suchness (note: Suchness means 'the essence or particular characteristics of a thing or person, its true nature.')...if we want to live in peace and happiness with a person, we have to see the suchness of that person. Once we see it, we understand him or her, and there will be no trouble...We do not expect a person to always be a flower. We have to understand his or her garbage as well."
Here's my question: other than they're right and we're wrong, what do groups like the Taliban believe? Does anyone really know? Sure, we keep hearing about how they are a fundamentalist Islamic group but what does that mean? All I've really heard on the subject is how they treat their women (basically, 'out of sight, out of mind' and 'lower than dirt') and how they're preparing for Jihad...but what do they really think? What happens in the everyday lives of the people? Just what is their suchness? Do they know as little about us as we do about them?
I can't help but think that all this world needs is a good therapist. Either that or nothing more than the world's leaders to come down out of their palaces and mingle with the everyday people several days a week. Maybe that way, they would learn exactly what is to get along in this world.
Page Copyright 2001 D. Firewolf
