Dear Sangha,
Following our recent post about the Israel Shambhala Meditation Group's Dharma Gathering this Thursday, which will include listening to Pema Chodron's talk on Practicing Peace in Times of War, we've received quite a few responses, mostly friends wishing us well and asking how we are. Thanks to everyone who sent us a word.
In case more people would find it interesting to know a bit of how we're doing, here are a few short (late night) thoughts.
I wouldn't try to represent anyone else's experience but my own, so this is not "How things are in Israel". It's just how I'm living this time.
On one level, our life routine is just the same- work, school, home, too much internet news reading. I just got back from teaching music in Acco, tomorrow a gig in Jerusalem. Thursday evening is our Shambhala weekly gathering. Routine.
At the same time,I feel distressed and sad, and brokenhearted.
What I find somewhat surprising, somewhat new, somewhat encouraging is that the pain won't totally freeze into two-dimentional blame. There is a lot of that going on in talkbacks, blogs, op-ed's, political statements. If you want to have a solid black and white view, you can find some expert to back you up with any view you want. You can even switch solid views 10 times a day, or make up your own signature mix of them.
It just doesn't help. The sadness or uncertainty or pain don't go away.
So paying attention moment to moment, and not being lazy so as to get sucked into blame, rage, stupidity. That is the challenge. It's there for the taking, continually. Right now. It's no different from anywhere else.
Interestingly, having come back to live in Israel less than two years ago, I find it much easier to stay open-minded about the situation while living here, rather than glued to the monitor back in New York City. Here I actually meet people, breath that same air as all the people I'd like to categorize as--- red/green/white/whatever. It's actually easier to not fall into the traps of over-attachement to one's identity as red/green/etc, and self-righteousness. Things are just too real (so to speak) to patch up a water-tight story about them. It's actually a relief.
Our group's mentor on behalf of Shambhala and our close friend Robert Chender, in one conversation following one of his visits (in which he taught Levels 1 and 2), told me that the only way to stay sane here (anywhere?) is to suspend judgment. I have checked this everyday since, and I think it's true.
This isn't to say that I don't have views and opinions on the situation. But I try not to grasp them as ways to plaster over feelings of fear, sadness and pain, or any other feeling (anger, for example). I think that's where a lot of problems begin.
Fortunately, I have the practices and the wisdom of our lineage to connect to and train in (plus add to that six years of really good group therapy!). In the last few days, I am finding an extra potency in the fact that we practice the warrior tradition of Shambhala. I feel that these are indeed the teachings for this time, THIS place.
Finally, I just wanted to mention that we don't hear about it in the news, but there are numerous Palestinian/Israeli groups working, meeting, engaging in peace activities as we speak, and as this tremendous suffering is happening. That is also part of daily reality here. It's important to know.
Much love to our beloved sangha, our heart-brothers-and-sisters in Shambhala.
May all beings be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
Ki Ki So So!
Tal
Haifa,
Israel
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8 comments:
Tal,
Thank you for sharing your experience. As someone who cannot bear to even hear news of the P/I conflict situation anymore, I value your insights on the ground. Keep going!
Dori Digenti
Amherst, MA
The United Nations has called for an independent investigation after a third UN school has been has been hit by an Israeli strike, killing 40 people and injuring 45. It's the third strike on a UN school in the last 24 hours, as Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova reports.
THank you so much for these postings and this blog. It really brought tears to my eyes. I have always considered how Pema translates one of the lojong slogans as "Give up all hope of fruition." To me the "of fruition" part seems important. Important because she does not say--and I think many of the teachings bear this out--"Give up hope." So, thank you for the hope. Peace, out.
Tal, I was very happy to meet you a few years ago at the Shambhala Congress in Halifax. It was therefore even more disturbing, and made me despair of the Buddhadharma and of Shambhala, to read your letter, particularly this:
Robert Chender [...] told me that the only way to stay sane here (anywhere?) is to suspend judgment. I have checked this everyday since, and I think it's true.
Suspending judgment could be breathtakingly hypocritical if you are not also suspending harmful actions. That is the zero step, even before step 1, of the hinayana: do no futher harm.
How about suspending the settlements? That is the root and fulcrum issue of this whole situation.
How about suspending the bombing, the missiles, the economic stranglehold on Gaza? Suspending judgment is a cheap thrill if you're not also suspending killing. This does not get at the root causes and conditions of this situation, but at least you stop killing people.
I'm not saying that you, personally, have the power to stop the settlements, or to stop the firing, but you - and I - do have the power to at least acknowledge (yes, judge) that this must be done, and to push for that with every means possible. Otherwise you and I just go along, and enable massive evil to happen. As a Canadian whose government and tax dollars go along with and support this, I am just as involved as you are, and just as complicit, and perhaps feel just as helpless.
I do not buy what you say about solid view, two-dimensional blame, etc. That's a position that is nihilistic - "we cannot determine the truth, and can't do anything about it" - and/or eternalistic - "'twas ever thus, and we can't make it better". That's not the middle way, which says that there is relative truth, that it can be ascertained, and that there is such a thing as right action. When you truly suspend judgment, then prajna can arise, and you can see things as they are.
I think that the outlines for right action have been clear for a long time now to all those, whether Israeli or Palestinian, who have looked at this situation in good faith. The Arab Peace Initiative, which is supported by all 22 Arab states, and by Hamas and Hezbollah (but of course you never hear this in the North American media), calls for security and recognition of the state of Israel within its legal, pre-1967-war borders, a Palestinian state, and effectively dropping the right of return. Israel has not accepted this - yet. The conclusion is clear: for Israel, it's not about security for Israel, but about security for Israel in expanded territories. "It's about the settlements, stupid!"
The settlements are the #1 and central issue for Palestinians. On the Israeli side, I'm afraid that the settlements are something that is mentioned as little as possible, but actions speak far louder than words - and the actions are the daily increase in the number of settlers, approaching half a million now, with the clear intent of making it as difficult as possible for Israel to remove itself from the occupied territories.
The situation in Gaza is real and full of massive suffering, but it, the Hamas rockets, the discussions about a cease fire, are all distractions while the settlements continue increasing without having stopped for a single day through all the peace negotiations of the past few decades. Stopping the rockets is a distraction if the root issue of the occupation isn't addressed, and they will only be stopped, and stopped definitively, if the occupation is ended.
It's been 41 years. It's not rocket science. "Suspending judgment" while harmful actions continue enables them, and is not dharma and not the way of Shambhala. I apologize if this brings you pain and is disturbing, but you know, we need to look at this. We have to try.
- Mark
Hi,
Thanks for the pioneers of this blog for joining in. Please continue to share.
Hi,
Here's my understanding of suspending judgment: suspending, or more to the point- relaxing, the almost irresistable urge cover up raw feelings by freezing a picture of who's to blame. Yes, there is a complex (sorry, it's complex) picture to apprehend and analyze. There are conclusions to be drawn from it, for sure. There are actions that will follow, and refrainment from actions that need to follow. But that's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to "where am I coming from?" "what ground am I standing on?"; If I start from the seemingly solid ground of being right and angry, I will be of least benefit to myself and others. You'll be talking to a tin man. I can't afford to define anyone, and I mean anyone, as the villian who should absorb all my anger, If I'm going to help, and yes, stay sane.
By the way, in our first level 1, back in December 07, one of the participants was a community leader in a West Bank settlement. Sound crazy?
One more thought- I have political views, and ideas of what "should" happen. I really do.
I'd like this blog to be a place to try and work on something other than advertising views and political agendas, in the common meaning of the word.
It is possible.
Where one is so far away from the events, sifting through information from various sources and perspectives, what should one do other than send prayers and correspondence of support or likewise money to those who are trying ~ by peaceful means ~ for peace in the area.
Is there some modest project that has or could germinate in the midst of the conflict that would be an appropriate beneficiary of the attention of Shambhalians?
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