Some Thoughts On 9/12
12 September 2001
Philadelphia, PA USA
Some thoughts the day after...
Usually, I spend the first hour or so in the morning with my Morning Pages. That didn't happen today. Instead, I feel compelled to mark this day with a short note to my friends - many of whom seem so far away right now.
A few weeks ago I was driving up the New Jersey Turnpike and I kept looking over at the World Trade Center. I couldn't not look at those two towers. It was the last time I would ever see that skyline. Once again the illusion of permanence was shattered. Once again I came to think of the Buddha's comment about change - that fate moves like the swish of a horse's tail.
As it happens, over the weekend I had just finished reading The Sunflower, Simon Wiesenthal's story about forgiveness. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, he tells the story of a time, as a concentration camp prisoner and slave laborer in Nazi occupied Poland, when he was taken to meet an SS soldier who was dying. The soldier wanted to tell his story - a story full of horrible atrocity - to a Jew (pretty much any Jew) in order to seek forgiveness. After hearing the story, the young prisoner left the room without speaking, without uttering the words of consolation the soldier was seeking before his impending death. The author then asked the provocative question: What would you have done? The second part of the book is a compilation of responses from all sorts of bright, thoughtful people.
I was moved by the story as well as by many of the responses, but the one from the Dalai Lama emerged yesterday while watching those terrible images. He wrote of a time when he greeted a fellow monk who had endured nineteen years of unspeakable torment while imprisoned by the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama asked him what he feared most. His response surprised his holiness probably as much as it did me upon reading it. The monk said that what he feared most was the possibility of losing his compassion for the Chinese.
There was much talk in the book about who has the authority to forgive. Many Jews believe that only those directly wronged may forgive someone. Christians felt that it was possible for the listener to "forgive" in someone else's name, to allow for the possibility of redemption. If they were still alive, my theology professors would attest to the fact that I am not a Biblical scholar, not have I mastered the Talmud or the Koran. I'll leave such daunting tasks to greater minds than mine. As a fellow pilgrim in this world, though, I have some notions not about forgiveness, but about compassion.
I wonder at the cycle of violence that we are spiraling into. I also wonder where the bottom of this dark well is. I fear what we will beget when the inevitable revenge surfaces. I worry that we will stifle any urge for self-inquiry by creating impossible polarities. I am deeply concerned about the awful stereotypes that are becoming so ingrained in us about the peoples of the Middle East. I fear that we will lose sight of our common humanity, our "inter-being" as Thich Nhat Hahn calls it.
I marvel at how Ibrahim Abusheikh, a Palestinian who works in a youth department of the Ministry of Sports in Gaza, was able to move beyond the immediacy of his own plight when he said, "We bury our dead every day. We know how they feel. We condemned what happened in the United States." I wonder if it is because he works with youth everyday that he is able to move beyond the limitations of time and space, to see connections where others only see chasms.
I have some hopes as well.
I hope that the next time I see images of Israeli women grieving over their children I will say, "We bury our dead every day. We know how they feel."
Or, when I see Palestinian men carrying a flag-draped body, I will be able to say, "We bury our dead every day. We know how they feel."
I hope for the same words to come from my lips when I see the carnage in Africa, or the "Troubles" in Ireland.
Finally, I hope that wherever I see suffering in the world I will hold in my heart the same intention as the Tibetan monk - to sustain my capacity to feel deep compassion for all beings, even those who are not capable of feeling compassion in their own hearts for me.