Response from Santikaro to Fr. Laurence Freeman, a Christian monk & meditation teacher from England:
Thank you, Laurence, for your concern, words, and love.
I am also in a quiet place, a small farm north of Kansas City, Missouri. I usually stay at a cabin in the woods, but I have been staying close to the TV throughout yesterday & today. I am trying to absorb the enormity of what has happened & what it means, what it will mean. I now feel numb with many levels of sadness ... for those who have died horribly, for their families & others affected, for the increasing militarization of this country, and for increasing violence in this world.
There are many aspects of this tragedy to be worked through in the days ahead. For now, mourning for the victims -- of yesterday's inhuman act as well as other acts of terrorism -- and mourning for humanity is called for. Coping with the emotions -- fear, anger, confusion, vengeance, numbness -- is the task at hand. These are what are now playing across the TV screens.
I second your call for all people to draw on their spiritual traditions, practices, faith, and commitment to do what we can to represent and speak for compassion, patience, peace, honesty, and healing in the days and weeks ahead. Those who meditate may have a particular role to play. I hope we have the inner resources to find effective words and expressions.
This government and others are contemplating things that will change American lives in ways we can't understand. Maybe this will make us more like many other countries in the world; maybe the other countries of the world will also be tragically changed. What are our possible Dhammic responses to what has happened and is coming?
Terror has been active throughout the last 100 years. Has it now ratcheted up a notch? Or was it just "far away" for Americans? I don't know, and I fear for humanity. Not only those who have been or might become direct victims, but also all of us who may stifle some of our humanity in how we react.
I, too, believe that there are noble qualities in America's culture and people, more than the ignoble. Let us do we can to bring these to the surface and let the best of our humanity rule.
Message from Fr. Laurence Freeman, osb:
May the Dhamma and God guide us all.
On this day of terror and terrible sadness I am finishing a retreat to the solitary monks of Big Sur in California, on the coastal cliffs looking so peacefully over the Pacific Ocean . It seems a strange place to be at this time with such news reaching us, only piecemeal, of what is happening in New York and throughout the country. I wanted to send a word of condolence and maybe some consolation to all the members of our American meditating community on behalf of the members from every other country in the World Community.
Not long ago I was visiting the 'Museum of Tolerance' in Los Angeles which commemorates the holocaust and other tragedies of human inhumanity. It is a very disturbing experience to walk there through the virtual reality of the holocaust. As I looked at the photos of the liberation of the concentration camps I stood in front of one that showed an American tank entering through the gates of Belsen with healthy young American soldiers looking in horror at what lay before them and reaching out to touch and help the emaciated survivors. It struck me then and has stayed with me since as a symbol of America's true strength and greatness. It would be absurd to deny the mistakes that have accompanied the use of that strength at times. But it would be even worse to forget the vast generosity that Americans have shown throughout their history to the poor, the homeless and oppressed. A demonisation of America by some groups must lay behind this latest and most terrible of outrages, this blind, stupid and wicked hatred. As you especially reel under its blow and mourn all those innocent people who have died and also those who will suffer for the rest of their lives from what happened this morning, I want just to remind you that there are those who genuinely and deeply love America and the perennial ideals it represents - ideals that are part of the people and so lie above politics.
For the past few days I have been giving talks here on the 'new saintliness' called for by our times. New not in the sense of a new fashion of spirituality. But new in the way it is releasing more fully and widely than before the ever-newness of Christ and of the God who is always here and now and with us even at times when the 'absence of God' can seem most cruel. The first characteristic of this new holiness is an explicit acceptance of universality. Another is the depth of solitude (that means our uniqueness, not our loneliness) from which this experience of oneness must arise.
So although it seems strange to be connecting with today's horrors from such a safe and peaceful spot, it is meaningful too. With the escalation of violence and vengeance that will no doubt follow it is all the more urgent that we live our faith in the truth of love, with the energy of peace, through the eye of the coming storm. That would be impossible without depth. We not only pray for those who have died and who have been mutilated or traumatised. We not only pray for those horribly blind perpetrators of the this viciousness. We pray, even more deeply and effectively, with them, from that universal centre that is in every human being, oppresor or oppressed. The centre who is God in Christ. At this time the prayer of the heart is the only depth of prayer that makes sense .
At the heart of the Christian vision is the paradox that where sin is grace abounds. How and why that grace is transmitted is the mystery. What is clear is that it happens through each human being, through each of us. This is a day when every person of good will shares in the American experience.
It is also a day when we can be more than usually aware of the importance of the work of our Community here and worldwide in sharing the path of meditation as a way of peace, healing and renewal. As I continue my retreats and talks in the US for the rest of this month I know I will be more than usually aware with gratitude too of the great role you as the American community of Christian meditation play in the Community worldwide.
Peace
With much love
Laurence
Fr. Laurence is the leader of the World Community of Christian Meditation, a Benedictine monk, student of Fr. John Main, and a good friend since he visited Suan Mokkh in 1988.
