Calming the Fearful Mind

[davidswanson]

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who in 1964 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr., has published a new book of advice to Americans and to U.S. Congress members called "Calming the Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism."

Hanh's words of wisdom strike me as potentially of great value for a variety of types of conflict resolution, but of somewhat limited -- if still significant -- value for Congress or for U.S. foreign policy.

"If Congress doesn't engage in Right Action," claims Hanh, "it is because it doesn't have Right Understanding about the suffering within our own country and in the world."

To interpret this in a way that makes any sense at all, I think, requires finding it to be at best misleading. I've seen countless Congress members express deep and personal understanding of the suffering they are inflicting, even bringing themselves to tears, while proceeding to inflict more of it, justifying the contradiction in their minds by the supposedly greater good of staying in office by pleasing party, donors, and media, or the greater good of trying to advance their party by obeying its leadership's plan. Congress members could always be made more aware of the death and devastation they authorize, but they are not completely unaware of it or incorrectly informed about it. Primarily what they lack is a willingness to risk their careers in order to briefly do the right thing. If that's what Hanh means by "Right Understanding" he should probably have said so.

Hanh claims that the reasons the U.S. government cannot make peace with its enemies abroad are fear, anger, and despair. No doubt there are plenty of those emotions involved. Bush did express a desire to attack Saddam Hussein as retaliation for an attempted assassination of Bush's father. But nowhere does Hanh mention greed, wealth, power, or political calculation in this equation. Does Hanh imagine that the oil companies funding U.S. political campaigns would be appeased or the war-mad voters would put down their flags and yellow ribbons if Bush listened deeply and talked lovingly with Maliki? I don't mean that to sound absurd just because it's so hard to imagine such behavior from Bush. Such a thing IS possible. What I do think is absurd is the idea that U.S. presidents and Congress members are acting on their own beliefs and emotions as opposed to having their strings pulled. Maybe Hanh believes that proper breathing, mindful walking, and open communication can cut all the strings, but he does not describe such a process in his book.

That being said, I would indeed like to see Congress members meet with and communicate with each other in the ways that Hanh proposes, and I would love to see more liberals and conservatives learn these communications skills. Even those of us who don't think we are very often afraid or angry could learn much better ways to listen to and communicate with others who are. Our goal with a book like this should not just be to try to get right-wingers and racists to read it, but to really read and think about it ourselves. It may sound absurd to ask Congress members to sit in a circle and take turns picking up a flower in the middle in order to have a turn to speak, but deep and compassionate listening is no joke, and engaging in it in our communities is no small step toward influencing those in power in Washington to attempt it as well.

Hanh proposes a national conversation of a sort that would require a completely different communications system in place of the corporate media, but which would do a great deal of good if it could be created. I think Hanh is mistaken, however, to promote religion as a useful part of the process. One week after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Hanh published these words in the New York Times:

"Many people in America consider Jesus Christ as their Lord, their spiritual ancestor, and their teacher. We should heed his teachings … "

Hanh wrote these words in order to try to manipulate people into exactly the wisest behavior: restraint, nonviolence, and understanding. But he played on Americans' desire to obey a "lord," and the lords Americans eagerly chose to obey at that time were George Bush and Rudolph Giuliani.

It was by refusing to obey any authority that Hanh arrived at the wisdom he is trying to share, albeit in Buddhist and universal-spiritualist packaging.

"I lived in Vietnam during the war there," Hanh writes, "and I saw a lot of injustice. Many thousands of people were killed, including many of my friends and students. It made me very angry. One time I learned that the city of Ben Tre, a city of 30,000 people*, was bombarded by American aircraft because some guerrillas had come to the city and tried to shoot down American planes. The guerrillas did not succeed and afterward they left. In retaliation the U.S. bombed the entire city. The military officer responsible for this attack later declared that he had to destroy the city of Ben Tre in order to save it. I was very angry, but at the time I was already practicing Buddhism. I didn't say or do anything, because I knew that saying or doing things while I was angry would create a lot of destruction. I paid attention to just breathing in and out. I sat down by myself, closed my eyes, and I recognized my anger, embraced it, and looked deeply into the nature of my suffering. Then compassion arose in me.

"Because I practiced looking deeply, I was able to understand the nature of the suffering in Vietnam. I saw that both Vietnamese and Americans suffered during the war. The young American men sent to Vietnam to kill and be killed suffered deeply, and their suffering continues today. Their families and both nations continue to suffer. I could see that the cause of our suffering in Vietnam was not the American soldiers. The cause was an unwise American policy based on misunderstanding and fear.

"Hatred and anger left my heart. I was able to see that our real enemy is not man, is not another human being. Our real enemy is our ignorance, discrimination, fear, craving, and violence."

If a Vietnamese can see Americans that way, surely Americans can see the 9-11 attackers with equal calm and courage.


*Elsewhere in the book, Hanh says 300,000 houses, but I suspect 30,000 people is the more accurate description.

[IndyOp]

1. Beautiful. Thank you, David. (n/t)

[undergroundpanther]

2. I agree with him

If he is speaking about people capable of feeling remorse or empathy.


What these non-violent people FAIL to comprehend is there are people with no conscience,no inner locus of control, who are unwilling or unable to feel shame, love or compassion.A psychopath does not respond to kindness or shame like a non-psychopath person does.
Buddhism and all the religions preaching non violence ,love thy neighbor,fail to grasp the fact some people do not care.And they make their followers vulnerable to exploitation by parasite/predatory people by solipsist thinking..

The psychopath both high and low functioning IS our problem.They cause most of the misery corruption and crime they abuse people.We are basically locked on a planet with a fair amount of ruthless people who are of the mentality of bullies and serial killers,and they will not stop harming until someone outside of them stops them with a cage that never opens or a bullet.

It is nice to pretend principles of non-violence work on everyone, but the truth is it works on only some people,the ones of us capable of remorse,compassion or shame. Those feelings are what motivates introspection into why one does what they do.And the conscience is there to guide them to more wisdom and understanding.

Some people lack the very thing inside us that makes humans humane.
Those ruthless ones,who could care less about other's suffering are the psychopath/authoritarian/narcissists,they do not have the same responses to pain or suffering as we do.

These bad people see no need for self-introspection for they see themselves as flawless and miles above the rest of humanity.
And they don't care what anyone else says or thinks.
http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/spath.htm

[ann_american2004]

3. depends on how you define violence

I've studied buddhism for a short while now and my limited understanding is it's not 100% physically passive by any means. It's focus has to do with intent and motivation. If your intention is to protect someone else, then you can indeed use force like an arm, taser or gun if need be against one doing harm. But anger must not enter your heart. Your motivation is protection of another.

People are at different levels of enlightenment. I'm not saying that raising a sword is the norm. It depends on the situation and intention of the welder. To me, and I dont know all that much, but to me Buddhism isnt all that lofty or ideal, nor does it pretend to be; it's rather practical at its root.

This same Vietnamese Buddhist monk (edit: Thich Nhat Hanh, always forget his spelling) has an excellent book called 'Anger: Taming the Tiger Within' (subtitle?) It's really a beautiful book. Another excellent Buddhist definition on Anger is this: "What is anger? Anger is a deluded mind that focuses on an animate or inanimate object, feels it to be unattractive, exaggerates its bad qualities, and wishes to harm it" (Geshe Kelsang Gyatso; How to Solve our Human Problems).

An angry deluded person (criminal, terrorist, etc) will see another person as evil, bad, infidel, ect and then will seek to harm that person. A witness to this harm would hopefully do something to protect the innocent. However, the witness who might lift a sword, gun, arm, taser against the angry person (perp, terorist, criminal ect) should avoid becoming angry himself. The reason is obvious. Anger is owned by no man but can consume all. Anger never dies with just one man. It survives in others who accept its burden. The witness must protect his intention, to avoid delusion.

That's about the best I can explain with my limited understanding. Others may have an easier way to express it.

[undergroundpanther]

6. Anger

>It's focus has to do with intent and motivation.
Exactly.

>If your intention is to protect someone else, then you can indeed >use force like an arm, taser or gun if need be against one doing >harm. But anger must not enter your heart. Your motivation is >protection of another.

You are discribing rightious anger.I think that's what you are explaining here.I call it Sekhmet's anger after she was duped by Ra into a rage,it is a "cool" anger, as in it isn't coming from being a hot head,and reacting per se,(it might look that way) it is a calculated move based on the choices of the perpretrator(s).They direct how much you hurt them by their refusal to stop harming.

>Another excellent Buddhist definition on Anger is this: "What is >anger? Anger is a deluded mind that focuses on an animate or >inanimate object, feels it to be unattractive, exaggerates its >bad qualities, and wishes to harm it" (Geshe Kelsang Gyatso; How >to Solve our Human Problems).

‘Passions themselves are enlightenment’ is a catchword of Mahâyâna School of Buddhism BTW...
I define anger as this, the purpose within us manifesting as an emotion, that creates a desire as fuel and forms intent to stop suffering caused by someone who refuses to stop creating suffering Intent tempered with compassion AND rightious anger being directed at the person causing suffering,confronts the causer.The causer of suffering can stop harming at any time,for the perpretrators acts of violence on innocents is always a CHOSEN act. The perpretrator decides how much suffering he will bear I stop stopping the causer of suffering,pain when the perpretrator/causer stops choosing to harm.

>An angry deluded person (criminal, terrorist, etc) will see >another person as evil, bad, infidel, ect and then will seek to >harm that person.

I do seek harm for psychopaths that seek to harm people.Because psychopaths have no moral or ethical restraints from within themselves.They are missing a consience.For some reason they are innately without the caring to learn right from wrong, learn from their mistakes,and they fail to see the need for self introspection, seeing themselves as perfect,to the point they have lost the thing within us that makes humanity humane.It's not about fault finding or bigotry it is about stopping a dangerous person(s) so they will not create more suffering.
Psychopaths clinical and sub clinical are the cause of the majority of crimes and abuse in this world.If they were not the biggest problem we as humanity have to face and fix,and I have extensivly researched it,my point of veiw concering psychopaths would not be this.

>A witness to this harm would hopefully do something to protect >the innocent. However, the witness who might lift a sword, gun, >arm, taser against the angry person (perp, terorist, criminal >ect) should avoid becoming angry himself.

Scapegoating anger and fooling yourself that things like witnessing rape of a loved one cannot rouse anger in you means you're trying to be so detached from your emotions and such you are also detached from compassion as a side effect.And that is the reason I am not a buddhist.

Many buddhists who seem serene in the face of atrocity,also have dulled thier compassion in the name of detachment. They shun attachment and passion to the point they become DeViod of the humane qualities and instead are serene shells living in thier heads, vulcan like.After all they seek to become VOID.Void means nothing, no-thing,no-being, unconsious..They talk up compassion but their hearts are not warm as they appear,because of the detachment issues they believe in.Detaching yourself from yourself parts you don't like does nothing to help enlighten anything sometimes.Detaching can be dissociation.And pretending something does not hurt or anger you because anger is taboo or being hurt is signs of being unenlightened, is well,dishonest.Hence the stink of enlightenment.


>The reason is obvious. Anger is owned by no man but can consume >all. Anger never dies with just one man. It survives in others >who accept its burden. The witness must protect his intention, to >avoid delusion.

And if you do nothing during a attack you become a little Eichmann a by-stander,and that means your desire for detaching from passions has made you complicit with the criminal,hence bystander guilt.Buddhism has good parts and some serious flaws in it's system.

You cannot detach from passion without detaching from compassion.Because compassion is com PASSION.
You cannot detach from anger without suffering the bystander guilt or becoming cold and almost hollow.What are wrathful deities there at temple doors for? What is the Phurba and Dart used for? Think on this.
http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/buddhist_sereni.html

Everything you seek to detach from in Samsara/Mara will not help you find Nirvana. Thin thatch Nich(I always get the spelling wrong too) he wrote a book,enlightenment without meditation.Check it out sometime you might like it..

Take it to heart, you are already enlightened,you always have been enlightened .Trusting in your inner wisdom to know right from wrong actions,it is innate.Socrates said the same thing when he said you cannot teach virtue to someone without virtue.

I trust my inner wisdom,both the voice of my anger and my compassion and to blend them together with a clear intention creates clarity without detached void and the delusions that come from pretending to not feel when you DO feel..Clarity cannot be without honesty about the nature of desiring a state of no desiring.Which is a paradox,another snake eating itself..
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/herman2.htm
http://allysark.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/self-refuting-statements/

Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasmagate Bodhisvaha!

[glitch]

4. Awesome post, very appropriate at this time. K & R nt

[FreeState]

5. This deserves a Metta kick! n/t

[Dystopian]

7. Beautiful....

Heartfelt thanks for sharing this....

peace~