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Wars Aftermath

12 A War Is Never OverBy Trish Thompson

14 QuestionBy Paul Davis

15 Spanning a BridgeBy Sister Dang Nghiem

18 First Time in Vietnam?By Brian McNaught

Healing and Transformation

29 The First PreceptBy Julie Hungiville LeMay

30 The Leaves of One TreeBy Le Thu Thuy

32 On Love and Being GayBy Laurie Arron

34 Blue Sky PracticeBy Susan Hadler

ISSUE NO. 48 - SUMMER 2008

Dharma Talk

4 Zen Master Thich Nhat HanhTalks about Tibet

6 The Way to Well-BeingBy Sister Annabel, True Virtue

20 My Responsibilityfor the War in IraqBy Bruce Campbell

20 The Light at theTip of the CandleBy Claude Anshin Thomas

Gift of Non-Fear

23 Getting Better, not BitterThe Dharma in Tanzania

By Karen Brody

25 Watering FearlessnessBy David C. Gritz

27 Letting GoBy Roberta Schnorr

Heart to Heart

35 The Fifth Mindfulness TrainingBy Evelyn van de Veen, Scott Morris,

and Paul Baranowski

Childrens Wisdom

37 Paint a Portrait of MeBy Brooke Mitchell

38 The Helping HandBy Brother Phap Dung

40 Bell of MindfulnessBy Terry Cortes-Vega

Sangha News41 Thay Rewrites the Five Contemplations;

New Dharma Teachers Ordained at Plum Village;Q&A about Blue Cliff

Book Reviews

44 World As Lover, World As SelfBy Joanna Macy

44 Buddha Mind, Buddha BodyBy Thich Nhat Hanh

Vietnam Relief

46 How Can We Help theChildren in Vietnam?

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3/232 Summer 2008

On the cover: Lotus fl ower at Plum Village,photo by Emily Whittle

Dear Thay, dear Sangha,

It is impossible or me to read

this issue without thinking o our

recently deceased son, Jesse Toy.

Everything I see and do is through

the lens o his sudden passing onFebruary 4. We are thankul or the

hundreds o cards and letters rom

you, our Sangha rom Germany,

Norway, the U.K., and across the U.S. As Jesses ather Philip and I

walk the changing landscape o our grie and joy, there is one image

we will not soon orget: Jesses pink baby blanket spread on the fl oor in

the meditation hall, covered with colorul origami paper cranes, bright

fl owers o peace and hope.

This is the cream o our practice: the blanket a symbol o birth

and the ground o mindulness; the color pink or the new lie o Jesses

continuation; and the joyul cranes emblems o our transormation

body. The origami peace crane project was launched by our riend TeijoMunnich, a Soto Zen Dharma teacher. In the two months since Jesse

let his physical body, we have ully celebrated his lie. We were joined

by ormer Sangha rom Old Path Zendo in Pennsylvania at our Quaker

service. We hosted an elegant Ceremony or the Deceased in Thays

tradition at Cloud Cottage in North Carolina. Next week our Sangha wil

plant a weeping willow in honor o Jesse. Yet the cranes have touched us

most. The care and cherishing in every old o each colorul bird speak

o Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. The birds on the blanket look like theyre

having a party!

This issue o the Mindulness Bell is like that blanket a Dharma

party. These pages are the blanket: the expression o the practice o our

beloved teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, o our blood and spiritual ancestorsand the skill and love o our editor, Janelle Combelic. Each story, poem

letter, and prayer is like one hopeul paper crane. Each crane is distinct

yet each is the same as the others. Tears ell on the origami paper as we

olded together. And rom our suering fl y the wings o peace.

Paper crane-making or those who are sick, dying, or have died

springs directly rom the suering o World War II ater the bombing o

Hiroshima, Japan, and the little girl Sadako who touched hearts around

the world with her suering. So, too, in the stories o this issue the wars

and tribulations o lie are present. Every story, poem, and image tells us

transormation is possible that through our precepts, concentration

and insight, we can gently invite ourselves back to the present moment

this wonderul moment. In February, our son passed away. This spring

the orsythia shines brighter than any spring beore.

Sister Annabel Laity wrote us a letter to help prevent us rom drown-

ing in our grie a ter Jesses passing. She invited us to touch and learn to

liberate the anguish o our ancestors who lost their sons in wars and other

sudden, tragic ways. She wrote, I have conf dence you can transorm

this grie into a beautiul fl ower, and that your son lives on in the ruits

o transormation that you realize.

From out o our season o sorrow and wonder, Philip and I oer you

crocus buds o gratitude, dear Thay, dear Sister, dear Sangha.

Judith Toy, True Door o Peace

Associate Editor

A Journal o the Art o Mindul Livingin the Tradition o Thich Nhat Hanh

Published by Plum Village

Issue 48 Summer 2008

Advisor and Editor Sister Annabel

Managing Editor Janelle Combelic

Associate Editor Judith Toy

Design LuminArts

Proofreader Elaine Hild

Subscriptions & Advertising David Percival

Website Design Lien Ho

Webmaster Brandy Sacks

Advisory Board Richard Brady

Jerry Braza

Barbara Casey

Thay Phap Kham

Peggy Rowe-Ward

Matt Sherman

Writing Submissions: Please send us the fruits ofyour practice. We welcome feature articles (1,500 to2,500 words), essays, and stories, as well as poetry. Weespecially welcome submissions from young people ofany age.

Art & Photo Submissions: We welcome photos, art-work, and cartoons from your local sangha, family, andcommunity. Please send digital images as TIFF or JPEGfi les no larger than 1 MB. We can promptly return all origi-nals sent by mail.Send submissions via e-mail to [email protected] or by mail to Mindfulness Bell, 745 Cagua S.E., Albu-querque, NM 87108, U.S.A.

Advertising Inquiries and Subscriptions: [email protected], [email protected]. orDavid Percival, 745 Cagua S.E., Albuquerque, NM 87108,U.S.A.The Mindfulness Bell is published three times a year bythe Community of Mindful Living, Deer Park Monastery,2499 Melru Lane, Escondido CA 92026, U.S.A.

Website: Read selected articles, subscribe, and viewthe worldwide sangha directory online at www.mindful-nessbell.org.

mindulness BELL

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Letters

the Mindulness Bell 3

We love to receive your lettersand suggestions.

Please e-mail editor@mindulnessbell.

org or write to Mindulness Bell, c/o David

Percival, 745 Cagua S.E., Albuquerque

NM 87108, U.S.A.

Thank You, Thay

Dear Thay,

I just nished a weekend retreat with Dharma

Teacher Larry Ward. The insight and mindul-

ness I learned was very helpul to my practice

and essential or my growth.

You may not remember, but in 1995 I was

incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. While there

your organization sent me a ree subscription to

the Mindulness Bell. We started a meditation

group and you donated many books and audio

tapes. When I was paroled in 1997 our group

had grown to over 300 men meeting weekly to

sit in mindulness meditation. I hear now it has

grown to at least eight prisons with over 3000

men meditating daily. The books and meditation

help you provided are still part o the meditation

library at Folsom State Prison.

I have remained with my practice and what Ilearned rom your books and teaching has helped

me be successul with my reedom. For that I

must say thank you.

I also took the Three Jewels and Five Mind-

ulness Trainings this morning at our retreat with

Larry Ward.

I am now beginning to use my talent to

teach more prisoners about meditation through

a journal/newsletter. You can read about it on my

website at http://m-squared.org/dharmaseeds.

html

I hope to someday meet you in person and

bow in reverence or what you passed on to methrough your teaching or which I am ever

grateul.

Peace,Mark Maxey

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Editors reply (from Sr. Annabel at Plum Village):

Dear friend, thank you for being free where you are.

Thay is very happy when he reads your letter.

Printing on Recycled Paper

At the New Year retreat at Blue Cli Monas-

tery, the little Buddhas took the vow o the Two

Promises. They vow to develop understanding

and compassion to people, animals, plants and

minerals.

The evening beore that I made my resolu-

tion or the New Year: to eel the pain o the

earth and to act, just a small step, a promise I

can keep. This letter is the ruit o that resolu-

tion and the will to help the little Buddhas with

their vow.

When we read the oldest text on deep ecol-

ogy, as our teacher calls the Diamond Sutra, we

learn that we have to respect and protect other

beings in order or us to have a chance. We read

this on a paper that is a tree, the air we breathe

and the whole universe.

My aspiration or the year 2008 is to readthe Diamond Sutra and the Mindulness Bell

on post-consumer recycled paper, that we may

have a chance to develop our understanding and

compassion or all beings.

Gil-Ad AramaMontreal, Quebec

Editors reply: We had been thinking about this for

a while but Gil-Ads letter prompted action! Printing

on 100% post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled

paper would cost too much and increase the

weight of the magazine. We have switched to 30%

PCW for the inside pages and 100% PCW for the

cover, which slightly increased our printing costs.Contributions to the Mindfulness Bell to help offset

those increased costs are most welcome.

EIAB Update

The European Institute or Applied Buddhism

has received so much support rom readers o

the Mindulness Bell. We are very heartened and

grateul or this support. We have almost ound a

home or our rst establishment. It is in Germany,

very close to Cologne and Bonn.

We need one more ocial go-ahead rom

the government o Germany beore we can buy

the property. The town councillors o our di-

erent political parties have voted unanimously

to accept our buying the property and we are

hopeul that in six weeks or so we shall be able

to make the purchase. At that time we shall be

asking or any material support you can give to

make the purchase.

It would be wonderul i you could come

to Germany and practice in the Institute itsel,

but i you cannot make the journey do not worry.The courses oered at the Institute will also

be oered at Blue Cli, Deer Park, and Plum

Village.

In the garden o ive hectares we shall

establish a garden o medicinal herbs.

There will be more news in the next edition

o the Mindulness Bell.

Sister Annabel, True Virtue

New Hamlet, Plum Village, France

Winter/Spring 2008 Issue

Heres a little story o how our Sangha enjoyed

the latest MB.

In January our Sangha wanted to do a

Beginning Anew ceremony and our host or the

night, Rhonda, wanted to introduce it with a

ew words. Well Rhonda was the rst to get her

Mindulness Bell weeks beore the rest o us

did so she was able to read some passages

rom Janelles article and the one by Brother

Phap An and Sister Dang Nghiem. It was lovely.

We all said it was a miracle that Rhonda got the

magazine so early that Thay and the olks atthe MB were taking care o us, protecting us,

making us so happy.

Terry Cortes-VegaAustin, Texas

sharing ourVIEWS

www.DharmaTheCatCartoons.com courtesy David Lourie

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5/234 Summer 2008

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh in Hollywood with B.K. Modi, September 2006 photo courtesy of Bhuvan La

Zen Master Thich Nhat HanhTalks About Tibet

dharma TALK

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6/23the Mindulness Bell 5

W

When the Plum Village delegation led by Thich Nhat Hanh landed in

Rome or ourteen days o public talks, retreats, and other events,

the demonstration by 600 Tibetan monks on the occasion o the

orty-ninth year o the movement to oppose the yoke o Chinese

rule was in its eighth day. The capital o Tibet, Lhasa, had beencut o rom all outside contact by Chinese tanks, armored cars,

and military personnel. The repression by the Chinese orces was

bloody; the corpses o hundreds o victims, most o whom were

Tibetan youths and Buddhists, lay in the streets.

During his stay in Rome Thich Nhat Hanh was interviewed

on Italian television about the situation in Tibet. Thay made two

principal proposals:

1. The European parliament should call an extraordinary

meeting on the situation in Tibet and send a multinational

delegation to Lhasa and other parts o Tibet that have

witnessed suering due to the occupation. The delegation

should listen deeply to the suering o both sides and

make a report to the countries o Europe and North

America.

2. The European and North American countries should

intervene to make it possible or His Holiness the

Dalai Lama to visit Tibet and give teachings on the

Buddhadharma and organize retreats just as Thich

Nhat Hanh was able to go back to Vietnam to teach the

Dharma. I Thich Nhat Hanh was allowed to return to

Vietnam to teach, then China should allow H.H. the Dalai

Lama to return to Tibet to teach. The people o Tibet and

the Chinese people need to be in touch with the wonderul

presence o H.H. Even i H.H. were only to teach the

Dharma and encourage the preservation o Tibetan

culture and say nothing about politics it would bring

enormous happiness to the people o his homeland. Ipressure rom Western countries enabled Thich Nhat Hanh

to go back to Vietnam, then similar pressure could enable

the Dalai Lama to go back to Tibet.

During the interview, Thich Nhat Hanh also suggested that the

government o Vietnam should allow the organizers o the Inter-

national Wesak Celebration due to take place in Hanoi in May

2008 to invite H.H. the Dalai Lama to attend. This would bring a

great deal o happiness to Vietnamese Buddhists and would also

show that Vietnam takes a very dierent stand toward Tibet than

does China. Thich Nhat Hanh also told Tibetan Buddhists not to

give up hope because Vietnam was under Chinese rule or nearly

1000 years, but was fnally able to reclaim her independence.

During a press conerence on 27 March in Naples, Thich

Nhat Hanh repeated what he had said earlier on Italian television;

namely that he was ready to go to Tibet with H.H. the Dalai Lama

to support H.H. and teach the Dharma to Tibetan Buddhists with

H.H. i he was granted a visa to do so.

Originally published in Phu Sa MagazineTranslated from the Vietnamese by Sister Annabel, True Virtue

Send a multinational delegation

to Lhasa and other parts of Tibet

that have witnessed suffering and

listen deeply to both sides.

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7/236 Summer 2008

DDear Sangha, today please allow me to say a little bit about the

Four Noble Truths. First o all, I shall write the Four Noble Truths

on the board. Theres a way o expressing this, where to each Noble

Truth we add a word:

1. Ill-being.

2. The way to ill-being.

3. The end of the way to ill-being.

4. The way to end the way to ill-being.

That is the Indian way, in which we use the negative mode

In the Western way we use the word well-being, which is more

positive. Many scholars have talked a lot about the Four Noble

Truths, and they have certain ideas concerning the Four Noble

Truths. Really, they are a practice, and we dont need to be a scholarto understand it. We just need to be a practitioner. We dont even

have to be a Buddhist. We just practice.

This is a very basic teaching o the Buddha, because the Bud

dha saw how benecial it is or us. We are very lucky that 2,600

years later we have an opportunity to take hold o that practice, just

as it was used in ancient India, and to use it in our own time.

So in order to do the practice, I would suggest that we use one

o the practices Thay talked about yesterday: vipashyana, looking

deeply. We dont always need to be sitting on a meditation cushion

in the meditation hall in order to practice looking deeply. We can

be seated at our writing desk with a pen and a piece o paper

or we can be on the bus or on the train. As long as we establishourselves in shamatha, stopping, calming, then we can always

practice vipashyana.

For your own practice, I would suggest that you take a piece o

paper and old it into three so that it has three columns. Although

there are Four Noble Truths, we may not need to have a column

or the third one because as Thay has been teaching us, there is

no way to peace; peace is the way. There is no way to healing

healing is the way. So in the same voice we could say, there is no

way to well-being; well-being is the way. The Fourth Noble Truth

is the way to well-being, so the Third Noble Truth and the Fourth

Noble Truth are just one exercise.

The Way to

Well-BeingBy Sister Annabel, True VirtueAt the retreat at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes

Park, Colorado, Sister Annabel offered this Dharma

talk on August 24, 2007. In her soft British-accented

voice, Sister Annabel gave a brilliant elucidation of

the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

When we are aware of

everything that is nourishing

and wonderful in life, it brings us

a very deep happiness.

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The First Noble Truth: Ill-BeingThe First Noble Truth is quite essential. Without that, the

other Noble Truths cant be there. The Four Noble Truths inter-

are; you practice one, and the other three are already there. In the

Heart o the Prajnaparamita we say, No ill-being, no cause o

ill-being, no end o ill-being, and no path. And that is as much

to say that ill-being doesnt have a separate sel. As we practice

or ourselves, we will begin to understand this. This isnt theory.

The Dharma is available or us to see directly when we put it

into practice in our daily lie.

Your rst column is or the First Noble Truth. Some peopleget stuck in the rst column, but i we practice we wont be stuck

there. We wont say, Oh, dear, everything is ill-being! That

is the scholars approach, but our approach is our real experi-

ence. So in this rst column, write down everything that in your

personal lie you eel to be ill-being. It could be psychological,

physical, or physiological. So you write down, maybe, despair

that is the overwhelming emotion that you eel sometimes.

Or you write down depression. And you might write down

physical pain that you have.

We need to look deeply because sometimes we dont even

recognize that we have ill-being. There is something that is want-

ing to be transormed, maybe rom our ancestors, that lies deep

in our consciousness. Its calling out to be transormed, but we

havent heard its call. There might be anger there, or depression,

but we havent ully recognized it. It is like someone whos drunk

too much who says, Im not drunk. Somebody whos angry can

say, Oh, Im not angry, theres nothing to be angry about. But

looking deeply we recognize that. So we write it down.

Having written down all that, we look at it in the ace. In

my personal experience, this is a tremendous relie. We may be

able to do this on our own or we may ask someone to help us.

We may go to the doctor or the psychotherapist, and they may

tell us what our ill-being is, i we havent seen it. But principally,

its something that we have to see or ourselves. So even though

were in the First Noble Truth, we already, by acing it as thetruth, begin to see it as it is.

This is something the Buddha teaches us very clearly. In

the Satipatthana Sutta, the Sutra on the Four Establishments

of Mindfulness, in the last section on the mindulness o the

objects o mind, there is a phrase that the practitioner is aware o

ill-being just as it is. We dont magniy it, we dont diminish

it or pretend its not there. We just look at it as it is and when we

do that, we accept it. That is the rst step to healing.

That is what we do with our strong emotions. I there is

an emotion in us that comes up requently, that blocks our

way, we acknowledge it just as it is. Loneliness: just as it is.

Write it down.

The Way to Ill-BeingNow as youve been practicing looking deeply, youre already

on your second column. In your unconscious mind the second

column has already begun to reveal itsel. The second column is

the way that led to the rst column. That is what Thay was talking

about yesterday: the Buddha told us that without ood nothing can

survive.1 No emotion, no physical thing, no psychological state

can survive without its ood.

The Buddha said that i you can see the source o the ood thatis eeding your emotion, and you can stop ingesting that particular

ood, whether its edible ood or the ood o sense impression, then

youre already liberated, youre already transormed.

The way is the causes. What are the causes o this ill-being?

What has led to this ill-being? For each point o ill-being that you

wrote in the rst column, in the second column you can write down

the things that are causing it.

Maybe its what you consume through your mouth. Maybe

its your misunderstanding o what the practice is; you havent

understood that the practice is or joy and or healing. Maybe its

because o what you want, your desires you want to be amous,

you want to be praised, you want to have a position, or youre araid

o losing those things. Maybe there are diculties that began in

your childhood, and you havent yet managed to embrace your

ve-year-old child ully. These are all ways to the suering or you

to look into. And, o course, as Thay said yesterday, maybe its the

television programs, the newspapers, the telephone conversations.

You can write them down.

There are two other kinds o ood. Yesterday Thay talked

about edible ood and the ood o sense impressions. When we

come to the third exercise, we can mention those other two kinds

o ood.

The Way to End the Way to Ill-BeingThe third exercise is the way to well-being, or the way to end

the way to ill-being. Were not going to just cut the ill-being o,

to banish it, but we are going to nd out what its causes are. And

we are going to remove the causes, because we dont want to treat

the symptoms, we want to treat the roots o our ill-being. So that

is why sometimes we say, the way to end the way to ill-being

the way to well-being. The Buddha taught the way to well-being

as the Noble Eightold Path.

When you do the third part o the exercise you can use these

teachings o the Buddha to help you. You adapt each o these

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eight aspects o the Noble Eightold Path to your own sickness,

your own ill-being.

Right View

Right View is the way you have o looking at reality, o looking

at the world. And the Buddha taught the truth o impermanence,

the truth o no-sel, and the truth onirvana. I we have right view,there must be the acknowledgment o impermanence, no-sel, and

nirvana. I there isnt that, then there will be ill-being. So this may

be part o the cure or some o your ill-being.

When we are at peace with the impermanence o our health,

o our lie, then we can do our best to prot rom the days and

the months that are let to us, in a way that is benecial both or

ourselves and our descendants. The same is true with the teach-

ing on no-sel, on not being a separate sel. My happiness is your

happiness. O course, in my amily relationships, when I see that,

it will bring much more well-being to mysel and to my amily.

Nirvana just means not being caught in any views, being ree

o views. When we are caught in a view, when we must be right

and were ready to ght and die or our view, we suer a great

deal. When we despair about the uture o our planet, we can be-

come very dogmatic and caught in our views, and this puts us at

odds with other people. The only way that we can save our planet

is through brotherhood and sisterhood, which means letting go

o our views. But it doesnt mean we dont care. Seeing that the

planet is impermanent doesnt mean, we dont care anymore, we

dont do anything. It means we do everything we can, but we do

it very peaceully. When we are not caught in our views, it doesntmean we dont see the danger and we dont do everything we can

to prevent that danger rom happening.

Right Thinking

The second aspect is Right Thinking. To be mindul o our

thinking to know what we are thinking and where our thinking

is taking us is also important. The way we judge and blame

other people leads to our ill-being as well as theirs. I we can have

a compassionate, non-judgmental, non-blaming thought, that is a

way to our well-being.

All kinds o thinking we have our complexes, guilt, com-

paring ourselves with others is linked to our idea o having a

separate sel. Our constant thinking is a mechanism to keep our

idea o a separate sel alive.

The third kind o ood the Buddha taught is linked with

thinking. It is the ood o intention. The ood o what I intend to

do, what I decide to do, what I want to do, is sometimes calledvolition. This kind o ood can give us a great deal o energy. To

explain this kind o ood, the Buddha told a story. Suppose there

is a young man whos strong and in good health and he lives in a

town. Outside that town there is a large pit that is lled with red

hot coals. There are no fames, theyre smokeless because its so

hot. Every time the young man goes out o the town near that pit

he eels that its not sae, because i he were to all into that pit o

coals he would suer a great deal; he could even die. So he decides

to leave this town and go live in another place where there isnt a

pit o coals outside. That is the Chinese version.

The Pali version is a little bit dierent. Theres also a young

man, hes living in a town, theres also the pit o coals. But he

doesnt make the decision to go and live somewhere else. There

are two strong men in the town. They take hold o him and they

pull him towards the pit, and he didnt want to go there at all, but

somehow he couldnt stop them. They were much stronger than

he was. He knew that i he ell into that pit he would not survive

and he would suer a lot. Still, the two strong men dragged him

in that direction. This is another rather dramatic and drastic way

the Buddha had o describing our intention ood. A lot o energy

can pull us in a direction we dont want to go. These intentionsare not necessarily wholly in our conscious mind. We may have

things deep down in us driving us in a certain direction without

even knowing it. For instance, ambition, the desire or ame, the

desire or money, the desire or sex. All those things can be very

strong sources o ood.

In our meditation, when we are making our lists, we need to

look deeply. What is my deepest desire? What are the things tha

are pulling me along in my lie? Do I want to be praised? Do I

want to have a position? Do I want to be useul? These things are

motivating my way o being.

The only way that we can save our planet is

through brotherhood and sisterhood, which

means letting go of our views.

photo courtesy of the monastic Sangha

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When we discover what is motivating us, we may be able to

stop that source o ood and go in a dierent direction to have

time or our amily, to have time to be in nature, to have time to

be with our sangha, to build our sangha. Because that is where

we eel most happy, to be one with our sangha. To be part o the

sangha body without having an idea o a separate sel. Some people

might get burned out with leading a sangha sometimes, so we haveto be careul o that also; when we are in sangha, we just be part

o that sangha, part o the river, part o the fow.

Right Speech

The guidelines or Right Speech are given in the Fourth Mind-

ulness Training: learning how to listen deeply, to speak lovingly.

Ask yoursel, is this the key to my well-being, in my relations

with my amily? When I am angry, do I know how to practice the

Peace Treaty, to calm mysel beore I say anything?2 And also, do

I know the skillul way to express my anger so that I dont repress

it? Because repressing anger is also very dangerous.

So i under the First Noble Truth you wrote down one oyour suerings as anger, then when you come to the Third Noble

Truth you may like to look at Right Speech as one o the ways

out o your anger, and not watering these seeds in yoursel and

in others. When you are angry, you may not spill out your anger

over someone else, but you can look ater it by your mindul

breathing, your mindul walking. You can take a walk and accept

it just as it is. You can embrace it. And then, somehow talk about

it. Talk about it maybe rst o all in writing. Write down or your

loved one what happened. Read over the letter to make sure that

its easy enough or the loved one to accept, that youve talked

mostly about yoursel, how you eel, without blaming, without

judging. Put yoursel in the skin o the other person as you read

the letter. I you are quite sure she could accept it, send it to her.I you are not sure ask a riend who knows you both to read it and

give his opinion.

I you can, come directly to your loved one and say, This

morning I was really upset. I practiced quite a bit, walking and

breathing, and I know that I cant transorm this upset on my own.

I wish I could, but I need your help. So please help me. Lets nd

a time when we can sit down together and you can tell me all

about what was happening or you when you said that, or when

you did that. That will help me a lot, not to make the same kind

o mistake again.

So this is the practice o Right Speech in order to help us out

o our suering.

Right Action

Ater that we have Right Action. There are three actions, as

we know: the action o our body, the action o our speech, and

the action o our mind. Right Thinking and Right View already

cover the action o our mind. Right Speech covers the action o

our speech. Thereore Right Action covers the action o our body.

Right bodily action is very well described in the First, Second,

Third and Fith Mindulness Trainings.

We may like to look at Right Action in terms o our consump-

tion. What kind o edible ood do we consume? Do we consume

at the right time? Do we eat at the right time? Do we eat in the

right way, that is, in a peaceul atmosphere, not in a rush? What do

we eat? I we eat the fesh o a chicken that was raised in a cage,

we can imagine the suering o that chicken. We know that the

body and the mind are not two separate things. All the rustrationand despair the chicken must have suered being raised in a cage

have gone into the fesh o the chicken, and then we eat it. I we

drink the milk o a cow that has come rom a actory arm, all the

suering, despair, rage o that cow have gone into the milk. This

is also something that we ingest.

So we look at what we eat, how we eat, when we eat. That can

already help us on the way to well-being o our body and our mind.

A meal is to nourish us, not only physically. We give ourselves a

chance to get spiritual nourishment as we eat.

Then the other points o Right Bodily Action are covered

by the First Mindulness Training: not harming, protecting lie.

The Second Mindulness Training covers not taking what is notours, what we dont need. Not over-consuming, not harming the

environment, which are a kind o stealing. The Third Mindulness

Training is right conduct in sexual relations. This also leads to our

happiness and the happiness o our amily.

Right Livelihood

Does my proession bring me happiness? Does it bring me a

lot o stress? Maybe one o the things that you wrote down on the

First Noble Truth was stress. So now we look at Right Livelihood

and we ask ourselves, how much stress does our work give us?

What is our workplace like? Is it a place where we can eel relaxed?

Do we bring a fower or a green plant to put in our workplace to

make it somewhere where we can relax and we can breathe? How

can we make our workplace a non-stressul place? How can we

do the kind o work that nourishes our compassion, so that when

we come to work we can look at our co-workers with the eyes o

love and we can care about them? When we say in the morning,

How are you?, some people dont expect an answer to that, they

just carry on walking. How are you? and the other person says,

How are you? Even when I went to the doctor one time he said,

How are you? and he expected me to say, Fine. But the reason

I went to him was because I wasnt ne.

When we go to work, what we can do is ask, How are you?

and we really mean it. I want to hear how you are. Did you sleep

well last night? and so on, because I care about you. Then ourworkplace begins to have more compassion in it.

Right Eort

Then we have the practice o Right Eort. This is also con-

nected with another kind o ood. In order to be able to talk about

the ourth kind o ood the ood o consciousness I need to

draw that circle on the board.

Store consciousness stores all the seeds, every possible seed

o every possible emotion in latent orm. They may never maniest

in your lietime, but that doesnt mean to say theyre not available.

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11/2310 Summer 2008

I the causes and conditions were right, they would maniest in

mind consciousness. Every individual, as we call our sel, has

access to the collective consciousness, which is also called store,

unconscious mind, background consciousness.

There are our parts to Right Eort, and they all have to do

with the seeds that are in the store consciousness.

1. The seeds in store consciousness that I need or well-being

and have not yet maniested. I shall make the eort, I shall practice

to help them maniest.

2. The seeds in store consciousness that are or my well-

being and the well-being o others that have already maniested

and are already maniesting. I will make the eort to keep them

maniesting.

3. The seeds in my store consciousness that are not benecial

or my well-being and that havent maniested yet. I will not waterthem and help them to maniest.

4. The seeds o my store consciousness that are not benecial

or my well-being, that have already maniested. I will help them

to transorm and go back to the dormant position in the store

consciousness.

Theres no idea o destroying seeds, but helping seeds to

maniest or helping seeds to be dormant. What this means is

strengthening seeds or allowing them to weaken.

One o the teachings o Buddhism is that the longer a seed

remains in the mind consciousness that is, maniesting in our

mental ormations the stronger it becomes. And i its repeat-edly maniesting, it will become stronger. This is very clear. I you

want to learn how to sing a song, the rst time you sing the song

the seed o that song is very weak in your mind consciousness.

You quickly orget the song. But when youve sung, Breathing in,

breathing out, I am blooming as a fower, seven or eight times on

dierent occasions, then it will be very strong. Whenever you need

that song you just have to call on it and it will come up without

you having to think about it.

But the same is true with our anger. I we rehearse our anger

oten, it will become much stronger and it will come up more

easily. So the idea is not to rehearse our anger, which is harmul

or ourselves and harmul or others. It doesnt mean repressing

our anger. It must be expressed, but it must be expressed in the

right way, that is benecial.

So this is the ood o consciousness, the last kind o ood

The Buddha gave another very drastic example.

One Hundred Stab WoundsThere is a criminal, and hes committed a very serious crime

The king sends his soldiers out to arrest the criminal. They nd

him, they arrest him, and they bring him back to the king. Your

majesty, what should we do with this man?

The king gave orders. He should be stabbed one hundred

times.

So the next morning he was stabbed one hundred times

At noon the king asked, What happened this morning to that

criminal?

They said, Well, we did stab him one hundred times, but

he didnt die.

The king said, Then he should be stabbed another hundred

times.

So they stabbed him another hundred times. And then the

king asked them, and again they said he didnt die. The third time

he said, Stab him a hundred times. So they stabbed him another

hundred times.

The Buddha asked his monks, Monks, do you think that

man suered?

The monks said, Lord Buddha, to be stabbed a hundred times

that kind o suering is unbearable, unthinkable. But to be stabbed

three hundred times successively, that is beyond belie.

So the Buddha said, That is the ood o consciousness.

To give an example o what is meant: The human species

is a very young species, the youngest species on this planet. Fo

the human species to be here, there must have been all the other

species that went beore. In our genetic makeup (according to

Buddhism our genetic makeup is not just our physiology, its also

our psychology; I dont know i scientists agree with that, but to

me its clear because the body and the mind are not two dierent

things) all the animal species, the plant species, the mineral species

theyre part o us, theyre part o our genetic inheritance.

Consciousness was there in dierent living beings beorethe human species arose. Physically in our brain you can see

that the brain stem and other parts o our brain, apart rom the

neocortex, also belong to the animal species. I you remember

the time beore you were a human being, you were a little sh

swimming in the sea, and one day a big sh came up behind you

with its mouth open and caught the little sh, ate it. The little sh

was very araid, and that is like a stab wound in consciousness

When you developed into a kind o land species, you were chased

by the big animals. So that was another stab wound, maybe the

same place as the rst stab wound. It is much more painul when

youre stabbed twice in the same place.

Seeds

Mind

Store

Consciousness

Seed Manifestingas Mental Formation

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Now youre a human being, and those wounds, those stab-

bings, theyre still there. I youre not careul with the ood o

consciousness, you can be stabbed in the same place again. It

may not be ear o the big sh, it may be ear o terrorists; somany things we can be araid o. Maybe when you wrote down

the First Noble Truth exercise, one o the things you wrote down

was ear. So now you have a chance to look at your Right Eort,

the ood o consciousness. How do you allow that ear in your

consciousness to get stabbed again? What do you do? How can

you practice Right Eort to avoid the stab wound, to avoid water-

ing the seed o ear?

In the same way, the anger may have been there or a very

long time. Now when it comes up into your mind consciousness,

you know that you can take care o it with Right Eort. With the

practice o mindulness every day, you can learn how to breathe

and how to take care o the seed o anger when it maniests, the

seed o despair when it maniests.

Very oten, not doing anything when we are overwhelmed by

a strong emotion, that is the Right Eort. The Right Eort isnt

necessarily to eel you have to do something, you have to solve the

problem, but just to be able to sit there, do nothing, and embrace

the emotion. Above all, we need to have time or it. We dont have

time to look ater our emotions. So either we repress them and send

them back a little bit stronger into our consciousness until they

explode, or we want to resolve them quickly, so we vent them or

we rehearse them. So Right Eort means to give yoursel plenty

o time to look ater your emotion.

When I have a strong emotion I say to it, Dear one, you havethe right to be there because you are caused and conditioned, and

once the cause and condition are there, theres no way I can stop

you rom being there. So you have the right to be there. And I

know youre impermanent, you wont always be there, but I dont

know quite how long youre going to be around. Never mind.

I you want to be around three days, its okay. I you want to be

around three hours, its okay. As long as you want to be around,

Im here looking ater you.

Im here doesnt really mean me, it means that other seeds

in my consciousness like compassion, care, mindulness are go-

ing to be there.

Right Mindulness and Right Concentration

Right Mindulness means living deeply the present moment,

being aware o what is happening. That can heal so many things .

Right Concentration is an extension o Right Mindulness. Itmeans giving our whole attention to an appropriate object o our

perception in order to discover more o its reality.

Thay has said each step can heal, each breath can heal. Right

Mindulness is to be aware o the wonderul things in lie. You

may ask yoursel, why didnt the Buddha have Right Happiness

as one o the Noble Eightold Path? Its really there, although its

not expressed. Because in Right Mindulness there is Right Hap-

piness. When we are aware o everything that is nourishing and

wonderul in lie, it brings us a very deep happiness.

Finally, how can Right Concentration and Right Mindulness

help us? You might like to write down how youre going to realize

the practice o these things in your daily lie when you go home.

What place are you going to always walk with concentration and

mindulness, to become your walking meditation path on a daily

basis? What time are you going to use or sitting meditation, to be

able to concentrate? What time are you going to put aside or being

with your amily, or using loving speech with your amily, or

expressing your appreciation o your children and your spouse?

All these intentions can be written down in the third exercise.

As we said, when you begin to practice the third exercise, well-

being is already there. Because there is no way to well-being.

Well-being is the way.

Sister Annabel Laity, True Vir tue, was abbess of Green MountainDharma Center in Vermont; she is now in Europe helping Thich

Nhat Hanh start the European Institute of Applied Buddhism.

[1] For an in-depth teaching on the four kinds of nutriments, see ChapterSeven ofThe Heart o the Buddhas Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh(Broadway, 1999).

[2] Several versions of the Peace Treaty, including a Peace Treaty foroneself and for couples, can be found in various books by Thich NhatHanh including Creating True Peace (Free Press, 2004) and Friendson the Path: Living Spiritual Communities, compiled by Jack Lawlor(Parallax Press, 2002).

Our constant thinking is a

mechanism to keep our idea

of a separate self alive.


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13/2312 Summer 2008

T

wars AFTERMATH

The road rom Hue to Dong Ha snakes through villages and

countryside, bounded on each side by ankle-deep foodwaters.

On this day in October 2007, the rainy season in Central Vietnam

is, thankully, coming to an end. The annual fooding has been

particularly heavy this year, with more than orty people having

lost their lives.

As I stare out the car window, we make slow but steady prog-

ress, passing cement-block homes, most o which are painted only

on the ront. Occasional crudely constructed kiosks display Coca-

Cola products, sweets, and cigarettes, inches rom the highway.

Three Americans with a Vietnamese driver, we have been

invited to visit the Quang Tri Province oces o the Vietnam

Veterans Memorial Fund, an American non-governmental organiza-tion (NGO). We want to hear a rst-hand report on Project Renew,

which works with those who continue to suer the eects o a war

that has, or many, never really ended.

I have lived in Hanoi or more than three years, very much at

home and at ease with the people and the rhythm o lie. I under-

stand I am not separate rom what I see. Ater all I, too, am a child

o a war. Mine was between mother and ather. Their war let me

with many wounds. I am grateul or those early years o confict,

or they determined my purpose in this Lie. With the help o the

Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, I continue to work to transorm

the violence o the past inside me and around me.

A

War IsNever

OverBy Trish Thompson

I am keenly aware of the suffering, then, there, here, now. Where does

it begin? Where does it end?

The Ravages o WarDuring the Vietnam War (here called the American War)

Quang Tri was one o several provinces that included, or were near

the ocial line separating the Communist North and the American

backed South. The Ben Hai River served as the ocial boundary

or divided Vietnam since 1954. By the mid-sixties, troops o both

the North and the South, including American Marines, were based

on either side o the confict-ree Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) tha

included the river.

This concentration o troops and supplies attracted some o

the heaviest ghting o the war. These provinces were the target

o more bombs than were dropped during all o World War II, in

both the European and Pacic war zones. In addition, the deadly

chemical Dioxin (Agent Orange) was heavily sprayed over much

o the area to expose anything that moved on the ground, thereby

aiding the work o the bombers overhead.

From the appearance o the land, which was once lush jungle

the deoliation eort was successul thirty-three years later, the

Earth continues to recover rom the abuse o those years o war.

Unexploded Live Ordinance (UXO)My riends have grown quiet. They, too, are concentrated on

the scenes that in some cases literally foat by. Though this is thei

rst trip to this area, no commentary is needed; the landscape say

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wars AFTERMATH

it all. For me, in spite o my eorts to remain in the present mo-

ment, memories o my initial trip to this area rise to the surace.

It was during Thays 2005 trip to his homeland. An OI brother,

Je Nielsen, has arranged or some o us to slip away as the inter-

national Sangha enjoys a Lazy Day in Hue. Je is a veteran who

has made many trips to Quang Tri, the rst while in uniorm. With

us is a Vietnamese university student. She tells us that many people

will not visit the countryside o the province. They are disturbed

by the presence o the wandering souls o those who died here. I

am silent, as are my brothers and sisters.

In Dong Ha, Je takes us to the Center or Peace Trees, a

tree-planting project, supported by American veterans. We are told

o their attempts to educate local youth in how to recognize and

avoid contact with the various orms o unexploded, live ordinance

(UXO) which lie hidden in the soil o Quang Tri. I am shocked by

this inormation, which is new to me. The numbers are staggering:

32,000 Vietnamese citizens have been injured by UXO since the

shooting stopped. Most have been maimed orever. Some have

died. The majority are children.

We practice walking meditation among the dried leaves in

ront o the center. I recognize the eelings. They take me to another

time and place 1971, and I am in Dachau on a snowy day. We

are our, with one caretaker, and the thousands o souls whose

moans seem to foat through the silent air. I am keenly aware o

the suering, then, there, here, now. Where does it begin? Where

does it end?

Reasons or HopeAs the driver avoids the potholes, memory takes me once

again to that day in 2005, on the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, a modern

quiet highway stretching to the border with Laos. We stop to talk

with a group o eleven men who are nishing their days work.

Four days each week, they search with metal detectors or UXO.

Some are easily located, exposed by recent rains. Others must be

dug rom the ground. Once dismantled, these bombs o various

sizes and shapes are hauled away, to be detonated each Friday. The

group oreman, a German man who previously worked to locate

land mines in Bosnia, has been doing this work in Vietnam or

our years. He says the previous week was a light one, yieldingonly 263 bombs. Even though many such teams do this work, it

will take more than 100 years to clear Vietnam o UXO. How to

respond to that announcement? We thank the men or their courage

and commitment, and continue our journey through a countryside

o new-growth trees and hills that once witnessed and survived

the terrible suering o mans war against man.

We enter the streets o Dong Ha and make our way to the

project oce. We spend a pleasant two hours, listening to sta,

asking questions, and viewing a DVD that tells the story o Project

Renew. While their search-and-destroy program or clearing the

land o UXO is a major thrust, they also oer direct assistance to

those who continue to suer the eects o the war. Their prosthe-sis program has helped thousands who have lost limbs through

contact with explosives, and their mushroom-arming program is

providing jobs. I am so impressed by the proessionalism o the

sta and their enthusiasm or their work.

Later in the day, we begin our return trip to Hue. As I refect

on all we have seen and heard, I eel happy. True, we have seen that

a war, once begun, seems to never end. But equally true, we have

seen that one day love and compassion also appear.

Trish Thompson, True

Concentration on Peace,

lives in Hanoi where shepractices with the Hanoi

Community for MindfulLiving.

The numbers are staggering: 32,000 Vietnamese citizens have been

injured by UXO since the shooting stopped. Most have been maimed

forever. Some have died. The majority are children.

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15/2314 Summer 2008

photo collage by Paul Davi

wars AFTERMATH

Question

Marine, why are you in my country?

You tell me you are here to save me.

I dont believe you.

Marine, you are not listening to me.

I dont hate you and your eyes tell me

you dont hate me.

Marine, why are you in my country?

Open your eyes. What keeps my words

from reaching your heart?Why did you kill me?

Why did I kill you?

I died before you knew me.

You died before you understood.

Come to me open your heart.

I will hold you and you will know me

and understand.

Paul Davis

Paul Davis, Authentic Connection o the

Heart, read this poem last year at the retreat in

Stonehill. He explains: In 1965, as a nineteen-year-old Marine, I went to Vietnam knowing little

about life and nothing about the Vietnamese

people and culture. My belief system, developed

as a child in rural America in the 1950s, sheltered

me from seeing the reality of that war. However,

at a deeper level my experiences in Vietnam

were being stored. Later, as my desire to look

deeply grew and as my heart opened, I was able

to reexamine my experience. Several years ago

while on retreat with Thay and the Sangha, I

wrote this poem. It was inspired by a question a

young Vietnamese girl asked me in 1966 and I

wrote it in her voice.

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E

Recognizing these forces and calling them by their true names is to span

a bridge into the deep consciousness, so that the dead in the living can

live with lightness, and so that the living in the dead can truly live.

During Thich Nhat Hanhs trip to Vietnam in early 2007, several Great

Requiem Ceremonies were held, to help heal the wounds of war. Here,

Sister Dang Nghiem continues her recollections of those powerful events

and the deep transformation she experienced. (See part one of her article

in the Autumn 2007 issue).

Each day when a ceremony began, the monastic Sangha would

do walking meditation rom outside the ancestral hall to the ront

courtyard, then to the main hall o Temple Vinh Nghiem (Adorn-

ment with Eternity). Sixty young monks rom Prajna Temple

walked in ront, holding up ceremonial instruments, ollowed bythe Chanting Master o Ceremony (Venerable Le Trang), Thay,

the assisting chanting monks, the musicians, the high venerables,

and over two hundred monks and nuns rom Plum Village, Prajna,

and Tu Hieu.

Thousands o people watched the procession in complete

silence and respect. Most ceremonies took place in the main hall,

and lay people could only observe them by looking in or by watch-

ing two big screens in the courtyard. Still, everyone participated

wholeheartedly and oered up their concentrated energies to the

souls o the departed. Some people had wondered why Thay, a Zen

master, would have these ceremonies perormed in the Vajrayana

(Tantric) tradition. Suddenly, I appreciated the wonderul meaning

o skillul means. With certainty, thousands o beginners like

me would not be able to meditate and concentrate their minds

continuously or three days, but they could more easily ollow

these Tantric ceremonies and bene t rom them.

I Stand StillMy thorax eels like a heavy cement block. The in-breaths

and out-breaths are super cial and laborious. I intentionally make

my abdomen rise and all, but oxygen seems not to have enough

space to enter the lower parts o the lungs. Strange, I had assistedin surgical procedures that were eight to ten hours long when I

did have back pain and abdominal pain, but I never experienced

chest pain like this. I relax my shoulders and arms, and I continue

to ollow my breathing.

The powerul chanting o the monks stirs my deep conscious-

ness: I see thousands o skeleton gures standing on the water and

heading towards the shore without moving. The immense ocean

is without waves. Everything about those skeletons and about

the space around them is gray and oggy. Suddenly, I realize that

I saw these images teen years ago, when I was still a medical

student at UCSF. There were aternoons when I wandered aimlessly

wars AFTERMATH

Spanning a BridgeFor Love to Deepen

By Sister Dang Nghiem

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17/2316 Summer 2008


She worked for American soldie

and me Amerasian children w

along the beach. I stood watching those gray skeleton gures,

not knowing how they were related to me and to the pervasive

sadness always haunting me. I had written about them in a poem,

titled Dreams:

These days my limbs guide me near the waters.

The sky is gray.

Still, the waves are grayer.

I see stick fgures through the mist.

Forever claimed by the sea,

They walk without moving.

Something whispers:

Walk straight. Walk straight.

My heart pulsates, but I am drawn to silence.

I also see people alling down in an open eld; I see little

children screaming wide-mouthed and lying exhausted on their

mothers corpses; I see a naked woman curling up in a bush; I see

layers o people stacked on each other. I see.

I continue to ollow my breathing. I did not know that these

images and the innumerable possible deaths were stored in my

consciousness. Everything I had ever seen, heard, and perceived;

everything my parents, ancestors and society had ever seen, heard,and perceived they all have been imprinted in my mind. Tears

stream down. Sweat oozes in big droplets, even rom places I had

not known could perspire. My whole body seems to be excreting,

and puriying.

For My Mother in Me

I stand still. So that the young girl in my mother can be ab-

solved rom injustice. That young girl had let her arid homeland

Quang Ngai to go to Saigon or work. She became a maid, and

she saved every penny to send home to her mother. Each night,

the owner came to her little corner at the back o the house. She

curled up under her bamboo bed, but he would not let her be. He

used a broom to poke her and get her out. The young girl wandered

on the street; her education was minimal, she had no skills, and

circumstances pushed her as they had pushed countless young girls

in war time. She worked or American soldiers, and she gave birth

to my brother and me Amerasian children who did not know

their athers aces. Then she became mistress to a rich old man

in order to take care o her children and relatives.

There were times when my mother would yell at me and beat

me up as i I were her enemy. Aterwards, while I was sleeping

she would rub green oil on my bruises and cry. Her dream was to

go to America, and all she thought about was leaving. One day in

May 1980, my mother went to the market or work as usual, bu

she never came back. She disappeared at the age o thirty-six. I

was only twelve. I remember squatting on the toilet seat, thinking

Good, rom now on she will not abuse me anymore!

For My Father in My Brother

I stand still. So that the ather inside my brother can be ab-

solved rom injustice. My brother was born with blond hair and

air skin. He was so beautiul that I used to wrap the embroideredtablecloth around his ace and body. He looked like a princess and

I carried him on my hip everywhere. Yet children in the neighbor

hood yelled at him, Amerasian with twelve butt holes! They

spit on him; they made him the American prisoner in their war

games. Sending him to the United States was like severing her own

intestines, but my grandmother was well aware that i my brother

had remained in Vietnam, he would be teased and shamed and

exploited his whole lie.

When he got to the United States, children in school yelled

at him, V.C. go home! because he did not speak any English

Like a wounded animal, my brother lashed out in ury and beat

up those kids with all his might. The psychologist diagnosed himas having uncontrolled extreme anger. The United States gov-

ernment paid money to put my brother in a rehabilitation center

or rich kids who had problems with drug addiction, gang, and

other violence. My brother is thirty-ve years old now, and he is

built like a ootball player. In his house, there are over sixty guns

o dierent sizes; stacks o bullets lie all over the room. He is a

licensed gun dealer. In his house, there are over a hundred video

about the Vietnam War and other violent crimes. My brother can-

not sleep without the television on all night. His eyes are gentle

and bright, and he smiles oten. Yet, my brothers mind has a dark

side, which continues to damage and torment him.

wars AFTERMATH

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nd she gave birth to my brother

d not know their fathers faces.

Tears stream down, but I do not suer. I give thanks to Thay.

He was able to untie the knots in himsel, so that today he can

establish Requiem Ceremonies to Pray Equally or All People and

to Untie the Knots o Injustice in them creating the avorable

conditions or his disciples and his people to uproot and remove

these deep internal ormations.

Sister Dang Nghiem currently lives at Deer Park Monastery;before she became a nun she was a medical doctor.

For My Uncles

I stand still. So that my uncles can be absolved rom injustice.

My eldest uncle (Uncle Number Two) ran away rom home to the

North to become a Communist. Every so oten, soldiers o the

[South] Vietnam Republic would call my grandmother to their

post, beating her and harassing her about my uncle. Ater the

all o Vietnam Republic in 1975, my uncle returned to look or

his mother and siblings. He brought with him a white pillowcase

with red words Returning to Motherland; he had embroidered

it while he was serving on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. My uncle en-thusiastically took my grandmother to the North to meet his wie

and three children. However, he died within six months. Years

o suering rom malnutrition, bouts o malaria, tons o bombs

and chemical warare had damaged his heart, lungs, liver, and

intestines. My grandmother had to return to the South alone, too

stunned to cry.

My youngest uncle (Uncle Number Six) ran away rom home

to go to Saigon when he was thirteen years old. Not being able to

nd my mother, he lived on the streets, polishing shoes, stealing

things, involved in reckless sexual activities, and later he joined

the Vietnam Republic Army. Ater the all o [South] Vietnam, my

mother sent him to a distant armland, so that he could avoid thecommunist rehabilitation camp. He got involved in drinking and

womanizing again. The neighbors were angry, and they turned him

in to the police. My uncle escaped rom prison, swimming over

twenty-ve kilometers along the river to reach my grandmothers

house. My uncle died beore he turned ty-ve. Cigarettes, liquor,

and women had drained all o his lie energy.

For All the Dead

And I stand still. So that the Vows to the Dead and the compas-

sionate energy o the Three Jewels can absolve injustice or all my

people the people with names but bodies unound, and the people

with bodies but names untraceable. Dying in injustice, and livingin repression. Whether or not living people like me are aware, the

injustice endured by the dead continues to be choked and repressed

in our consciousness. Sometimes we can only breathe at the neck

or chest level; our bodies are tense and restless. Sometimes we

eel stressed and agitated. We do not understand at times why we

think, speak, and behave so negatively and cynically. The undercur-

rents rom countless generations, although invisible, still ravage

our lives. Recognizing these orces and calling them by their true

names is to span a bridge into the deep consciousness, so that the

dead in the living can live with lightness, and so that the living in

the dead can truly live.

wars AFTERMATH

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T


wars AFTERMATH

The question is asked requently o middle-aged American male

visitors, Is this your rst time in Vietnam? It generally means,

Did you ght in the war?

My spouse and I were asked the same question by the U.S.

Senator who sat next to us at breakast in the Hanoi hotel in which

we were all staying. The depth o our answers depends upon the

questioner.

With Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), who was visiting Southeast

Asia with his Vietnamese wie, and who oered that he had ought

in DaNang, our next destination, we simply said, yes. I explained

that I was in Hong Kong to do a series o presentations to Wall

Street executives on gay workplace issues, and that we came to see

Vietnam and Cambodia because we had heard they were beauti-

ul countries. That was the truth, but the answer was incomplete.

We didnt want to agitate his painul memories, evidenced by the

ever-so-subtle wince I witnessed when we mentioned DaNang

Knowing how emotionally torn and scarred Vietnam vets can be

I generally say very little in their presence about my early and

consistent perspective on that war.

To our Vietnamese questioners, however, I quickly and gladly

explained that yes, this was our rst visit, and that we both hadactively and vigorously opposed the war. I, in act, was a conscien-

tious objector, a status that was achieved ater a hard-ought battle

with my drat board and with my amily, that was inspired by my

spiritual belies, and that I have never regretted. The Vietnamese

regardless o age or gender, always smiled and enthusiastically

said thank you.

A Difcult PositionIt was remarkable and surprising how good their response

made me eel. It was nearly orty years ago that I passionately

marched, wrote, and voted against the war. I had imagined tha

my eelings about the personal and national confict would havebeen orgotten or ir retrievably buried.

My unfinching public opposition to the war in 1970 was

conceived and nurtured by, among other actors, my attraction

to the Sermon on the Mount, the lives o Gandhi and Francis o

Assisi, the books Mr. Blue andHiroshima, the protest olk songs

o the 1960s, the courage o the Berrigan brothers, and the sel-

sacrice o Thich Quang Duc, the sixty-six-year-old Buddhis

monk who sel-immolated on the streets o Saigon. My idealism

at the time elt very strong, pure, and just. Yet, my position was

painully called into question by my love or a cousin who was a

helicopter pilot in the war, by riendship with raternity brothers

who were in ROTC, by romantic patriotism, by admiration or the

sacrices made by those who ought against the atrocities o the

Nazis. I also harbored doubts about my answer to the drat board

that I couldnt respond to their hypothetical question: would I use

orce to stop someone rom raping my mother?

Spending several days in DaNang, refecting on what Ameri-

cans call the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese call the American

War, can be a deeply challenging, but nevertheless healing process

both or those Americans my age who ought in it and or those

o us who ought against it. But they are eelings that we have

rarely talked about to each other. Im just assuming that Senator

Webb would have been pained by my early resistance to the war

just as Im assuming that he lacked any awareness o how deeply

aected people like me were by those times.

Losing PeaceWhen I walked in the sur outside our luxury hotel, among

teenagers playing soccer, I tried to imagine what it might have been

like or my peer group in 1970 when I did my alternative service

at a Catholic newspaper in Michigan. Many o them served and

died where I was now vacationing.

My ather walked in the sur with me during my silent re-

fections. Though he has been dead or a dozen years, I elt his

presence powerully. Dad was so completely embarrassed and

A Conscientious Objector is Asked,

First Time in

Vietnam?By Brian McNaught

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wars AFTERMATH

ashamed by my reusal to ght in the war that at age ty-seven

he threatened to either commit suicide or re-enlist in the Navy. His

very angry glare at me at that moment remains one o my most

enduring memories o him.

Though I didnt lose my lie, a limb, or my sanity as a result

o the war, as so many others my age did, I lost the respect o my

ather and o many o his generation. I also lost the peace in myown lie that I sought to secure or others by my actions. Once I

let the comortable environs o my socially conscious, Catholic

college campus and entered the multi-generational work world,

I was immediately immersed in an emotionally-ractured culture

populated by riends who had lost riends or sons in the war.

Debating the wars merits with them or with others never seemed

like a mindul thing to do. I lived in ear o exacerbating the pain

o others in my youthul need to justiy my position. I thus lived

alone with the most soul-searing and divisive public position I

had ever dared to take.

As I made my way down the beach at DaNang, imagining

battleships and machine-gun re, I wondered i my athers per-spective on the war and on my decision had changed with time.

We never talked about it. It seemed no one wanted to talk about

it. The past was best let in the past.

Even though reminders o the war abound in this country,

rom the concrete bunkers that dot the landscape to the 400,000

children disabled by Agent Orange, Vietnam is healing and thriv-

ing. The war that did so much damage to their amilies and to

mine is not on the minds o those who are thirty years old and

younger. These baby boomers talk enthusiastically about their

utures, wave and smile happily in response to riendly gestures

rom Americans, and reer excitedly to what they recently read

on AOL about US-Vietnamese economic cooperation. The past isindeed past or them, even i they are curious about that o their

middle-aged male visitors.

From Vietnam to IraqHere at home in the States, young ones are thinking about the

Iraq war, which our government calls nation building and the

Iraqis call the American occupation. There is no drat today, so

young people in the U.S. are not orced by law to make lie-altering

moral decisions about the war in Iraq or any other military venture.

They dont have to ght to prove to a doubting drat board that

they are truly conscientious objectors. This is a good thing in many

ways, as it rees them to pursue countless other means o making

a contribution to society. On the other hand, being orced to takea personal moral position on war is not bad or the soul.

I today I was orced to make a decision about ghting in Iraq,

my position would be guided by the Tao Te Ching, the teachings o

the Buddha, the writings o Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron,

and by my personal experience o creating my own suering and

my own happiness. I would still choose to be a conscientious

objector but at age sixty, Im ar less romantic and idealistic

than I was at age twenty, ar more able to see the shades o gray.

I can see how situations can dictate personal ethics. I would, or

instance, now state clearly to the drat board that I would protect

my mother or any person rom being raped or assaulted, by any

means possible, even i it meant losing my conscientious objec-

tor status. On the other hand, Im ar more conscious and careul

today about protecting the lie o spiders, fies, ants, and worms

than I was in my late teens and early twenties.

Though I dont have children o my own, I do have a young

nephew who has decided to enlist in the Marines as soon as he

graduates rom high school next year. Davids decision does notembarrass or anger me. He will never have to recall a searing

glare rom me. But I do eel that he is ar too young to make a

mature decision about participating in a war and Im at a loss on

how to help him understand the lielong emotional ramications

o that action.

I dont know how David eels about the prospect o going

to Iraq, or what prompted his decision to become a Marine.

Were not that close. I do know that hes really good at paint ball

competition and that he imagines he will be very good with a

gun. Hes the product o a single-parent household and he needs

discipline, a college education, and a secure nancial uture, like

so many o his peers who enlist not to ght in Iraq but to survivein the United States.

For whatever reason one decides to ght or not ght in a

war, regardless o whether or not there is a drat, the eects o the

choices we make in our youth will impact us prooundly or the

rest o our lives. Forty years rom now, when my nephew David

visits the Middle East as a middle-aged tourist, he will undoubt-

edly be asked, Is this your rst time in Iraq? Its my hope that

his answer, and those o his generation, brings orth in him and

in his questioner eelings o peace.

Brian McNaught is a best-selling author and a corporatediversity consultant on gay and transgender issues

in the workplace. He and his spouse, Ray Struble,divide their time between Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and

Provincetown, Massachusetts.

pullouts?

Though I didnt lose my lie, a limb, or my sanity as a result

o the war, as so many others my age did, I lost the respect o my

ather and o many o his generation.

Today Im ar less romantic and idealistic than I was at age

twenty, ar more able to see the shades o gray.

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I

I was deeply touched recently by a book calledAt Hells Gate: A Soldiers Jour-

ney rom War to Peace. The author, Claude Anshin Thomas, describes in detai

the suering he has experienced as a Vietnam veteran [see excerpt].

The description o his suering made me look more deeply into the experi

ences o a soldier. I tried to imagine how it would eel to be trained as a killer

at the age o eighteen. How it would eel to kill another human being. How it

would eel to watch my riends die in ront o me, or to watch children die as a

result o the military action in which I was involved. How it would eel to live

in ear o violent death on a day-to-day basis.

Looking deeply at these things helped me to understand the suering on

a dierent level. I realized, or example, that I could not even begin to think o

how I would reconcile the thoughts and emotions around killing another human

being, let alone many human beings. I know that labeling the people I killed as

enemy would not bring me comort in the long run. I know the energy o those

actions would continue with me in some orm as long as I lived.

Anshin Thomas also oers his opinion that the United States, as a peoplenever really took responsibility or the Vietnam War. Most people viewed the

war as distant and unconnected to their day-to-day lives. They did not recognize

that it was their liestyles that supported the institutions o war. And, or the mos

part, they did not oer support or the veterans o the war, or or the victims o

the war in Vietnam.

All o this got me to thinking about the war in Iraq, and my connection to

that war. I realize that I have not really taken responsibility or my connection

to that war. I ollow the news about Iraq, and rown at it. I think rom time to

time about the tragedy o the war, and how I disagree with the U.S. government

position on the war.

Claude AnshinThomas came

home from the

war in Vietnam

in 1967. In the

years following his

military service,

his life spiraled

downward into

post-traumatic

stress, drug

and alcohol

addiction, and

homelessness,

but his life turnedaround when

he discovered

Buddhism. Zen,

he found, offered

him a path toward

healing, a practical way to cope with his suffering rather

than run from it. The following took place in 1990, when

Thomas attended a meditation retreat for Vietnam veterans

led by Thich Nhat Hanh.

I drove to the retreat on my motorcycle. At that time I

was riding a black Harley Davidson. I was dressed in

a typical ashion or me: black leather jacket, black

boots, black helmet, gold mirror glasses, and a red

bandanna tied around my neck. My style o dress

was not exactly warm and welcoming. The way I

presented mysel was intended to keep people away,

because I was scared, really scared.

I arrived at the retreat early so I could check

the place out. Beore I could think about anything,

I walked the perimeter o the whole place: Where

are the boundaries? Where are the dangerous places

where Im vulnerable to attack? Coming here thrust

me into the unknown, and or me the unknown meant

war. And to be with so many people I didnt knowwas terriying to me, and the eeling o terror also

meant war.

Ater my recon I went down to the registration

desk and asked where the camping area was, because

I didnt want to camp where anyone else was camp-

ing. I was much too rightened to be near so many

strangers. This time each day, sunset, was lled with

ear ear o ambush, ear o attack, ear o war

exploding at any moment. Rationally I knew that

these things wouldnt happen, but these ears, like

the reality o war, are not rational.

I am not interested in action th

encourages anger or division, but I would l

the voices of non-violence and compass

to be heard.

wars AFTERMATH

The Light at theTip of the CandleBy Claude Anshin Thomas

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What Sacrif ces?But I havent really done anything about it. My liestyle has not changed

one bit since the war started. I have not had to make any sacri ces as a result o

the war. I have not attempted in any way to help those who have been impacted

by the war. And I havent gotten involved in the political process to help shape

the U.S. governments position on the war. So, Ive decided that it is time orme to do a ew things with respect to the war in Iraq.

First, I am determined to keep in touch with the suering o the U.S. service

men and women in Iraq and with the suering o the Iraqis and others impacted

by the war. This does not mean that I cant enjoy my idyllic lie in Boulder, or

that I should be remorseul or angry. But it does mean that I need to cultivate a

sense o connectedness to what is happening. And I will try and nd a way to

have some direct interaction with those who are suering.

Second, I am determined to nd a way to help those who are impacted by

the war. I will need to explore this in coming months, but it will at least include

donating time and/or money to charities that are involved in assisting veterans

and Iraqis.

Finally, I am determined to get more involved in the political process in the

U.S. I am still eeling my way around this one, as I dont want to create more

aggression through political action. I do not believe in denouncing others or

their views. I am not interested in action that encourages anger or division, but

I would like the voices o non-violence and compassion to be heard.

Taking ActionI am still in the process o exploring how I can best turn my expressed

intentions into action. As a rst step, I shared my concerns by e-mail with am-

ily, riends, and members o the wider Sangha. It was di cult to open up in

this way to so many people, especially to people outside the saety o our local

Sangha meetings.

But the results have been heartening. I have initiated dialogs with people

that I might not have otherwise considered as sources o inormation and sup-

port with respect to these issues. Many people shared their own experiences

and heartelt thoughts on Iraq and war in general. Perhaps most importantly, the

public expression o my aspirations strengthened my resolve to take action.

I also received some practical eedback about people and organizations

that I could contact to help me turn my expressed intentions into action. Here

are just a ew:

The List Project (www.thelistproject.org) aims to resettle Iraqis thathave become targets of violence due to their support of the U.S.effort in Iraq.

I put my tent in the woods, away rom every

body else, and I sat there asking mysel, What a

I doing here? Why am I at a Buddhist retreat wi

a Vietnamese monk? I have to be out o my mind

absolutely crazy.

The rst night o the retreat, Thich Nhat Han

talked to us. The moment he walked into the room

and I looked into his ace, I began to cry. I realizeor the rst time that I didnt know the Vietnames

in any other way than as my enemy, and this ma

wasnt my enemy. It wasnt a conscious though

it was an awareness happening rom somewhe

deep inside me.

As I sat there looking at this Vietnamese ma

memories o the war star ted f ooding over m

Things that I hadnt remembered beore, even

I had totally orgotten. One o the memories th

came back that evening helped me to understan

why I had not been able to tolerate the crying o m

baby son years earlier.

At some point, maybe six months into m

service in Vietnam, we landed outside a villag

and shut down the engines o our helicopters. Ote

when we set down near a village the children wou

rush up and f ock around the helicopter, beggin

or ood, trying to sell us bananas or pineapples o

Coca-Cola, or attempting to prostitute their mothe

or sisters. On this particular day there was a larg

group o children, maybe 25. They were most

gathered around the helicopter.

As the number o children grew, the situatio

became less and less sae because oten the Viecong would use children as weapons against u

So someone chased them o by ring a burst rom

an M60 machine gun over their heads. As they ra

away, a baby was let lying on the ground, cryin

maybe two eet rom the helicopter in the middl

o the group. I started to approach the baby alon

with three or our other soldiers. That is what m

nonwar conditioning told me to do. But in th

instance, or some reason, something elt wron

to me. And just as the thought began to rise in m

head to yell at the others to stop, just beore th

thought could be passed by synapse to speech, on

o them reached out and picked up the baby, and blew up. Perhaps the baby had been a booby-tra

a bomb. Perhaps there had been a grenade attac

or a mortar attack at just this moment. Whateve

the cause, there was an explosion that killed thre

soldiers and knocked me down, covering me wi

blood and body parts.

This incident had been so overwhelming th

my conscious mind could not hold it. And so th

memory had remained inaccessible to me until th

evening in 1990 .

wars AFTERMATH

My Responsibility

for the War in

IraqBy Bruce Campbell

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23/23

At the retreat, Thich Nhat Hanh said to us, You veterans

are the light at the tip o the candle. You burn hot and bright.

You understand deeply the nature o suering. He told us

that the only way to heal, to transorm suering, is to stand

ace-to-ace with suering, to realize the intimate details o

suering and how our lie in the present is aected by it. He

encouraged us to talk about our experiences and told us that wedeserved to be listened to, deserved to be understood. He said

we represented a powerul orce or healing in the world.

He also told us that the nonveterans were more respon-

sible or the war than the veterans.* That because o the

interconnectedness o all things, there is no escape rom

responsibility. That those who think they arent responsible

are the most responsible. The very liestyle o the nonveterans

supports the institutions o war. The nonveterans, he said,

needed to sit down with the veterans and listen, really listen

to our experience. They needed to embrace whatever eelings

arose in them when engaging with us not to hide rom their

experience in our presence, not to try to control it, but just

to be present with us.

I spent six days at the retreat. Being with the Vietnamese

people gave me the opportunity to step into the emotional

chaos that was my experience o Vietnam. And I came to

realize that this experience was and continues to be a

very useul and powerul git. Without speci c awareness o

the intimate nature o our suering, whatever that suering

may be, healing and transormation simply are not possible

and we will continue to re-create that suering and inect

others with it.

Toward the end o the retreat I went to Sister Chan Khong

to apologize, to try to make amends in some way or all thedestruction, the killing Id taken part in. I didnt know how

to apologize directly; perhaps I didnt have the courage. All

I could manage to say was: I want to go to Vietnam. Dur-

ing the retreat they had said, i we who had ought wanted to

go to Vietnam to help rebuild the country, they would help

arrange it. And so I asked to go to Vietnam; it was all I could

say through my tears.

* When Thay gives teachings he does not normally say that non-veterans are more responsible than veterans for the war, but non-veterans are just as responsible as veterans. Sister Annabel

From At Hells Gate:A Soldiers Journey from Warto Peace, by Claude Anshin

Thomas, 2004, 2006 byClaude A. Thomas. Reprinted

by arrangement with ShambhalaPublications Inc., Boston, MA.

www.shambhala.com.

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