The Roots of Suffering

You probably sorted out the kittens from the stuffed animals in this charming photo in a blink, without even trying, based on what you know.  Live animals are not blue.  Kittens have heads with a pattern, noses and ears and eyes shaped like that.  But a baby would not know how to sort this out if nothing moved. If you held her over this bed she would reach her hands out for whatever appealed to her, and be astonished if it moved.

This small example goes to something much larger, and that is that we also sort people out as "real" (like me) and "other" (not me, not my brother).  That is a distinction that allows us to kill other human beings.  All of us, including Adam Lanza.  I believe that to Adam those he killed were not real in the way we commonly understand reality.  His mother had become a monster in his eyes, a threat to his freedom.  It looks like he had come to see the children as his enemies; perhaps his mother gushed over them, but didn't seem to love him.  But let's take this more generally to the issue of gun violence, and to our own spiritual work

My example is a story going around this season.  Since you can pause and read it here on Snopes, I won't bother to retell it.  As you see, Snopes can find no evidence that this is a true story.  But that's not the point.  The point is, it's a myth some people love and are circulating, not just men, but women, too.

The woman who posted this on Facebook has an adult son who is an alcoholic with a long history of problems, a guy who might, in a drunken moment, snatch a purse like the guy in the story - who is gunned down by a woman with six shots in his back.  The woman's daughter added her comment that she would commit that execution in a flash.  Maybe the waitress needed every penny that purse was carrying, she said.

This young woman is married to a soldier, and the story had come from an unsavory web site I won't give any publicity to here, which mixes hatred and pornography and violence with the conviction that Americans should have the freedom to own weapons.  Unfortunately, those things do seem to mix well.  I can tell you that page has some 70,000 "likes" while the Dalai Grandma Facebook page, which advocates spiritual practice and compassion, is just struggling toward 100.  Well, okay, there is work to be done.

A number of rights are guaranteed by the American constitution and its amendments that are all essential to freedom, including freedom of the press, of speech, and of religion.  If any of these is most important, maybe it is the right to justice, that is, to be tried for any crime you are fairly accused of, as opposed to being murdered by someone defending her purse or home as you are running away.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck shows off one of two rocket-launchers turned in during the Dec. 26 gun buyback program. (Jay L. Clendenin, Los Angeles Times / December 27, 2012)

The above photo and accompanying story were in the Los Angeles Times and many other news sources.  But it is instructive to go to the I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists page and read some of the comments.  There you can see the complexities of this issue, which I think actually is in part class warfare.  We have to keep asking as citizens of free countries what makes other citizens so distrustful of their government?  What makes them believe it won't protect them, that they need to be heavily armed?  Is it, in fact, the same paranoia and simmering rage that motivated Adam Lantz?  What is the rage about - having to work for a minimum wage too low to live on, and no health benefits?  This is not just their problem - it is ours. 

Having No Choice

Artwork by Lorraine Art Schneider

 I find myself thinking about my parents, of course, this time of year.  Both have been dead for over ten Christmases now, but their karma really bit me.  The violence in my family seems allied to the violence at Sandy Hook; the violent response of the NRA reminds me of my father, who wanted above all to keep his gun.

My mother never felt she had a choice in life.  I don't think her mother, Leona, did either, though it is bittersweet to know that Leona did have an affair with "the motorman."  I imagine there was passion and pleasure there, but it is not clear whether that had anything to do with her death in her early forties; my mother thought it might have been hemorrhaging from an abortion.  All abortion was illegal in 1943.  That's not my subject, but it is relevant.

What I was thinking about was dinnertime in the house I grew up in.  My mother would put on the table something she had made from scratch, of course, back then.  It might be her famous spaghetti and meatballs, the sauce made from tomatoes she canned.  There would be this tension while we watched my father covertly taste it.  Most likely he would sniff, which was a way he had of sneering, and say, refusing to look at her, "No napkins."

Because my mother always "forgot" to put the napkins on.  Then we would eat in silence.  I suffered chronically from irritable bladder and bouts of diarrhea.  It made me what I am today. 

If I were dealing with someone like him today, first of all, we would have talked about it.  If that didn't stop his game, I would not have cooked dinner the next night, that simple.  I imagine he would have said, "What's this?  No dinner?"

I would say, cooly, "Why should I?  You don't appreciate the effort, and the kids can eat peanut butter."

It's a nice fantasy to think that we might have talked, but I don't know.  My mother seemed unable to negotiate with him.  She  probably tried various passive-aggressive tactics; I know she made up her mind to refuse him sex after one St. Patrick's Day party when he embarrassed her in front of friends by refusing to dance with her, but danced with the rest of the women there.

In a patriarchal system, many women are frozen with fear of overstepping the unspoken boundaries set up by the belief that men are better than women, that women are stupid, that we are here to serve men.  We can be conditioned to these beliefs without ever hearing them spoken that way.  We are so conditioned that we don't know we are afraid.  We don't even think of options. I believe my mother thought,  "Of course you cook for Your Man.  You have to."  That wasn't a matter of choice.

I think I'll stop the domestic story here to remark that my father stole the gun, a Luger, from a dead German (he called this "liberating" it) in World War II.  He had joined the Army during the Great Depression, a poor boy who couldn't find a job, but ended up serving six years once the United States finally entered that mess, after hideous damage had been done to other countries and peoples.  He was in the Battle of the Bulge.  He only talked about that once.  That's about all I know. 

Except that he had post-traumatic stress, and would sometimes have nightmares and wake up calling for my mother.  And now I have it, because he abused me, sexually, verbally, emotionally, every way he could. After death, I learned he'd been making moves to cut me out of the estate.

There's a whole lot of bad karma around power.  Hatreds and illness are born in any system that sets someone up as is intrinsically better than someone else by virtue of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, skin color, intelligence, money, or any other superficial difference you can think of.  Such ideas of superiority were directly behind the Holocaust Hitler was creating until America finally decided it was our war, too.

It's complex.  But peace is not. 

How to Have Happy Holidays in Spite of it All

With empty hands, I take hold of the plow

The last couple of days have been hard for me, with a major weather system blowing me away yesterday, as it can fibromyalgics.  Three days ago, Wednesday, I came home from collage to find Tom at the kitchen table looking stressed, with a bloody gauze pad on his forehead.  He had fallen and hit his head on a corner of the hutch.  He may have been saved from being blinded in that eye by the fact that his glasses initially took the blow.  We are so close that I "lose it" when I am frightened for him.  Lose my equanimity and become all a-tremble.

I was already shaken.  My beloved women friends and I had been sharing the general pain of the Sandy Hook shootings here in America - 20 schoolchildren, six teachers, and two mentally ill people all died.  The mentally ill people were Nancy Lantz and her son, Adam.  Nancy owned at least five weapons, including the semi-automatics that can kill a lot of kindergartners in a minute, whether you can aim or not.  But Adam knew how to aim -she'd taken him target shooting.  And he knew where to get his hands on guns.  Nancy was a brand of everyday walking-around paranoia, a survivalist, who'd stocked up on food and water and guns. 

A lot has already been accomplished.  I read this morning that various of the United States, including my own Ohio, have passed funding for the treatment of autism. So many of us have petitioned the White House that President Obama has replied via a video.  People are turning in guns in Connecticut, where they understand now that people with guns kill people.  But the work is far from done.

It is our work as people of good will, Christians, Buddhists, atheists, all citizens, to stay with this work, but not to let it destroy us.  I awoke this morning realizing that I need to bring myself back emotionally from too much empathy and emotion.  It is a very good motivator, but the work of change needs a clear head.  So there's a Zen koan, "With empty hands I take hold of the plow."  I can actually visualize this, hands relaxed on the plow.  (The painting above is one of several van Gogh made of ploughmen.) 

The empty hands mean we work from our understanding of the universal, of all the dynamic and potential of life.  So we need to be refreshed by spiritual practice and by celebration, by love and friendship and our understanding of the constant miracle of birth.

Botticelli, The Birth of Christ (attended by the animals)

Bearing Witness

Now comes the hard part.  The funerals for the children and teachers who died at Sandy Hook are not getting as much press.  Who wants to keep thinking about our unbearable vulnerability? You'd never go to the movies again if you let Aurora get to you.  Remember Aurora?  That shooting took place at the hugely hyped premiere of a violent movie.  These people were shot there:

The little girl had been taken by her father to the midnight premiere as a special treat.  That gunman showed up dressed in combat gear.  Here is a quote from one of the survivors, Stephen Barton, who was shot in the face and neck.  He was interviewed by CBS:

"I thought we were going to get somewhere after what happened in Aurora and frankly, all we got was silence."

Sunday morning a stalwart advocate for peace at my church had a table with some bumper stickers and buttons for sale.  I picked up one lone sticker that said "Don't buy War Toys," but then got distracted signing a petition and put it down.  I had already wondered if I should put that on my car, or if it would just lead to some violent response such as keying my poor old Civic or, worse, puncturing tires.  After all, the opposition believes in violent action, and you've heard how they're talking online.  Women, too. 

I have just experienced today's 15 minutes of frustration looking online for that sticker, to put it up on this post, but didn't find it in a jpg, which is all I know how to use.  There is this article, though - you might want to read it.  I got the above photo off that site. 

I have vowed to continue bearing witness to these tragedies.  This is the essence of the awareness Buddhism teaches, that we take in the whole thing, all the suffering in the world, and not close our eyes to it.  Compassion and working for peace and social justice are all one thing.  I came up with a couple of ideas for activism today.  One is writing to the President or CEO of Barnes and Noble to remind them that their shelves are stocked with stuff like this.  WalMart knows better than that just now.  I imagine no one at Barnes and Noble has thought about it.  These are books I happened across looking for a Zen calender for next year.  You can buy a 365 day calender on guns, but not one on Zen.  Irony is not dead.

 Not thinking about it is what the pro-gun forces want us to do.  So stay with your sadness and anger, and suck it up.  This is a political process.  It takes work of a different kind than arguing with the violent people who show up on your Facebook somehow. Trading insults with them isn't going to get us anywhere except a little sick in our stomachs.  It takes money and publicity and encouraging the President to use his power and sticking with it.  Mother Jones had it right when she said, "Pray for the dead and work like hell for the living."

And, you could share this post.  Thanks.

There is Work to be Done

Children being led past their dead friends, told to keep their eyes closed

 I woke up this morning with the Sandy Hook massacre on my mind, and ideas about how I can help push sensible gun laws through our political system. Opening my e-mail is a little more annoying than usual these days, with marketers in a frenzy to sell me cigars and mail-order cookies. But my stern mood was modified when my inbox led me to Smiling Mind, and I sat with the 5-minute body scan.

I have been impatient with the advice coming from ministers and Buddhist teachers that we all sit deeply with this grief, because I'm not hearing people say, "Now get to work."  To my mind came something I once read said by Zen Teacher Bernie Glassman.  He and his students were meditating every morning in the overgrown schoolyard of an abandoned school.  He said, as I recall, Meditation is a luxury; I could do it all day.  But there is work to be done.  So they just meditated for 20 or 30 minutes.  Then he and his students began cutting back the weeds that were shielding dealers selling drugs to children. 

This is the moment when something can happen in America that can prevent these tragedies.  Here is a link to an article with the headline "Gun Backlash Begins."  As well it might.  It is our job to remember, to insist that the backlash goes on.

I went to Michael's craft store today and bought black grosgrain ribbon and tiny safety pins.  I am making a black ribbon to wear until - I am not sure.  I am not putting it aside to celebrate.  I intend to wear it on my red-and-green plaid Christmas shirt at least until the turn of the year.  Then I'll think about it.  I'm very awkward with hand sewing, so I don't know how many more I'll make, but I'd like to have some to give away if somebody wants one. 

The poet William Blake - another madman, by the way - wrote this phrase:  "Joy and woe are woven fine."  One of Roshi Glassman's main teachings is Bearing Witness to the suffering in life. This is why he leads retreats at Auschwitz.  We need to keep remembering those 20 children and six adults who were murdered by an unhappy young man with his mother's guns, guns she had taught him to use.  We need to think about how far and wide the tragedy of these deaths spreads, how many lives are irrevocably stained by it.

I would be interested in hearing from some of you who don't live in America, how you see this, whether you see America as a violent nation.  May we be free from danger.