Memorial Day 2021 / Soto Zen Tradition / Yoshio Takehara / Love and compassion

A soldier's journey from war to peace

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R was introduced to Buddhism while he was serving as a helicopter mechanic in Vietnam during most of 1970.  Yoshio Takehara was the sergeant who made a lasting impression on R through his practice of Buddhism in time of war.  I remember how devastated R was when he learned of Yoshio Takehara's death on February 15, 1971.

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R died on April 20, 2008.  Part of him died in 1970, but Love didn't die.  Neither did Compassion.

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Love and Compassion on Memorial Day 2021

The voice of a 92 year old and the voice of a Vietnam War combat veteran who became a Zen Buddhist and the voice of a Nobel Prize winner and the voice of a commencement speaker

Abe Markman

As a white man living in a black family for the last fifty-eight years, and having served people of color as a social worker in inner cities, I can attest to having prejudice toward blacks and learning how to act without it. The key, I think, is to fully acknowledge it. Malcolm Gladwell discusses this phenomenon in his 2005 book, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. He quotes a psychologist, Keith Payne, who writes that, “When we make a split-second decision, we are really vulnerable to being guided by our stereotypes and prejudices, even ones we may not necessarily endorse or believe.” Gladwell goes on to write that when one of our own hidden biases flashes before us, “we need to wait a beat before identifying the object in an unbiased way… the giant computer in our unconscious needs a moment to do its work.” (from an article in The Humanist)

In the following talks, Claude AnShin Thomas addresses what I perceive as the same process of learning not to act out of previous conditioning, of learning to act in ways that don't promote endless suffering.





Claude AnShin Thomas

Again and again, I find myself asking, "How much violence are we willing to tolerate so that we don't have to feel uncomfortable?"  And, "How much violence are we willing to tolerate so that we don't have to alter our lifestyle?" These are questions that echo in my mind as I move from place to place.  They apply not only to the obvious fighting taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan; they address the roots of violence that exist within me and within each one of us.  (from At Hell's Gate, p. 162)

Toni Morrison -- 1993 Nobel Lecture 

... She is convinced that when language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem, or killed by fiat, not only she herself, but all users and makers are accountable for its demise. In her country children have bitten their tongues off and use bullets instead to iterate the voice of speechlessness, of disabled and disabling language, of language adults have abandoned altogether as a device for grappling with meaning, providing guidance, or expressing love. But she knows tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience ...

... It's quiet again when the children finish speaking, until the woman breaks into the silence. 

"Finally", she says, "I trust you now. I trust you with the bird that is not in your hands because you have truly caught it. Look. How lovely it is, this thing we have done - together."

(quotes from the Nobel Lecture)

(Transcript from the Nobel Lecture)



Louise Erdrich

"Do your best for this beautiful world." (from the 2009 commencement speech)

This all took some time to listen to.  It was worth the time.