How many times have you been to a protest rally and had to endure the angry rants of angry people amplified to painful pitch through bullhorns? Today's protest outside the UN did not fit that description. Led by local Buddhist monks, it was an exercise in watching the mind — how there is violence in all of us. And a reading of the Metta Sutra, praying for the peace and happiness of all beings.
As I sat in meditation I thought of other religious figures who were victims of a violent regime. I was thinking of Rabbi Akiva, who was flayed to death by the Romans for teaching Torah. The story of the moment of his death is that it was time to say the Sh'ma — the prayer of unification and awareness of the oneness of reality. It is said that he spoke this prayer with calm devotion while in the most excruciating of tortures. And he explained that he was able to do this because the first time he was his full devotion was tested, a devotion that is of the heart, body, mind and soul which is called for by the prayer.
Today throughout Burma there are people who have taken the Buddhist vows who are being tested in this way by a government as cruel and hateful as the Romans. And the protesters at today's rally were tested to live, as Thich Nat Hanh has called it, peace in every step. This is the way of Ghandi. And it was the way of Christ as well, forgiving the torturers because the act in ignorance. And to practice this way one does well to remember a precept from the Pirkei Avot:
"it is not your job to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it."
One of the things one prays for as a Buddhist is addiction to results. Today's demonstration would have been very unsatisfying for many people. (Not that the loud demonstrations of my youth were effective) And I don't mean to suggest that specific action should not be taken. Only that, as Krishnamurti said it, the only real revolution is within.
We must be free of the hate we seek to end, we take important action to end over and above meditating. But if we aren't eradicating the hate in our own hearts we are only perpetuating the cycle of violence. I am certainly not free of this hatred. I feel the anger rise when I think of any of the juntas of the last 50 years in Burma, Chile, you name it.
This evening at 5pm there will be more demonstrations, meditations and action organizing in Union Square Park.
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