Awareness of Internal Wars
Sojong Reminder from Anam Thubten
Dear Dharma friends,
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On my recent trip to Maui, I was blessed by this beautiful island in the Pacific Ocean, which can easily be described as paradise on earth, with a gentle mist in the air that moisturizes your skin, perfect temperatures accompanied by a light breeze from the warm ocean, and where all of the muscles in your body can relax. The intense colors of the flowers awaken your senses and can make you forget all of the problems of the world. Yet, in my conversations with friends, what is going on in the world keeps coming up and brings our attention to an imperfect picture of the world that lies beyond our immediate senses. Someone there told me that there are thirty-three wars going on in the world right now. Still, when my friends took me to a beautiful plaza with music and food, it felt like we were in some kind of heaven. There were Buddha statues everywhere in the plaza and as usual, those statues evoke dignity, or unshakeable equilibrium. This is the image that we also tend to conjure up in association with Buddha.
However, shockingly, in an excerpt from the Attadanda Sutra, Buddha himself said that he was utterly challenged by seeing the conflict generated by humans towards each other:
Fear is born from arming oneself.
Just see how many people fight!
I'll tell you about the dreadful fear
that caused me to shake all over:
Seeing creatures flopping around,
Like fish in water too shallow,
So hostile to one another!
— Seeing this, I became afraid.
We don’t know how literally we should interpret these verses, but it’s certainly pointing out that the world can be very challenging for us. Particularly right now, with the wars going on in Eastern Europe and the Middle East that are costing the lives of so many innocent people and the destruction of homes, schools, and hospitals, it’s hard not to be challenged by it all. When we are challenged, it’s quite easy for us to react from very basic impulses, like taking sides, hating others, or becoming totally despondent. Maybe part of us doesn’t even want to go there in our minds, but would rather remain in the bubble of our comfortable home where everything is kind of okay. As someone who’s taken the Bodhisattva’s Vow, it’s our practice to never turn away from the woes of the world, like war, violence, and injustice.
True Dharma is never about escaping to a “mini-nirvana” where we’re soaked in a kind of eternal bliss and we don’t care about anything. This kind of state of mind is very enticing, yet it’s an illusion. The truth is, we can never find true freedom until we develop compassion and courage. I feel that this is a time for all of us to take action—not out of anger or hatred, but out of love. This action can simply be a prayer for ending all of these senseless wars around the world. Also, we might want to look in our own consciousness for any internal wars that reflect the inner poisons. Large-scale wars are often the culmination of many individual internal wars that humans have not yet resolved for themselves. We might also like to pray that these wars within ourselves be resolved as well.
During this sojong, you might like to hold all of humanity, without any exception, in your widest, open heart. Pray that everyone, especially those who are suffering the most right now, will find peace. Let’s pray that everyone, including those who have the power to end the war and conflict, will choose love over hatred. Let’s be hopeful, remembering that each human being has Buddha nature and that awakening to it is always possible.
With palms joined,
Anam Thubten
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