Fwd: Newtown shooting -- 3 perspectives ---Christian, Buddhist and a criminal lawyer's experience
Jeen Lim
Brother Phap Luu, a monastic at Plum
Village, grew up in Newtown, Connecticut. He has written an
amazing, heartfelt letter to shooter Adam Lanza, that you
can read here:
Saturday, 15th of December, 2012
Dharma Cloud Temple
Plum Village
Dear Adam,
Let me start by saying that I wish for you to find peace. It
would be easy just to call you a monster and condemn you for
evermore, but I don't think that would help either of us.
Given what you have done, I realize that peace may not be
easy to find. In a fit of rage, delusion and fear—yes, above
all else, I think, fear—you thought that killing was a way
out. It was clearly a powerful emotion that drove you from
your mother's dead body to massacre children and staff of
Sandy Hook School and to turn the gun in the end on
yourself. You decided that the game was over.
But the game is not over, though you are dead. You didn't
find a way out of your anger and loneliness. You live on in
other forms, in the torn families and their despair, in the
violation of their trust, in the gaping wound in a
community, and in the countless articles and news reports
spilling across the country and the world—yes, you live on
even in me. I was also a young boy who grew up in Newtown.
Now I am a Zen Buddhist monk. I see you quite clearly in me
now, continued in the legacy of your actions, and I see that
in death you have not become free.
You know, I used to play soccer on the school field outside
the room where you died, when I was the age of the children
you killed. Our team was the Eagles, and we won our division
that year. My mom still keeps the trophy stashed in a box.
To be honest, I was and am not much of a soccer player. I've
known winning, but I've also known losing, and being picked
last for a spot on the team. I think you've known this
too—the pain of rejection, isolation and loneliness.
Loneliness too strong to bear.
You are not alone in feeling this. When loneliness comes up
it is so easy to seek refuge in a virtual world of computers
and films, but do these really help or only increase our
isolation? In our drive to be more connected, have we lost
our true connection?
I want to know what you did with your loneliness. Did you
ever, like me, cope by walking in the forests that cover our
town? I know well the slope that cuts from that school to
the stream, shrouded by beech and white pine. It makes up
the landscape of my mind. I remember well the thrill of
heading out alone on a path winding its way—to Treadwell
Park! At that time it felt like a magical path, one of many
secrets I discovered throughout those forests, some still
hidden. Did you ever lean your face on the rough furrows of
an oak's bark, feeling its solid heartwood and tranquil
vibrancy? Did you ever play in the course of a stream,
making pools with the stones as if of this stretch you were
king? Did you ever experience the healing, connection and
peace that comes with such moments, like I often did?
Or did your loneliness know only screens, with dancing
figures of light at the bid of your will? How many false
lives have you lived, how many shots fired, bombs exploded
and lives lost in video games and movies?
By killing yourself at the age of 20, you never gave
yourself the chance to grow up and experience a sense of how
life's wonders can bring happiness. I know at your age I
hadn't yet seen how to do this.
I am 37 now, about the age my teacher, the Buddha, realized
there was a way out of suffering. I am not enlightened. This
morning, when I heard the news, and read the words of my
shocked classmates, within minutes a wave of sorrow arose,
and I wept. Then I walked a bit further, into the woods
skirting our monastery, and in the wet, winter cold of
France, beside the laurel, I cried again. I cried for the
children, for the teachers, for their families. But I also
cried for you, Adam, because I think that I know you, though
I know we have never met. I think that I know the landscape
of your mind, because it is the landscape of my mind.
I don't think you hated those children, or that you even
hated your mother. I think you hated your loneliness.
I cried because I have failed you. I have failed to show you
how to cry. I have failed to sit and listen to you without
judging or reacting. Like many of my peers, I left Newtown
at seventeen, brimming with confidence and purpose, with the
congratulations of friends and the approbation of my elders.
I was one of the many young people who left, and in leaving
we left others, including you, just born, behind. In that
sense I am a part of the culture that failed you. I didn't
know yet what a community was, or that I was a part of one,
until I no longer had it, and so desperately needed it.
I have failed to be one of the ones who could have been
there to sit and listen to you. I was not there to help you
to breathe and become aware of your strong emotions, to help
you to see that you are more than just an emotion.
But I am also certain that others in the community cared for
you, loved you. Did you know it?
In eighth grade I lived in terror of a classmate and his
anger. It was the first time I knew aggression. No computer
screen or television gave a way out, but my imagination and
books. I dreamt myself a great wizard, blasting fireballs
down the school corridor, so he would fear and respect me.
Did you dream like this too?
The way out of being a victim is not to become the
destroyer. No matter how great your loneliness, how heavy
your despair, you, like each one of us, still have the
capacity to be awake, to be free, to be happy, without being
the cause of anyone's sorrow. You didn't know that, or
couldn't see that, and so you chose to destroy. We were not
skillful enough to help you see a way out.
With this terrible act you have let us know. Now I am
listening, we are all listening, to you crying out from the
hell of your misunderstanding. You are not alone, and you
are not gone. And you may not be at peace until we can stop
all our busyness, our quest for power, money or sex, our
lives of fear and worry, and really listen to you, Adam, to
be a friend, a brother, to you. With a good friend like that
your loneliness might not have overwhelmed you.
But we needed your help too, Adam. You needed to let us know
that you were suffering, and that is not easy to do. It
means overcoming pride, and that takes courage and humility.
Because you were unable to do this, you have left a heavy
legacy for generations to come. If we cannot learn how to
connect with you and understand the loneliness, rage and
despair you felt—which also lie deep and sometimes hidden
within each one of us—not by connecting through Facebook or
Twitter or email or telephone, but by really sitting with
you and opening our hearts to you, your rage will manifest
again in yet unforeseen forms.
Now we know you are there. You are not random, or an
aberration. Let your action move us to find a path out of
the loneliness within each one of us. I have learned to use
awareness of my breath to recognize and transform these
overwhelming emotions, but I hope that every man, woman or
child does not need to go halfway across the world to become
a monk to learn how to do this. As a community we need to
sit down and learn how to cherish life, not with gun-checks
and security, but by being fully present for one another, by
being truly there for one another. For me, this is the way
to restore harmony to our communion.
Douglas Bachman (Br. Phap Luu)
who grew up at 22 Lake Rd. in Newtown, CT., is a Buddhist
monk and student of the Vietnamese Zen Master and monk Thich
Nhat Hanh. As part of an international community, he teaches
Applied Ethics and the art of mindful living to students and
school teachers. He lives in Plum Village Monastery, in
Thenac, France.
--------------------------------------------Suffer, the innocents
By Dunstan Chan
Published 23 December 2012, thesunydaypost
It is a week since that senseless crime, the slaying of the innocent children and teacher, in Newtown, Connecticut, USA. There is still much gnashing of teeth, renting of clothes and beating of breasts in anger, frustration and grief among Americans and indeed, among many in the world.
This heinous event has cast a pall on the festive season and launched a wave of collective grief around the world. On the Internet, there are several online petitions to express sympathy for the Newtown victims and families. In USA, flags were flown half-mast for the day. President Barack Obama gave an emotional and eloquent speech to the grieving community and the American nation. A news commentator asked distraughtly, “How is a father to answer his child when he ask, ‘why?’”
That was in USA. Let me take readers to another country. Ali was just sitting down to dinner with his family – his two sons, daughter, wife and his two elderly parents when death came down, suddenly and silently from the sky. It took away his whole family except his youngest son of six. This was a death that was sent from half way round the world. Where is Ali’s home? It could be Iraq, Afghanistan or the tribal area of Pakistan. (On 11 August 2011 a report of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism said, “… as many as 168 children have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan...” Now, that is just the verifiable number of children killed and in one country alone.)
What could Ali’s answer be if his surviving son were to ask “why?” Perhaps Ali’s answer could be, “the leaders of countries that care about our freedom are sending their soldiers and war machines to kill the evil people who are suppressing us.”
In their war against “terrorism” and to bring “democracy and freedom” to those perceived repressed countries, America and its allies have sent their fittest and best trained young men equipped with the most sophisticated machines as agents of death.
If we were to cry a cry for every innocent civilian accidentally killed, we would have cried rivers (not just a river). If we were to shed a tear for every person killed in this righteous war, we would have shed an ocean of tears. If we were to fly the flag half-mast for every war victim the flag would remain so for years.
The American child asked “why?” Why did that crazy man ruthlessly and senselessly murdered those innocent children and teachers? Indeed, why did the previous dozen or so equally deranged gunmen perpetrated similar mass shootings? (For the timeline of mass killings in America google: www.newsmax.com/US/mass-shootings)
Let me venture to answer his question. It is because the world has adopted the principle that violence is the ultimate solution to disagreement. This has been accepted as the guiding principle in conflict situations in the last century with America and its allies leading the way in its implementation. Thus, the world has established a culture of violence. So entrenched is this culture that violence is the main box office draw for many movies. The young are not spare from it influence: violence is also the foundation of majority of computer games, games that many children find so addictive.
So, if one does not agree with the way certain tyrant rule his country, the “go to” solution is to bomb him to oblivion. I don’t think I need to illustrate the incidences of these murderous and ruthless actions. The readers can have their fill from the world news page of any newspaper or news portal.
So the guys in Newtown Connecticut, in North Illinois University, in Virginia Tech, in Columbine High school and dozen other mass killers were deranged, depressed, paranoid, etc. They had a problem with the people around them. Their solution was to visit these perceived enemies and tormentors with violence and death. Is that any difference from a government spending billions of dollars in trying to kill the perceived enemies of freedom and democracy? There is, only in the matter of degree and scale. But the underlying philosophy is the same, namely, problem is solved through violence.
In the wake of this latest of obscene human aberrations there is a petition calling for greater gun control in America and President Barack Obama in a video response endorsed such a call. So they are going to impose greater restriction on the access to guns. Great!
President Obama in his speech said, “… we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” I am not sure what he was alluding to but it did sound good. It would have been better if he thinks more deeply on what he had just said. Let me put my on slant to this. “What is seen” I take it to mean what is obvious. In this case, the obvious (and knee jerk reaction) is to control the access to arms. But “what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” I submit that “the unseen” is that culture of violence that has been created and one that dictates the response to crises, be they personal or global.
The Good Book says: “they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7). The world has sown the wind of violence. America and its allies have sown this seed in far-flung countries. In the safety of the home countries the violence and deaths are just news items and human casualties are mere digits and head count. Well, it appears that “the chickens have come home to roost”.
“Peace on earth and good will to all men” has been the resounding cry every Christmas for millennia. My friend John said somewhat cynically, “This is delusional. This is like whistling in the dark. Look at the world today and it is rather unfair. Perhaps we should change it to ‘peace to all men of good will’.”
Nice try John. Unfortunately, the whirlwind is indiscriminating in the victims it visits. So, I am afraid the innocents will continue to suffer. They will continue to suffer until we have the wisdom and courage to rid the world of the curse of the culture of violence.
Newtown: Is it an issue of culture of violence?