Reconciliation
Fall 2004 Vol. 21 #1
Fall 2004 Vol. 21 #1
Introduction
Habits of blame and retribution can be deeply entrenched. As the Buddha extols in the Dhammapada, “Greater in combat than a person who conquers a thousand times a thousand people is the person who conquers herself.”
Features
Peacemaker Marshall Rosenberg‘s trainings are based on an assumption that when we are clear and connected to ourselves, there’s nothing that we like better than to contribute to one another’s well-being. Even if we’re “enemies.”
Vipassana teacher Phillip Moffitt developed a potent “Reconciliation Meditation” that helps replace inner tension and emotional turmoil with acceptance of the truth.
Zen teacher Yvonne Rand teaches the healing practice that helped her forgive and transform her relationship with her alcoholic mother.
Long before James Baraz found the dharma, he fathered a son. Twenty-nine years later, they established a relationship.
Green Gulch Farm’s Wendy Johnson introduces conservationist Peter Forbes, whose work with the Trust for Public Land combined meditation with activism, linking cultural diversity and natural diversity, fusing civil rights and environmental rights, and showing that the health of big wilderness is directly connected to the health of our core cities.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Ajaan Geoff) examines the Buddha’s methods for achieving reconciliation, noting that forgiveness is one thing, reconciliation another.
Kate Lila Wheeler describes the intricate teachings of the Kalachakra and its apocalyptic prophecy.
Activist and dharma teacher Stephen Fulder brings us to the streets of Tel Aviv and beyond, where Palestinians and Israelis join together in a walk of peace.
David Budbill is a poet, playwright, essayist, speaker, musician, gardener and publisher of a cyberzine. Quite a list of accomplishments for a man who moved decades ago to a remote area of northern Vermont to live as a hermit.
Barbara Gates seeks reconciliation with the way things are—including her estranged sister and a departed friend.
Poems & Not Poems
Wes Nisker introduces poet Gary Snyder‘s “attempt to reconcile with ancestors who had their own ideas about the elimination of suffering.”
Reviews
Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Forest Nun, by Faith Adiele
Reviewed By Ronna Kabatznick
(288 pp., W. W. Norton, 2004)
(238 pp., Shambhala Publications, 2004)
A Mindreader's Briefing
Reviewed By Peter Dale Scott, Ronna Kabatznick, Wes Nisker
Short reviews of Trust in Mind: The Rebellion of Chinese Zen • The Four Immeasurables • A Flock of Fools: Ancient Buddhist Tales of Wisdom and Laughter from the One Hundred Parable Sutra • Buddha in a Teacup: Tales of Enlightenment • Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West
Practice
Diane Eshin Rizzetto offers a reconciliation practice for letting go of “frozen views” and encountering others with Beginner’s Mind.
The Dharma & the Drama
Wes Nisker has a proposal for how we can deal with humanity’s god problems.