The
day after the bombings at the Boston marathon, I went to my yoga
class. Our teacher invited us to hold the people of Boston in the
peacefulness of our breathing. I thought about the vulnerability of
breath—how quickly it can be extinguished, and how quickly life can
be no more. We so often take it for granted, but in that moment, I
did not. When we breathe we are a part of a great rhythm and flow of
life. The air invisibly connects us all. Zen
teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has said, “We are here to awaken from the
illusion of our separateness.”
This
week I have been thinking about a poem he wrote many years ago, “Call
Me By My True Names.” He wrote it after hearing a tragic and
horrible story of a young girl, one of the boat people trying to
escape from Vietnam. She had been raped by a sea pirate, and jumped
in the ocean and drowned. He felt very angry at the pirate. But
looking more deeply, he realized that if he had been born in the
village of the pirate, and raised in the same way, he too might have
become a pirate. He tells us we are all responsible for the
circumstances that create the pirate.
I
have been thinking about the bombings in Boston, and about two boys.
First of all, my heart broke when I saw the picture of the eight year
old who was killed, Martin Richard. I think all of our hearts broke.
In the picture, he was smiling and holding a poster—“No More
Hurting People—Peace.” How do we take in the horrible tragedy of
his young life cut short?
A
couple days later, other pictures appeared, of two young men who were
suspects in the bombing. We learned that they were brothers,
originally from Chechnya and Dagestan, but living in Massachusetts
for the past decade. People who knew the younger brother talked
about their surprise that Dzhokhar
could
have done such a thing: he was only nineteen, a normal kid, friendly,
a good student, he had been involved in sports at Cambridge Rindge
and Latin. As the cities around Boston were locked down in the
search to find him, I felt a sense of bewildered compassion for this
teenager, now alone, wounded, who for some inexplicable reason had
thrown his life away into violence. As
President Obama asked on Friday,
“Why
did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities
and country resort to such violence?”
We
don't know the answer to that question. So many young men in our
country have exploded into senseless killing. Columbine, Sandy Hook,
Virginia Tech. But I also thought about Chechnya and Dagestan and
the violence and war of that region in which they spent their early
childhood.
The people there tried to form an independent state after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, but were violently repressed by the
Russian government.
Of
course, I felt relief and gratitude when Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev was captured.
People could rest easy now. It is natural to feel compassion for
the victims of violence. But I don't think we can end terrorism
without beginning the difficult process of opening to compassion for
its perpetrators as well. Violence is a cycle that we are all caught
inside. We must move beyond dividing the world into us and them. We
must move beyond the practices of empire, where nations force other
peoples to do their bidding through the use of war and weapons. The
only real way to fight terrorism is to recognize our common humanity.
Thich
Nhat Hahn wrote his poem Call Me By My True Names, after a long
meditation on the unity of all beings. He says, “In the poem there
are three people: the twelve year old girl, the pirate, and me. Can
we look at one another and recognize ourselves in each other.” In
my heart today there are three people: eight year old Martin,
nineteen year old Dzhokhar
and me. Can we recognize ourselves in each other?
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