Breaking the chain of violence

“Anguish and mental turmoil are not uniquely Russian, or Kenyan, or Chinese,
or Salvadoran, or American.  The conditions vary, but everywhere there is
the pain of human suffering and discontent.  Dhamma (the Buddhist way)
offers a path of release open to all.  Will everyone then someday practice
the meditation technique taught by the Buddha?  Not likely.  You may prefer
a different way.  But, please, find a way. 

Find a way beyond the continuous chain reaction of craving, jealousy, ill
will, indifference, fear, and anxiety that fills the mind.  Find a way that
dissolves the deeply ingrained patterns of negative, distrustful behavior
caused by past cruelty and disappointment.  Find a way that demonstrates to
you that ill will and greed are damaging to your psyche.  Find a way that
grounds your deeds in wisdom, equanimity, compassion, and lovingkindness.
Find a way that reveals to you the joy of our profound unity, the subtle
interrelatedness of you and every being, every manifestation of the
unfolding universe.  Find a way that will continually deepen your
understanding of that knowledge.  Then we could build a community without
hypocrisy.  Then we would have a chance.”

Charlene Spretnak
States of Grace


I am marking an anniversary: two years ago this week, I was attacked at
work.  As I walked down a hallway, a man I had supervised for 15 years came
up, glassy-eyed, and without saying a word punched me several times.  He
broke my nose, damaged my vision, and bruised my body. 

After the attack, things got worse instead of better, for several reasons. 

The attack dredged up vivid memories of physical and emotional violence I
experienced as a child.  After years of counseling and Al-Anon meetings, I
thought I had mostly worked through the abuse, but this attack brought back
all those previous attacks in an incredibly powerful way.  I was flooded
with sweaty flashbacks, feelings of shame, and hair trigger responses.

Second, my family has never dealt with our history of violence and wasn’t
able to deal with the attack in a way that met my need for support. 

Third, the attacker never apologized.  Instead, he filed charges against me.
It took 1½ years before the charges were dismissed.

Finally, at work there have been people who said I must have done something
to set the attacker off, and blamed me.  When kids are beaten, they always
conclude it is their fault.  To again be blamed for being attacked was
agonizing.  I had to tell myself repeatedly that I could have been the worst
boss in the world and still didn’t deserve to be beaten.  I had to keep
saying the beating had to do with the attacker, not with me.  I told myself
that people who do not want to get in touch with how vulnerable we all are
may choose instead to blame the victim. 

I felt frightened by the violence, disappointed that some people weren’t
there for me, angry that I was unfairly accused, frustrated that I can’t
give my side of the story to everyone who heard about the attack,
overwhelmed, and worried that I couldn’t bear it all.

Things got better when I focused on what I can do.  Things got better when I
focused on breaking the chain of violence. 

When I was a teenager, I shuddered when I first read that abused kids often
become abusers.  What a tragedy that each generation adds a link in a chain
of violence.  I did not want to do that.  Similarly, I did not want to come
out of this attack swinging. 

As the opening quote says, I want to find a way beyond the continuous chain
reaction of negativity.  I want to dissolve the deeply ingrained patterns of
negative, distrustful behavior caused by past cruelty and disappointment.  I
want to find a way to get past the pain and transform it into something
good. 

We are all connected in an interdependent web of life.  What one person does
in one part of the web affects other parts.  I feel comforted and empowered
by the idea that if I can break the chain of violence in my life, if I can
manage to not take my pain out on others, if I can transform my pain into
something positive—justice, compassion, understanding, or connection—I
contribute to peace in the world.  Because we are all connected, small acts
can be large.  I celebrate that redemptive possibility.

Reader, this is true for you, too.  Whoever you are, one way or the other,
life will break your heart, and the challenge is to not break someone else’s
in a negative chain reaction.  Let’s not pass the pain along.  If we can let
our heart break and not lash out, if we can live broken-open-hearted, if we
can make room for our pain, if our heart can become larger and more able to
hold both our suffering and that of others, we bring peace to the world.  We
can overcome the violence and turn it into positive power.  Something good
can come out of something awful.

As the opening quote suggested, there are different ways to absorb and
transform pain.  In another helpful book, Pay Attention for Goodness’ Sake,
Sylvia Boorstein writes about a way called a lovingkindness meditation.  The
idea is to offer well wishes and lovingkindness to yourself. After all, she
says, “There is no person in the world who is more worthy of your
well-wishing than you.”

There are standard meditation lines, but she suggests people write one that
is more particularly suited to them.  She shares the one she wrote for
herself:

May I feel protected and safe
May I be contented and pleased
May my body be filled with strength
May my life unfold smoothly with ease

You say it to yourself, over and over.  It helps you to calm and ground
yourself.  At some point, and there is no rush to do this, you may feel the
desire to wish for others what you wish for yourself.  You can change the
“I” to “you,” and widen your circle to your loved ones.  You can widen the
circle again to include friends, then neutral acquaintances, strangers, and
finally the people you find challenging.

May you feel protected and safe
May you be contented and pleased
May your body be filled with strength
May your life unfold smoothly with ease

If you can pause throughout the day, particularly when you are in pain, and
direct your energy away from harm and toward something positive, you are
creating peace.  When you widen the circle of care from yourself to others,
you are building peace. 

I’ve been working on a meditation for myself:

May I be comfortable in my body
May I love and be loved
May I transform my pain into compassion, justice, and higher consciousness
May I experience the joy of a clear mind and open heart

I wish it for myself, and when I widen the circle, I wish it for all people
who are suffering, and hope they can transform their pain.  If you are in
pain, I wish it for you. 

May you be comfortable in your body
May you love and be loved
May you transform your pain into compassion, justice, and higher
consciousness
May you experience the joy of a clear mind and open heart



By Anonymous

Learning to slow down and honor our experiences fully

This is an excerpt from "Happiness is an inside job: practicing for a joyful life" by Sylvia Boorstein.  It speaks to me because it is about how your mind can take a painful situation and make it worse by spinning stories and creating confusion.  It talks about how we can all help ourselves deal with the many challenges we face in our life by slowing down and honoring our experience fully. The book as a whole is a great resource and this excerpt is one of several good ones:

"Still, I consider my meditation practice a success because of one crucial and definite change in me in the thirty years since I began.  I now trust that even when what is happening to me is difficult and my response to it is painful, I will not suffer if I can keep my mind clear enough to keep my heart engaged.  I know that my suffering begins whenever my mind, for whatever reason - the enormity or the suddenness of the challenge, its own exhausted state - becomes confused.  In its confusion, it seems to forget everything it ever knew, It tells itself stories, alternatively angry ("This isn't fair!") or pitiful (Poor me!") or frightening ("I can't stand it if things aren't different!").  No inner voice of wisdom ("This is what is happening, it's part of the whole spectrum of painful things that happen to human beings, and you can manage") can make itself heard to soothe the distress.  I continue to suffer, stumbling around in stories of discontent, until I catch myself, and stop, and allow myself to know, and deeply feel, that I am frightened or confused or disappointed or angry or tired or ashamed or sad- that "I'm in pain!"  Then my own good heart, out of compassion, takes care of me.  It all happens when I am able to say to myself (I honestly do use these very words), "Sweetheart, you are in pain. Relax. Take a breath. Let's pay attention to what is happening. Then we'll figure out what to do." "

submitted by samk

What would you do if you knew you could never fail?

What would you do if you knew you could never fail?

Maybe I would straddle the female dog that is life or grab her by the tail

Perhaps, I would bungee jump from the Sears, I mean the Willis Tower

Without prayer that my cord wouldn’t fail

I’d free-fall

I’d purchase land from every man,

Every basketball court I’d own, so I’d free-ball

I’d breathe life back into brother Malcolm

I’d make racial tension blow away like Talcum

And the Powder that has soured our community?

I’d be on the first thing smoking to Cuba

To stop the meetings between drug producing liaisons of Them, the U.S. and He

I would make my dreams my own

I Would use my imagination to create an alternate universe no Avatar creating Spielberg or Professor JRR has ever known

Before I lay down at night I would erase all of my nightmares,

Rewrite what wasn’t right so at night my mental house and kindred spouse could say “GoodBye, Scares”

I would invade my own mind so that I could implant the success I want to be

Inception.

For all intents and purposes I could rewind and take note on all the stress that should never be

Deception.

Seems imminent

But not if I knew I could never fail

Maybe I’d create a new version of War and Peace

Only because the world needs balance and without calm what would exist if War would Cease?

Maybe I’d walk around naked and dare anyone to touch me

But society would deem that I asked for it

And those misogynistic sexual predators would bumrush me

Not because of my dangerous learning curves

Or ample breasts

But rape is a crime of power 

The assailant sleeps but the victim never rests

Until she has lived a life of advocacy or promiscuity

She is so ashamed that this shameless cretin

Has made her feel like she belongs in a sewer, See she

Believes that it’s her fault

So she pretends to make amends every time she gives her body away

She replenishes the secrets of her impenetrable vault

Sister, if I could never fail I would lead you down a trail

That ends in prosperity and cleansing

A little mental Decontamination

Although you can’t take it back, it is he not you, that should feel the need for sanitization

I wish that I couldn’t fail you…

I would offer you resource at the therapist that I sought

I would give you the secrets in beating the demons that I fought

I'd help you dodge viruses so you’d forgo the influenza that I caught

I would do it, you would accept it, and these words wouldn’t be for naught

I would embrace you, and admire you, and your new path others would trail

And I could do it all since I know it couldn't produce an EPIC FAIL

I would take my male counterparts and relieve some of their tension

Make them honest with their needs, not hide behind façade or pretension

I would acknowledge the vicious cycle, they embed soon the black man will be extinct

Some are concise in their distaste, but through self-loathing both become succinct

I feel you cringe when they say American Idol, they don’t mean you

But when they say incarceration is final they feel for YOUR future it rings true

I could never know your pain

And I could never take another humans life so I

Could never comprehend the gain

I don’t know what plans were made before engaging in deviant behaviors such as loading a gun and cocking it 

Driving by in an unmarked, unregistered Chevy so you can unload and unlock it

Now you’ve made your mark

You have desecrated another family by taking the life of someone who wasn’t fast enough to dodge the bullet spark

Because they never realized that they were racing

When my child leaves for school, I'm so nervous my mind and feet are constantly pacing

"GOD, PLEASE SEND HIM BACK TO ME"

And if in his future he loses his vision, "please give it back to see"

I am not an enraged individual

And although I sit here and “spit” here passionately

I have sanity as my foreground, no matter how residual

If I could never fail…

I would pick up the Earth and push it off of its axis

I would make everyone pay it forward

Like the IRS does with obtaining their taxes

I would shake the Globe incessantly and then the weak would let go

And the survivors would hold on to whatever “State” of mind they could control

Then I would ascertain that those who still remain are those who really want to be here

So they’d appreciate, and the love we make would come from all who want to be free here

Maybe I'd be a monk, but I'll still write my pieces 

But I'd be able to meditate in peace, I'd live in the temple with no external societal excrement or lascivious leases

Sometimes I’m long-winded….

Even the Gettysburg address was over in less than three minutes

But I’m Honest enough and Able to realize that centuries later there’s no fable

And still no birth to a new freedom

While I appreciate your Address Mr. Lincoln

I'm sitting at this Address and I'm thinking that...

Four Score and Seven Years Ago, you could’ve never pictured this

A little black girl descending from slaves in your era

With a pen, pad, and black fist

Who thinks she could never fail

She pays homage to those before her who blazed that forever trail

And on the other hand.......

The world without failure would be a world that didn't try

And the quality of successes wouldn't be worth the salty liquid that streams from my eye

It is those that make several attempts that lead lives beyond being content

And I predict through muddled thoughts so thick, that if I didn't accomplish it today…

Tomorrow… Looks… Just… fabulous

And if I hold YOU to a higher standard, Me, Myself, and I won't be mad at us

And although I'm no Shahmen or soothsayer 

I've been compared to the consciously connected truth sayers that say that...

I will try again......

Because that's what makes me win

The desire to succeed at all costs to reap the benefits of becoming my own boss is what my future will entail

So until I cry from the sky with the angels raining from above way up high,

I will keep trying because I....Could.......Never.......Fail

by Vertigo

Empty Daydream

I always daydreamed…
about sitting and writing
in the early morning hours
just myself
a cup of coffee
and the beauty of the new day arriving
I don’t know why I never did it
There have been many beautiful mornings
where I sat
in wonderment
as the world awakened
with nothing more
than my coffee
my thoughts
and my amazement

I never picked up a pen
Sometimes
I rationalize
that it is because in my daydreams
I am a writer by occupation
and doing my job conveniently
Other times
I realize
that it is fear
I do not know how to empty my mind
I fear
the inevitable failure would be painful



Anonymous

Dreaming that it becomes real

I am here.
I am strong.
I am enough.
But I can only say that in a cage. To myself. Dreaming that it becomes real.
The noise is too much. I wish I could walk away.
But I nestle within the warm confines of where I have always been. Just to get some silence.
I am here.
I am strong.
I am enough.
But I am still in a cage, awaiting my journey

 Anonymous