Searching for the Tenor of the Day

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Afghanistan, Druidcast Tarot, fire, Iraq War, Karma, Karmic Tarot, Religion Spirituality, root guru, Tarot card, Tibetan Buddhism, Vietnam War, William Lammey

I have consulted Karmic Tarot cards from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective for nearly 14 years now. While my Teachers stress that reading Tarot cards is not a part of traditional Tibetan Buddhism, I do have permission from my Root Guru to do this practice. My primary reference is William Lammey’s Karmic Tarot, a sound architectural system of correspondences that immediately remove the entire issue of reading Tarot cards out of the occult, and into the reason of a cause and effect universe.

I drew a card from my favorite deck, Druidcast Tarot, and came up with the 9 of Wands, as you can see. My question was simply, what is the tenor of the day.

On a microcosmic level, this would be a day of solitude, a day of much-needed withdrawal from the fray, to heal that left (female side) arm. She is broken. Wands represent the spiritual realm, so this wounded warrior leans heavily on his spirituality to steady him. His male side is supported by his adherence to his wand (spirituality). Has he just emerged from the still-raging battle in the distance? The other Wands of his spirituality safely protect him as he is still and alone. He is wounded. And he is Selfless. And he is enormously creative and strategic. The level of attainment is high.

On a macrocosmic level, say that this figure is the the US. We are wounded. Our feminine nurturing policies are broken or non-existent. We need rest and time to come up with more creative, more gender-balanced, and less destructive solutions. We are capable of this. The barbaric raging of battles in the distance do not require our participation, which would only add more fire (wands!) to the fray. Our warriors are wounded and alone after selflessly attaining objectives for the good of all. May each and every one of them have safety, comfort, love and solitude in which to heal inside and out.

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A review of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Calming the Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism

Tags

Engaged Buddhism, Martin Luther King Jr., mindfulness, monasteries, Nobel Peace Prize, non-violence, Parallax Press, Plum Village, Terrorism, Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam War, Zen

Vietnamese Buddhist monk Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh . . . “Thay” (for Teacher), was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968 for Thay’s action toward what he coined as “Engaged Buddhism” in the midst of his war-torn country: out of the monastery, acting to relieve suffering

Ven. Thay is the author of over 70 books, and there are numerous of his teachings to be found online. I believe he is in his late 80s, and a month ago, I read a rumor that he was ill. I pray for his long life. We need him.

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Calming the Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism, while written in 2005, offers a wisdom that, had we in the U.S. heeded back in the militaristic era of the Vietnam War, might have diverted the awful consequences of our collective negative karma that was the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh is the author of many beautifully simple books both lucid and approachable for Western Dharma practitioners. The term “engaged Buddhism” may have originated with his human rights work in his own war-torn country of Vietnam in the 1960s. The Zen monk’s efforts towards peace and non-violence were attempts to actively apply Buddhist tenets of compassion and mindfulness to impact social change. He was recognized in the west in 1967 when Dr. Martin Luther King, himself a student of Mahatma Gandhi Lama, nominated the monk for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In Chapter One, “Uprooting Terrorism,” the monk describes how he was searched by security guards at the Los Angeles International Airport as he arrived with 120 of his monastic students on their way to a retreat for transformation and healing. The extremely personal intrusion led him to realize the guards “ . . . were not looking for my Buddha nature, they were looking for my terrorist nature. . . . When a civilization comes to this level of fear, it is going in the wrong direction.” Yet how did we, the American people, evolve to this extreme of delusion and paranoia in this most prosperous country in the world?

The angered call to America’s youth for retaliation proclaimed a “War on Terror.” An entire generation responded to fill the ranks of the military. Truly now, “we terrorize others so that they will have no chance to terrorize us. We want to kill before we are killed.” This monk claims that what the military training soldiers going to Iraq receive “makes them lose their humanity” and so “the torture and abuse these soldiers engaged in is the direct result . . . [Y]oung men [and women] going to Iraq arrive there already full of fear, wanting to protect themselves at all costs, pressured by their superiors to be aggressive . . . and be ready to kill at any moment.” This statement is affirmed in the deadly cry of marching Marine Corps soldiers as they bellow out the Turkish word for “Kill!”

Thich Nhat Hanh offers hands-on solutions for receding from this collective afflictive state, and continually reminds the reader that the only possibility for social change rests in one’s personal commitment to inner transformation. Deep listening, mindfulness through watching the breath, open the individual to awareness of our complicity in the current epidemic of worldwide suffering. Through these meditative techniques, we begin to understand how our negative over-consumption–via all our senses–has prompted hatred from severely deprived people in other countries. With this understanding we begin to cultivate compassionate generosity, mindful healthy consumption of nourishment and renunciation of our habits of greed.

Listening to those we are attacking, listening to the poor and voiceless, listening to the sages . . . with quiet hearts and open minds: this is Thich Nhat Hanh’s precious teaching. O that every soldier chose this little book for protective armor!

A review of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Calming the Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism

Tags

Bhikkhu, Buddhism, Iraq War, Martin Luther King, Nobel Peace Prize, Thich Nhat Hanh, United States, Veterans, Vietnam War, Zen

Calming the Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism, while written in 2005, offers a wisdom that, had we in the U.S. heeded back in the militaristic era of the Vietnam War, might have diverted the awful consequences of our collective negative karma that was the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.


The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh is the author of many beautifully simple books both lucid and approachable for Western Dharma practitioners. The term “engaged Buddhism” may have originated with his human rights work in his own war-torn country of Vietnam in the 1960s. The Zen monk’s efforts towards peace and non-violence were attempts to actively apply Buddhist tenets of compassion and mindfulness to impact social change. He was recognized in the west in 1967 when Dr. Martin Luther King, himself a student of Mahatma Gandhi Lama, nominated the monk for the Nobel Peace Prize.


In Chapter One, “Uprooting Terrorism,” the monk describes how he was searched by security guards at the Los Angeles International Airport as he arrived with 120 of his monastic students on their way to a retreat for transformation and healing. The extremely personal intrusion led him to realize the guards “ . . . were not looking for my Buddha nature, they were looking for my terrorist nature. . . . When a civilization comes to this level of fear, it is going in the wrong direction.” Yet how did we, the American people, evolve to this extreme of delusion and paranoia in this most prosperous country in the world?


The angered call to America’s youth for retaliation proclaimed a “War on Terror.” An entire generation responded to fill the ranks of the military. Truly now, “we terrorize others so that they will have no chance to terrorize us. We want to kill before we are killed.” This monk claims that what the military training soldiers going to Iraq receive “makes them lose their humanity” and so “the torture and abuse these soldiers engaged in is the direct result . . . [Y]oung men [and women] going to Iraq arrive there already full of fear, wanting to protect themselves at all costs, pressured by their superiors to be aggressive . . . and be ready to kill at any moment.” This statement is affirmed in the deadly cry of marching Marine Corps soldiers as they bellow out the Turkish word for “Kill!”


Thich Nhat Hanh offers hands-on solutions for receding from this collective afflictive state, and continually reminds the reader that the only possibility for social change rests in one’s personal commitment to inner transformation. Deep listening, mindfulness through watching the breath, open the individual to awareness of our complicity in the current epidemic of worldwide suffering. Through these meditative techniques, we begin to understand how our negative over-consumption–via all our senses–has prompted hatred from severely deprived people in other countries. With this understanding we begin to cultivate compassionate generosity, mindful healthy consumption of nourishment and renunciation of our habits of greed.


Listening to those we are attacking, listening to the poor and voiceless, listening to the sages . . . with quiet hearts and open minds: this is Thich Naht Hanh’s precious teaching. O that every soldier chose this little book for protective armor!