The Dalai Lama in Buenos Aires

I wanted to reach for hat and gloves as Mneesha and I emerged from zen meditation tonight! But the extra warmth inside me left from this afternoon’s events more than compensated. My class of world peace scholars filled six of the hundreds of seats to hear the opening presentation of the Dalai Lama: “Paz Interior, Paz Universal” (Internal Peace, Universal Peace.) For forty minutes he spoke of the vision of an inner peace born of a secular ethic based on love and compassion, and these inner peaces creating a universal one. His premise is that ultimately we all strive for happiness, and supposes that by realizing this simple fact people would be less likely to use violence against one another. I wish it were all that simple. And as he moved into Q&A I jotted down my frustration after these first few months digging into politics: “Clearly we have many world leaders who believe that the meaning of life involves money and power (not care for others’ happiness.) What can we do about this?” My question didn’t make it up to stage, but extrapolating from the answers to some of the other questions he received, I would anticipate he’d give some ideas but ultimately would be willing to say “I don’t know.” Today more than anything his frankness in saying “I don’t know,” was what brought me more inner peace. In our eternal quest for answers, sometimes, many times, we simply cannot know.

As I’ve continued to reflect among friends here about my violent episode from last week, I can let go of the need to understand “why.” Why now, after so many experiences in supposedly much poorer or more dangerous circumstances? Time and more experience will uncover meaning, not endless dissection.

The poem below expresses the reasoning behind the intensive citizen’s diplomacy course we just completed yesterday, in which we learned to conduct a workshop that brings together citizens from both sides of a violent conflict. We simulated the conflict between England and Argentina over the Falkland/Malvinas islands… a fascinating experience. More sharing to come…

CROSS-BORDER PEACE TALKS

There is a place
beyond the borders
where love grows,
and where peace is not the frozen silence
drifting across no man’s land from two heavily defended entrenchments,
but the stumbling, stammering attempts of long-closed throats
to find words to bridge the distance;
neither is it a simple formula
that reduces everything to labels,
but an intricate and complex web of feeling and relationship
which spans a wider range than you’d ever thought possible.
That place is not to be found on the map
of government discussions
or political posturing.
It does not exist within the borders of
Catholic or Protestant,
Irish or British,
male or female,
old or young.
It lies beyond,
and is drawn with different points of reference.
To get to that place,
you have to go
(or be pushed out)
beyond the borders,
to where it is lonely, fearful, threatening,
unknown.
Only after you have wandered for a long time
in the dark,
do you begin to bump into others,
also branded,
exiled,
border-crossers,
and find you walk on common ground.
It is not an easy place to be,
this place beyond the borders.
It is where you learn that there is more pain in love than in hate,
more courage in forbearance than in vengeance,
more remembering needed in forgetting,
and always new borders to cross.
But it is a good place to be.

1 A poem by Kathy Galloway, member of the Iona Community and editor of Coracle. Originally published in Pushing the Boat Out: New Poetry (Wild Goose Publications, Glasgow, 1995). Excerpted from Kathy Galloway, A Story to Live By (The Pilgrim Press, Cleveland, OH, 1999) co-published with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, pp. 123-124.

And this some experience daily...

It’s moments like these that are like sharp points of a fork that define us. My longing to experience more of the realities of Buenos Aires led me to a poor squatter area an hour’s bus ride to the southwest of the city. I was accompanied by a friend of my host brother’s, Cristian, who had grown up in the neighborhood. He was one of those that in our first conversations it was clear we carry the same life-guiding torch of justice. As the bus pulled up to our stop, the rain started down, and I geared up to meet another side of Buenos Aires. As we walked through the narrow, muddy paths that patterned the shoddily-constructed homes and listened to Cristian’s narrative, I was reminded of what I had seen in Haiti, the shanty towns of South Africa, and the flavor of the Dominican barrios I often walked through.

We looped in and out, and then in again. The morning plucked a minor note when several young guys starting moving towards us. I thought I was under protection of Cristian’s loyalties there, but learned otherwise as quickly five jumped on us—four to him and one to me despite his pleas “soy de aca!” (“I’m from here!”). After a feeble struggle on my part I remembered the advice always preached in safety situations, “just give them what they want; your life is more valuable.” The guy yanked until the bag ripped off its strap, he ran off, and I stood there unscathed and numb as I watched my friend wrestle with four. He finally gave up his money and cell phone. They ran off, and we walked the 50m to the edge of the “zone” as Cristian inspected his sliced hand.
He called over three police officers who essentially pronounced us the violators of the unwritten law that you don’t go in there. They made not one move toward the scene despite my begging eyes.

Being with a native I trusted and respected, I thought I had a special and relatively safe “in.” And I was attempting to live out the peace I believe in; to not be hindered by the fear, by the stereotypes. To bridge gaps. To understand other perspectives, experiences, and realities.

My adrenalin is tapped and I’m in a quagmire of thoughts. Reconciling my intense spirituality and faith with the realities of the world has always been my struggle, and today it came to an unsettling crescendo. It was a selfish move, in many ways, and I realize anew how much my decisions can affect those who care about me.

My shock processes and my rollercoaster of feelings cascades. What flowers through my intense sadness and embarrassment is the incredibly loving, wise, gentle yet firm support of my classmates here. They understand more than any the inexpressible depths of what drove my longing to bear witness to the other realities of Buenos Aires, but at the same time hold me in check. Hold onto the light, but steadily and patiently channel it…

Film festival

Perhaps the most humbling and depressing part of it is that we’ll be faced with this gut-wrenching heart-penetrating conundrum for as long as our generation walks this earth. My little pounding soul sat in the middle of the Buenos Aires theater in my first attendance of the Independent Film Festival here, taking place in various locations throughout the city from April 11-23. After a relieving day outside the city’s concrete maze, I arrived back in time to see We Feed the World by Austrian Erwin Wagenhofer.

I carry the weight of the statistics in my mind and heart daily (every five seconds a child dies of malnourishment, every 4 second a person goes blind from Vitamin A deficiency, while tons upon tons of food is regularly disposed of), but to see the mind-boggling, embarrassing inequalities painted so vividly and in such clear contrasts through this documentary was… among many things, another opportunity to refocus and remember.

My deepest concern lies in that there exists among the comfortably-living beings (especially those in power positions) a belief that their lives are worth more than those who live impoverished. That for some reason being born in the United States or Western Europe means your life is more important than those born in other regions. We Feed the World shares an interview with the current CEO of Nestle, the largest food producer in the world, who states so ignorantly and egocentrically that the human race is the best it has ever been… making more money and living longer than ever before. What kind of change would ensue if these kinds of “leaders” were to stay for a week with a family whose mother boils rocks when her children can’t sleep, feigning cooking a meal so their minds will calm enough to be able to drift off. To live in communities that see the average person live to under forty years old. If only… To the contrary, this CEO’s current response to the company’s role in social responsibility is to maximize profit.

The “protestant ethic” that has spurred this capitalist madness has lost (at least in the most powerful cases) any sense of “protestant.” Material goods have passed on to next generations without the sense of values, of history, and of humility behind them.

Many powerful scenes and jaw-dropping stats live in me as I decompress by sharing with you, and reflexively we ask “and now?” “What to do?” To not run, to not hide, to look the situation in the face and act. Let ourselves be inspired…

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
- Robert Kennedy

world peace scholars '06 

Brain Map

The days fly mercilessly by as I scramble to put together the pieces of my new identity here. The city roars endlessly fourteen stories beneath my apartment windows, reminding me of the infinite possibilities that city life- South America's Nueva York- offers. Many times I find a "brain map" useful in my journaling world. My mind in the middle and the gazillion lines shooting off from it (which I'll have to convey in a left to right manner, losing some of its design effect).

- Continued ponderings as we dig deeper into the international world and this ever-emerging complex field of IR... so curious about the "sciences" applied to analyze our international scene (economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology), when such immeasurable forces constantly as faith, mystery, human emotions enter in concurrently.
- What role I can have as an active peace worker here and now... a nonviolent communication facilitator? an advocate for a budding responsible business NGO? a volunteer and motivational speaker at public schools?
- In what ways can our world peace scholar class move this program forward, only now in its fourth year?
- When will I ever find time to escape the city to breath in the fresh air and beauty of other parts of this expansive and diverse nation?
- Need a live soccer game, though they're always on the tv's around the city...
- New apartment-mate moving in on Saturday! Yumi, from Japan.
- As I occasionally streamline Democracy Now, my thoughts are with the U.S. as it debates around the issues of the proposed immigration bill. Might I suggest a look at the following: http://www.sfgate.com/comics/fiore/ In all seriousness, can we please look to at history- reflect; pause to consider the overarching messages of the eras.

The lines continue, just as random as they come across here, but my mind longs for rest. As you may tell from my posting times, I'm adopting the Argentinean rhythm to a tune of 2 to 3am bedtime. And the city continues to hum below...