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.