Well, so much for anger and blame. There comes a time when even I have to sit back and take a larger view. In this case, I'm prompted by this e-mail from Lama Surya Das* * * * * * * * *
Letting Go While Leaving Room for Hope
by Lama Surya Das
Dzogchen Osel Ling
Austin, Texas
I remember wading through thigh-high monsoon flooded streets in Chang
Mai, northern Thailand, when I lived in Asia during the Seventies, and
finally seeking asylum at a hotel above the floodline, along with other
tourists and foreign journalists. Having an American passport helped, of
course. Yet this week I was unprepared for the searing images of carnage
and chaos in a great city in our own rich, proud and powerful country,
even though my assistant Denise has five members of her son's Tulane
baseball team crashing at her house, with no college to return to.
The family that does not pull together is pulled apart. Now is the time
to come together locally and nationally in our best effort to help care
immediately for all those affected by Hurricane Katrina, especially the
most disadvantaged members of our society. Meanwhile, let's try to
reflect upon and mobilize towards learning how to be better prepared in
the future for such environmental devastation, for whatever reasons --
and the experts will be arguing the latter point for decades, I'm sure.
But let's leave that for later. There are plenty of other societal
problems we face which could also be benefited by some cogent,
long-term, nonpartisan planning and analysis about causation and
interdependence, given our complex economic and geo-political reality
today. I think there's little point in distractedly comforting ourselves
by prematurely assigning blame or arguing right now about global warming
and environmental degradation, or about why God did or did not do
whatever we think he should have or shouldn't have done. There is plenty
of time to contemplate the mysterious ways of the Ultimate, however one
may conceive of it, during the rest of one's life, should one be
compelled to do so. This is the time for firm resolve, putting aside our
differences, and for selfless, compassionate action.
Although it is so very difficult, all of us will benefit by letting go
of the fear and grief for what was and mustering the courage and resolve
to deal intelligently and with alacrity to what is, which is the
greatest natural disaster of our time here in America. Let's be firm in
spirit and leave room for hope, and for grace -- and strive
intelligently and effectively at what needs to be done right now. We
must eschew discouragement and despair and leave room for the new and
even unexpected to assert itself, and for humanity's highest and noblest
instincts to come to the fore, as they did during last winter's
devastating tsunami. Let us learn the lesson of the fleeting, ephemeral
nature of all the things of this world, a truth common to all the great
faiths -- a recognition that helps prepare us better to confront the
losses inevitable in life.
I pray that those who are suffering may find solace, and the homeless
find shelter; that the thirsty and hungry find food and drink, and the
ill and infirm find medicine and care; that the lost may be found, and
the separated reunited with their loved ones. And I pray and hope that
all of us will refrain from taking advantage of the situation by
looting, exploiting, and further compounding our collective problems.
How to handle losing everything? No words will suffice. Yet there is
timeless wisdom in our Buddhist teachings about letting go and learning
to accept and let be, even amidst our greatest efforts to benefit the
greatest good for the greatest number. Utilizing this tragedy as a
collective on-the-job learning moment could serve us well as we move
towards our as yet undefined future. I hope and pray that we may be able
to arise like a phoenix from the ashes, through applying our best,
altruistic selves in this dire situation.
These are incredibly difficult and challenging days, months and even
years ahead -- somehow, with endurance, collaboration, in hope and with
grace we shall find our way through.
posted by Steve Gaghagen at
9:11 PM
2 Comments:
Sorry, Steve, but I'm not over this yet.
Consider Keith Olbermann's comments:
SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."
Well there's your problem right there.
If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.
The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.
But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called “The Department of Homeland Security”: “Louisiana is a city…”
Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.
And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded — even the internet's meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural... and government-made.
But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.
No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.
But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.
Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?
I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.
For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — "New Orleans."
For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have forseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."
In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.
As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government's credibility.
Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.
(Last night on his Countdown program.)
By
Anonymous, at 10:36 AM
Your right........I'm not over it either! Olberman is completely correct, of course. I think I just needed a respite for a while. OK. I'm done. I'm just about to post something from Robert Scheer. That'll get me back in the swing! HA!
By
Steve Gaghagen, at 11:07 AM
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