Winter Issue #1, 2020
Dear Community of Explorers,
Now is the time to share insight as compassion in action. As we speak of compassion it arises from our intention to benefit sentient beings and ameliorate suffering arising from forgetfulness of our luminous nature.
This magazine reveals pathways of action that are inspiring for all of us.
All appearances arise from luminous space and the waves express patterns and break on the shore of understanding in a rhythmic cycle that is congruent with the heartbeat of our hearts and multiple universes.
-Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo
Upwelling Compassion and Gifts of Recollection
Michael Jones, Boise Idaho
Upwelling Compassion
It was the fall of 1962. The American government had begun some military activities in southeast Asia, but the full-scale war in Vietnam was still a few years away. Walking along the hall in a small town Idaho high school, I saw an army recruiter set up to talk with boys. A thought arose: I will not be in the military. It didn’t surprise me, though it might have, considering the endless hours I and the other boys in my neighborhood had spent playing war with toy guns, drawing airplane pictures, and building model battleships. It was the post-World War II era, and all sorts of military glory filled the culture, especially aimed at young boys.
On the other hand, I recall Mrs. Murphy, a kind old lady who lived across the alley. Kids circled around as she read us The Wizard of Oz and other stories under her shady walnut tree on summer afternoons. After story time she let us play in her yard unattended with two conditions—stay out of the garden beds, and no guns, not even wooden ones. I argued once that our toy guns were harmless and the mayhem was only make believe, but she was firm. I truly respected her and obeyed the command. It must have found resonance in my forming ideas of justice and relationships. The memory has stayed with me. From the broad culture, I am sure I identified with Superman’s fight for “truth, justice and the American way,” as well as Sunday School’s most excellent teaching: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
In college I was introduced to South and East Asian philosophy with its teachings on interconnection of all beings and how development of awareness can reveal this wisdom common to us all. Looking back, I see Mrs. Murphy’s gentle admonitions, the spontaneous thought of not following the military way, and the awareness teachings as Original Instructions rising to consciousness. I first came upon the term “Original Instructions” in Learning Cherokee Ways by Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo.
By the end of college, 1967, the American war in Vietnam was raging, and I knew that I would in no way be involved in what I saw clearly as misguided brutal force against people who had never harmed me nor intended to harm anyone in America. The “American way,” I thought, had been subverted by the American government. Truth and justice were ignored.
When I applied for conscientious objector status however, the local draft board was not receptive. Fortunately they did approve a deferment from military conscription so I could serve in the Peace Corps. After two years teaching school in Malaysia with my new wife Diane, I was more certain than ever not only of non-participation, but of resistance to the war. It was a momentous two years in American culture, 1968 and 69, and when I restated my pacifist concerns to the draft board after the Peace Corps term, they granted conscientious objector classification without question or comment. Also they approved my proposal to do “alternative service” in lieu of military service with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization. Quakers, or Friends as they usually call themselves, constitute one of the original religious denominations for whom the American law allowing conscientious objection to military service was written in the early 20th century. Quakers sponsor the Service Committee to carry out compassionate work based on awareness of “that of God in every person.” Little did I know that the Service Committee would send Diane and me to Vietnam, the one place on earth we sought to avoid. But we were going to be there in a way completely unimagined, so when the news of our assignment arrived, it struck us as fate—no decision making process required.
I still remember the first time we walked into the Quaker Rehabilitation Center. Inside the door of a simple cinder block building in the compound of the Quang Ngai Province Hospital stood two or three parallel sets of hand rails. A young woman clutched one of the rails and labored to swing her new plastic and wooden legs forward. Her progress was wobbly, but her grip was firm and her smile determined. A bench along the wall was filled with people of all ages watching, cheering, applauding her every step. None of them had two arms and two legs, but stumps and bandages instead. The scene inspired awe. Camraderie, courage, compassion, shared hardship, mutual support, and good humor revealed deep human goodness in this community, as I imagine it would in any situation of life affirming response to life threatening injury.
It seems important to note also my body’s response to what my eyes
beheld that day. Queasy stomach. Shallow breath. Eyes glancing at
stumps where arms and legs would have been, then looking away. Nervous
flickering smile, returning the smiles of others. I had never seen such
sights. The appreciation I mentioned above came later, I think, after
the physical and visceral response to seeing the maimed. The witnessing
body is traumatized. How the trauma is resolved or not is important
for individuals and societies to study. More about this later.
It was really good work, the Rehab Center project. The Saigon
military, well funded by the Americans, had good hospitals, we were
told. But non-combatants were served sketchily at best in impoverished
Ministry of Health facilities. Rural people without proper papers might
not be cared for at all, and could be subject to arrest as they sought
treatment. Our Center was known for accepting every hurt person
without questions asked or conditions required.
For most if not all of us on the Quaker Service team, there was an
additional and essential part of our work. In Vietnam with war going on
we could not speak out nor be political in any public way. But back
home the Service Committee participated actively in the effort to end
the war. Having a service presence in the war country provided first
hand experience and observation, thus gave credibility to what Quakers
and their allies could say in the cause of peace. Sometimes our
accounts of events were able to inform Americans in ways outside the
main stream bias. After we returned home, many of us engaged in
educational work with a peace making focus.
The Quaker perspective, I found, was an excellent moral anchor for discussion and action to end the war. The compassion basis was true to the heart of wholesome human values. Without that grounding, righteous indignation at government arrogance, deception and violence could and did give way to anger and judgment against the perceived wrongdoers. “Hell no we won’t go,” though an emphatic rejection of the unwholesome, had a ring of selfishness about it, certainly to the ears of many people. On the other hand, refusing to support the violent means of the powerful because of recognizing “that of God” in everyone encourages consciousness of connection with all relations. And offering service to those harmed in the conflict helps strengthen such connection rather than increasing divisions between people.
Gifts of Recollection
War brings tragedy and trauma. I am not writing details here about the particular tragedy I was present for, but about effects of trauma: how they can be very hidden, drawn out, and eventually instructive. First I must emphasize that my experience on that afternoon was dramatically less shattering than for many other people. Yet the impact was deep, and I offer this account to illustrate two related phenomena: human beings are subject to injury of multiple dimensions from shockingly harmful events; and our body-and-mind responses to injury can bring healing, though the process may be frustrating, subtle and slow.
In Quang Ngai City on March 15, 1972, a rocket exploded in a classroom at a boys’ elementary school. I came into the local hospital’s emergency room afterwards to serve as interpreter for our Quaker team doctor. I have never forgotten that day, but while writing this article I came across a report I wrote back then. I am amazed at how many details I had forgotten. I do remember not feeling panicked or emotional, just efficient, doing what we could in as orderly and prompt a way as we could. A sense of timelessness, equanimity. Now this child. Now this child. When the emergency was over we were completely exhausted.
Though it seems strange now, I remember no awareness of what I would call grief in the days and months that followed. There had to have been sadness, as there is now, but little emotion consciously noticed. I returned to the ongoing work of our project. When our term of service was over, Diane and I both worked with groups in this country, organizing and educating to bring the war to a close.
For many years the tragedy seldom came to mind. Though what came to be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder had been identified in Vietnam war veterans, it never occurred to me that I might have been so affected. Family life and work for peace and environmental causes occupied my interest. There were, however, recurring episodes of low vitality and vague symptoms of illness, and eventually “burn-out” from political work. Then after twenty years a chronic fatigue laid me low for many months. It came and went three times. I sought treatment in various modalities—medical, physical, emotional, psychological. All were helpful but the issues persisted. Once during a massage session the therapist described her sense of my power having been cut off– by something unknown to her or me– and her work near my left ribs sent a jolt of pain down to my spine. This I completely forgot until finding old notes yesterday while writing these words.
Years later, in the early 2000’s, another skilled practitioner had me lying on my back. An incredibly strong focused energy mass started moving around in my gut. Not painful, but intense. For some reason of intuition, perhaps from recollected images of blue and white from little school uniforms, I identified it as from that day with the children in Quang Ngai. It was my first conscious connection with how that experience had remained present in my being.
Since then the memory has come up now and then, most often during hands-on healing. Most recently, just weeks ago, abdominal massage brought a shooting sensation from left ribs to spine, just like the time forgotten 25 years ago. But this time the body worker noticed a loosening of tension and a return of energy flow. She suggested more work, including writing, to speed unraveling of the mysterious trauma. How fortunate that now is the timing for this article and what it has brought to mind.
A short thought of larger context: I wonder how my experience might be a small part of a big picture. I have long felt that our nation, not only the soldiers, suffers from post traumatic stress because of refusing to fully acknowledge the harm inflicted in Vietnam. Has enough time passed, as my case seems to have needed, to allow attention to this need for broad healing? Could such healing bring much needed present day peace among us? And could it prompt awareness of the persistent misuse of power that characterizes our history, as well as our continuing relations with other peoples and our Mother Earth? Wouldn’t such awareness contribute to more healthy national priorities?
My journey toward wholeness has felt like a long process. May revelations continue to clarify Original Instructions. May growing wisdom and compassion bring life’s experiences to fruition worth sharing. May this story benefit all of us weaving our true natural Way through obstacles and blessings, known and unknown.
