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Living Well Is the Only Revenge
Kate Lila Wheeler
This year, if you are from the United States,
it seems clear there's something you can do for world peace.
Vote against George W. Bush. Everyone I talk to in our now
utterly divided country says the same thing and we can't understand
how or where there could be so many people who feel just the
opposite, that peace can only come by voting FOR that man.
That empty warhead, that dishonest and greedy fanatic…
It's also clear that one vote for Kerry
(not Nader, oh my God) can't make the difference, all by itself.
So this year I, like many friends who never thought of ourselves
as political, have tried to expand our influence. I've demonstrated
against the war, made my first campaign contributions, plastered
my first bumper sticker on the car. Yesterday with news that
Bush is ahead again, I determined I must join friends who
have driven many miles into other states to encourage single
women to register as voters—I won't be able to live with
myself if Kerry loses, and I haven't done something a bit
more extraordinary to prevent it. This seems to me and my
friends the most important election of our lifetime, a choice
between sliding into seemingly irreversible conflict, poverty
and environmental destruction, or perhaps turning away from
quite so much violence and damage.
Bush seems equal to a mullah in calls to
destroy the 'enemy.' My Burmese meditation teacher, as well
as the Kalachakra tantra, both define a barbarian or a subhuman
person as one whose delusion ends up in just this way—with
a justification for killing other beings as a part of religion.
It seems clear that in the US this is an ignorant reaction
to fear, writ large across a population. In Muslim cultures
there is deprivation, despair and hatred. I don't think they
were right to attack us; but nor are we right to attack them
in the ways we have done. Of course the threat of another
terrorist attack is real. But Bush is compounding it, making
enemies of those who were even our friends before. His tax
cuts for the rich, his sweetheart deals for his rich friends,
his unwillingness to spend money on foreign aid or secure
Russia's nuclear material, undermine even his own apparent
commitments and promises. How can he be fooling so many people?
I think it's fair enough to say that for a change, it is black
and white this time.
It is a terrifying moment, seeing whatever
we trusted about our country taken away—especially any
claims to honesty and integrity; I begin to understand now
the despair of living under a corrupt and dangerous tyranny.
It feels important to believe that we can win, as if somehow
this attitude can influence the outcome. But what if 'we'
lose the election? Remember last time—Bush didn't even
win! He could do it again and cheat! They're putting in unverifiable
electronic voting machines already in states where the outcome
is uncertain and important.
Can we emigrate to Canada, go and live in
Bali? Or—more likely—will we have to stay on and
continue working and doing what we can?
I try to find space for peace of mind, to
slow down the effects of fear and despair, making sure my
spiritual practice continues, and that I don't watch the Republican
speeches because they will upset me too much. Nor do I stop
developing wisdom and compassion in the traditional formal
ways I trust in. Yesterday on the anniversary of 9/11 I spent
the day at a retreat. We talked about making sure that our
meditation practice learns from what is happening in the world
at large.
If I don't befriend terror, pain, and hate
I'll react too soon and, in some way, violently. Dominated
by a need to push down and cut off unbearable feelings, I
either capitulate or attack. So I have to try to change this
pattern. Befriend confusion before choosing a response. To
feel my own pain means taking it into the body, understanding
that this is the same pain anyone else might feel under the
circumstances. Letting the feelings settle, gradually a trust
and clarity emerges about what to do next.
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