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"Secrets and Silence"
Claude AnShin Thomas

Susan Smith has been convicted of 1st degree murder for drowning her 2 children and sentenced to life in prison. She is eligible for parole in what, 30 years? Susan's father committed suicide when she was a child. Susan's mother remarried and her husband, Susan's step-father, sexually abused her when she was a teenager, had sexual relations with her destroying any sense of safety, trust and self-worth that she may have had. Susan has several documented suicide attempts and I wonder how many undocumented. She has a history of abusing alcohol (alcoholism?) and, more likely than not, other drugs as well, and a history of promiscuity.

Could no one really see her, see where she was headed? Or the question might also be asked, how come no one intervened in a life out of control?

None of her sexual partners (who were all people close to her) responsible and powerful people in their community, some parents themselves, ever said no or questioned her actions. They used her and fed her suffering, adding to a plate that was already over full. To my knowledge she was not, nor is she currently involved with any type of program, group or organization that could help her to recognize and touch her deep and powerful suffering, deal with the long term impact of the events in her life that spawned it and encourage and support her healing.

Where was her community? Where was her support?

When I sit with the reality of her action, the drowning of her 2 children, I am neither shocked nor surprised. It makes absolute sense, a direct result of her deep, abiding and unaddressed suffering. There was nothing else to do but to act out. For suffering (in what ever form it exists), left unaddressed, pulls the strings, dictates life styles and life choices. Leads us around like water buffalo with those metal rings through their nose. And that's true not just for Susan Smith but for her whole community, her church, her school, her society and culture. And now faced with the reality of this deep suffering and the consequences of covering it up and not addressing it, the community wants to push her out of their consciousness, reinforcing a collective denial. They wish to believe that Susan Smiths drowning of her children is only about her, not about them. That she is some sort of aberration, that no one but her is capable of such acts. So she is berated, made evil, different, condemned and gotten rid of. I understand this dynamic. It has touched me because I also have killed. Killed far more people - men, women, children, adolescents - than Susan Smith but mine was "justifiable" (or so I was told many times) because it was in the service of my country in a time of war. Yes, my killing was justifiable until it came to close to those Americans who were not fighting, who thought themselves different. When I came home, I, like many other combat Veterans, experienced the same phenomenon now happening to Susan. We were sacrificed and continue to be sacrificed to save and protect the collective denial and the illusions that support it. Because to sit with us, to listen to us, to enter into our skin, means that one has to touch the reality of ones own responsibility, ones own suffering, deep and powerful suffering. Responsibility is not something external. We are responsible for our actions and the impact that those actions have on others on our environment. It is written that the Buddha taught that the only way to enlightenment is through, directly through our suffering, that there is no other way, no one way and that we must find our way. Since the cessation of military involvement in Vietnam in 1975 more that 58,000 Veterans have died as a result of suicide. At one time 66% of the prison population of violent offenders were combat veterans and 40% of the homeless population were Vets. We are the collective, we are affected by it and affect it. It is not a vase that is important it is the space inside, but without the vase there is no space inside.

Yes war is violent and the acts committed by the combatants under circumstances other than war are unfathomable. Yes Susan Smiths actions were both criminal and violent, but there is no cessation to the cycle of suffering if there is no acceptance of our collective responsibility. The denial of suffering, personal and collective, and the creation and protection of illusions to masque that denial are a more powerful form of violence than the killing. More powerful because they are not visible, because they are the seeds that spawn the acting out.

Must Susan be held responsible for her acts - Yes, without a doubt - but so must her community, her society and culture. As she is guilty so are they. Call me by my true names.

I have no idea on how to deal with Susan Smith, or for that matter with society. But I do know that when we stop attempting to avoid the reality of deep and powerful suffering, our own and the collective, when we challenge the illusions that keep us trapped in denial, the answers come.

In 1992 I found myself going to a retreat held for Vietnam Veterans. This retreat was held at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY and was led by a Vietnamese Zen Monk - the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. At this retreat Thich Nhat Hanh said "you veterans are the light at the tip of the candle. You burn hot and bright. You possess the ability through transforming your suffering to help society to transform its suffering." I learned from a Vietnamese Buddhist Nun the action of healing and transformation. If you blow up a bridge you can build a bridge, and if you blow up a house you can build a house. Yet there was no answer to my question - "and what about the killing?"

Then in the summer of 1994 I was introduced by Michael Daigu O'Keefe to Bernard Tetsugen Glassman Sensei abbot of the Zen Community of New York located in Yonkers and a student of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. I was preparing to join an Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace and Life, walking from Auschwitz to Hiroshima. On our second meeting Glassman Sensei (now Glassman Roshi) invited me to ordain as a Zen Priest in the Soto Zen tradition. To ordain in a new order that he created, a Peace Maker order. At first I was surprised, distrusting. I tentatively agreed and was given jukai in Auschwitz. While on this Pilgrimage, the more I walked, the more suffering I witnessed and encountered the more clear I became about becoming a Peace Maker Priest. I stated in a previous paragraph that I had no idea how do deal with Susan Smith or with society. That is only partially true. By my accepting and becoming ordained as a Peace Maker Priest I have committed my life in the most powerful and tangible way that I know to the action of healing and transformation, with a deeper understanding of the reality that as I heal my family heals, as my family heals my community heals, as my community heals my society heals. I am not them but I am not separate!!

< Back | Short Stories & Essays | Next >

"Secrets and Silence"
Claude AnShin Thomas

Susan Smith has been convicted of 1st degree murder for drowning her 2 children and sentenced to life in prison. She is eligible for parole in what, 30 years? Susan's father committed suicide when she was a child. Susan's mother remarried and her husband, Susan's step-father, sexually abused her when she was a teenager, had sexual relations with her destroying any sense of safety, trust and self-worth that she may have had. Susan has several documented suicide attempts and I wonder how many undocumented. She has a history of abusing alcohol (alcoholism?) and, more likely than not, other drugs as well, and a history of promiscuity.

Could no one really see her, see where she was headed? Or the question might also be asked, how come no one intervened in a life out of control?

None of her sexual partners (who were all people close to her) responsible and powerful people in their community, some parents themselves, ever said no or questioned her actions. They used her and fed her suffering, adding to a plate that was already over full. To my knowledge she was not, nor is she currently involved with any type of program, group or organization that could help her to recognize and touch her deep and powerful suffering, deal with the long term impact of the events in her life that spawned it and encourage and support her healing.

Where was her community? Where was her support?

When I sit with the reality of her action, the drowning of her 2 children, I am neither shocked nor surprised. It makes absolute sense, a direct result of her deep, abiding and unaddressed suffering. There was nothing else to do but to act out. For suffering (in what ever form it exists), left unaddressed, pulls the strings, dictates life styles and life choices. Leads us around like water buffalo with those metal rings through their nose. And that's true not just for Susan Smith but for her whole community, her church, her school, her society and culture. And now faced with the reality of this deep suffering and the consequences of covering it up and not addressing it, the community wants to push her out of their consciousness, reinforcing a collective denial. They wish to believe that Susan Smiths drowning of her children is only about her, not about them. That she is some sort of aberration, that no one but her is capable of such acts. So she is berated, made evil, different, condemned and gotten rid of. I understand this dynamic. It has touched me because I also have killed. Killed far more people - men, women, children, adolescents - than Susan Smith but mine was "justifiable" (or so I was told many times) because it was in the service of my country in a time of war. Yes, my killing was justifiable until it came to close to those Americans who were not fighting, who thought themselves different. When I came home, I, like many other combat Veterans, experienced the same phenomenon now happening to Susan. We were sacrificed and continue to be sacrificed to save and protect the collective denial and the illusions that support it. Because to sit with us, to listen to us, to enter into our skin, means that one has to touch the reality of ones own responsibility, ones own suffering, deep and powerful suffering. Responsibility is not something external. We are responsible for our actions and the impact that those actions have on others on our environment. It is written that the Buddha taught that the only way to enlightenment is through, directly through our suffering, that there is no other way, no one way and that we must find our way. Since the cessation of military involvement in Vietnam in 1975 more that 58,000 Veterans have died as a result of suicide. At one time 66% of the prison population of violent offenders were combat veterans and 40% of the homeless population were Vets. We are the collective, we are affected by it and affect it. It is not a vase that is important it is the space inside, but without the vase there is no space inside.

Yes war is violent and the acts committed by the combatants under circumstances other than war are unfathomable. Yes Susan Smiths actions were both criminal and violent, but there is no cessation to the cycle of suffering if there is no acceptance of our collective responsibility. The denial of suffering, personal and collective, and the creation and protection of illusions to masque that denial are a more powerful form of violence than the killing. More powerful because they are not visible, because they are the seeds that spawn the acting out.

Must Susan be held responsible for her acts - Yes, without a doubt - but so must her community, her society and culture. As she is guilty so are they. Call me by my true names.

I have no idea on how to deal with Susan Smith, or for that matter with society. But I do know that when we stop attempting to avoid the reality of deep and powerful suffering, our own and the collective, when we challenge the illusions that keep us trapped in denial, the answers come.

In 1992 I found myself going to a retreat held for Vietnam Veterans. This retreat was held at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY and was led by a Vietnamese Zen Monk - the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. At this retreat Thich Nhat Hanh said "you veterans are the light at the tip of the candle. You burn hot and bright. You possess the ability through transforming your suffering to help society to transform its suffering." I learned from a Vietnamese Buddhist Nun the action of healing and transformation. If you blow up a bridge you can build a bridge, and if you blow up a house you can build a house. Yet there was no answer to my question - "and what about the killing?"

Then in the summer of 1994 I was introduced by Michael Daigu O'Keefe to Bernard Tetsugen Glassman Sensei abbot of the Zen Community of New York located in Yonkers and a student of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. I was preparing to join an Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace and Life, walking from Auschwitz to Hiroshima. On our second meeting Glassman Sensei (now Glassman Roshi) invited me to ordain as a Zen Priest in the Soto Zen tradition. To ordain in a new order that he created, a Peace Maker order. At first I was surprised, distrusting. I tentatively agreed and was given jukai in Auschwitz. While on this Pilgrimage, the more I walked, the more suffering I witnessed and encountered the more clear I became about becoming a Peace Maker Priest. I stated in a previous paragraph that I had no idea how do deal with Susan Smith or with society. That is only partially true. By my accepting and becoming ordained as a Peace Maker Priest I have committed my life in the most powerful and tangible way that I know to the action of healing and transformation, with a deeper understanding of the reality that as I heal my family heals, as my family heals my community heals, as my community heals my society heals. I am not them but I am not separate!!