Zaltho Foundation

Claude AnShin Thomas' Response to the events of September 11 2001

I recently received a letter from someone that I know. This letter pertains to the events that occurred in the U.S. on the 11th of September, it reads as follows:

Hi Claude:
I'm in NY and just saw "Ground Zero" for the first time. Looks like the Devil reached up from hell and pulled all the life he could off of the surface of the earth. My biggest concern right now is the timing of any work we try to do in response to this disaster and war. You wouldn't walk into the funeral of your sister and brother to explain to your grieving mother that the sins of your father have finally come home. So, my question is: Who is ready to listen and what do we say to them when they are? Tread lightly, be effective.
Go in Peace
While what happened on the 11th of September 2002 is and remains a terrible thing and I grieve together with those who were directly affected. I also grieve for the collective loss that is being experienced by this entire country (the United States of America).

I must also in the same breath acknowledge that this is neither a new phenomena nor is it among the most tragic. All we have to do is to look with unfettered eyes at history to see this story repeated infinitely to greater or lesser degrees. And if we look at history with these unfettered eyes then there can only be one conclusion and that violence is not nor has it ever been the solution but merely the act that ensures that these horrors will continue to occur.

When reading this letter I was also filled with the thought-experience that all acts, by deed word or thought are a result of cause and effect (Karma). The endless play of action and reaction, seed and fruit. This perpetual motion is referred to as becoming, a continually changing process of existence.

Having willed, human kind acts through body, speech and mind, and actions bring about reactions. Craving gives rise to deed, deed produces results, results in return bring about new desires, new craving. This process of cause and effect, actions and reactions, is natural law. It is a law in itself, with no need for a lawgiver or external agency or power or God that punishes the ill deeds, and rewards the good deeds. This is not endemic to the Buddha's teaching.

It is we ourselves who, being responsible for our deeds, whether good or ill, must also accept responsibility for their results. We make our Karma. When we understand or accept the operation of Karma and the result of volitional acts we may not be tempted to evil and unwholesome actions that will come home to roost.

It is also important to understand that the Doctrine of Karma is not fatalism. It is not a philosophical doctrine to the effect that human action is not free. A philosophical doctrine that adheres to a reality that all human action is necessarily determined by motives which are regarded as external forces acting upon the will, or predetermined by God or by some other Deity.

The teaching of the Buddha neither subscribes to the theory that all things are unalterably fixed, that all things happen by inevitable necessity, that is Strict Determinism, nor does the teaching uphold the theory of Complete Indeterminism.

We are heirs to our deeds, bearers of our deeds, and our deeds are the womb out of which they spring and through our deeds alone can we change, can we remake ourselves and win liberation from ill.

When reading this letter I was also drawn to memories and reflections of Gandhi's position and teachings on nonviolence: "Nonviolence is not passive resistance. True nonviolence does not issue from weakness but from strength. True nonviolence is a matter of the powerful voluntarily withholding their power in a conflict, choosing to suffer for the sake of a principle rather than inflict suffering even though they can."Nonviolence is an extremely active force that has no room for cowardice or weakness! If one is to renounce fighting then one has to wake up to their own history, their own current experience of fighting. People, families, societies, cultures and nations who ignore their own history of violence and who openly deny this experience can not prove the virtue of not fighting. True advocates of nonviolence must be fearless, impassioned and dogged. Nonviolence is not for cowards; it is for the brave and the courageous.

Contrary to our standard beliefs war does not begin with a declaration and end with an armistices, or withdrawal, or cease fire.

Since Vietnam tens of thousands have taken their own lives. There are higher numbers of homeless, of those incarcerated for violent crimes who are Veterans of war. Even those who aren't touched in these ways, the "success stories", are suffering. They are looking at higher than average rates of alcoholism, divorce, drug dependency (both illegal and prescribed), their children, if they have them, are also reflecting this reality hiding themselves in their rooms depressed, suicidal, cutting themselves. These are the walking wounded.

And society doesn't look, doesn't notice, it turns away thinking that by not seeing, this reality doesn't exist. It has been said "that the non-veteran is more responsible for the war than the veteran." This reality is the reason why there is a pressure to ignore the many visible realities of war and walk on through some masquerade of life haunted by it's dreams. This reality is the reason why there is a pressure to fight every minute of every day to keep them repressed. Or this reality is why there continues to exist the pressure to keep the memory of soldiering alive. A tangible reality that the "war is not over."

As surely as we are scarred physically by the cuts of knives, the puncturing of bullets, the shredding of our bodies by shrapnel - so are we scarred spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and psychically by the Trauma of War; The brutality, the inhumanity, the surrealism, the insanity. We are disfigured, permanently - indelibly, for the rest of our lives.

There is a plague affecting Veterans and other survivors of war, a plague of inexplicable proportions. So profound that it escapes medical diagnosis. This plague escapes diagnosis because it exists beyond a material plane, transcends the precedent of medicalization. It is the result of our unwillingness to look deeply, with mindfulness into the nature of war itself at whatever level it is occurring - to touch deeply and profoundly the consequences of aggression (passive or active) not only on the aggressed but also on the aggressor.

Once involved in or touched by the trauma of combat, there is no getting on with our lives in any traditional social or culture sense. To create heroes of ordinary people thrust in extra-ordinary experiences only condemns them to an attitude, a perception of themselves that they can never live up to. To create heroes of ordinary people thrust into extra-ordinary experiences DOES NOT PROMOTE HEALING!

To acquire titles, degrees, property, positions, etc. does nothing to ease the pain or relieve the suffering of living (in forgetfulness) with the consequences of our inhumanity. Ascribing to this notion that we can buy our way free, that there is some rectitude that can be claimed, clinging desperately to these illusions, merely perpetuates suffering, our suffering at deeper and more profound levels. Denying this reality, repressing it, merely causes then our suffering to express itself in manifestations that we look at with bewilderment and say (to ourselves, and out loud), "How can this be happening to us, here of all places?"

When the physical manifestation of war ends - the cessation of fighting - the effects of that Trauma "do not go away" but linger on and on, and if left unaddressed the effects of this Trauma becomes a ring through our nose dragging us through life. We can know this as we see ourselves moving from one war to another. We can know this as we begin to discover ourselves in places we don't want to be, with people we don't want to be with, doing things we don't want to be doing and telling ourselves all the while that we love it, or that we must, or that we really don't have a choice. All the while stuck in the closed loop of suffering blind to our search to escape it.

Walking through the excruciating reality of the effects of war, of trauma. Walking through the excruciating reality of the debilitating efforts to anesthetize from these effects (a social and cultural demand) I am learning a new and substantive meaning to the reality of healing and I am experiencing, that as I heal so does my father, my mother, my sister, my son, my family, my community, my society, my culture. I begin to understand more clearly the responsibility that I have to all those who have been consumed by this beast. That responsibility is to not let your lives be wasted. Through your death, through your continued suffering, you have taught and continue to teach me that war is not the way, violence is never a solution. And through this process of healing and transformation that I have found myself on I have learned that as I heal I heal you in me - REST IN PEACE!!

In Gassho:
Claude AnShin Thomas

Claude AnShin Thomas' Response to the events of September 11 2001

I recently received a letter from someone that I know. This letter pertains to the events that occurred in the U.S. on the 11th of September, it reads as follows:

Hi Claude:
I'm in NY and just saw "Ground Zero" for the first time. Looks like the Devil reached up from hell and pulled all the life he could off of the surface of the earth. My biggest concern right now is the timing of any work we try to do in response to this disaster and war. You wouldn't walk into the funeral of your sister and brother to explain to your grieving mother that the sins of your father have finally come home. So, my question is: Who is ready to listen and what do we say to them when they are? Tread lightly, be effective.
Go in Peace
While what happened on the 11th of September 2002 is and remains a terrible thing and I grieve together with those who were directly affected. I also grieve for the collective loss that is being experienced by this entire country (the United States of America).

I must also in the same breath acknowledge that this is neither a new phenomena nor is it among the most tragic. All we have to do is to look with unfettered eyes at history to see this story repeated infinitely to greater or lesser degrees. And if we look at history with these unfettered eyes then there can only be one conclusion and that violence is not nor has it ever been the solution but merely the act that ensures that these horrors will continue to occur.

When reading this letter I was also filled with the thought-experience that all acts, by deed word or thought are a result of cause and effect (Karma). The endless play of action and reaction, seed and fruit. This perpetual motion is referred to as becoming, a continually changing process of existence.

Having willed, human kind acts through body, speech and mind, and actions bring about reactions. Craving gives rise to deed, deed produces results, results in return bring about new desires, new craving. This process of cause and effect, actions and reactions, is natural law. It is a law in itself, with no need for a lawgiver or external agency or power or God that punishes the ill deeds, and rewards the good deeds. This is not endemic to the Buddha's teaching.

It is we ourselves who, being responsible for our deeds, whether good or ill, must also accept responsibility for their results. We make our Karma. When we understand or accept the operation of Karma and the result of volitional acts we may not be tempted to evil and unwholesome actions that will come home to roost.

It is also important to understand that the Doctrine of Karma is not fatalism. It is not a philosophical doctrine to the effect that human action is not free. A philosophical doctrine that adheres to a reality that all human action is necessarily determined by motives which are regarded as external forces acting upon the will, or predetermined by God or by some other Deity.

The teaching of the Buddha neither subscribes to the theory that all things are unalterably fixed, that all things happen by inevitable necessity, that is Strict Determinism, nor does the teaching uphold the theory of Complete Indeterminism.

We are heirs to our deeds, bearers of our deeds, and our deeds are the womb out of which they spring and through our deeds alone can we change, can we remake ourselves and win liberation from ill.

When reading this letter I was also drawn to memories and reflections of Gandhi's position and teachings on nonviolence: "Nonviolence is not passive resistance. True nonviolence does not issue from weakness but from strength. True nonviolence is a matter of the powerful voluntarily withholding their power in a conflict, choosing to suffer for the sake of a principle rather than inflict suffering even though they can."Nonviolence is an extremely active force that has no room for cowardice or weakness! If one is to renounce fighting then one has to wake up to their own history, their own current experience of fighting. People, families, societies, cultures and nations who ignore their own history of violence and who openly deny this experience can not prove the virtue of not fighting. True advocates of nonviolence must be fearless, impassioned and dogged. Nonviolence is not for cowards; it is for the brave and the courageous.

Contrary to our standard beliefs war does not begin with a declaration and end with an armistices, or withdrawal, or cease fire.

Since Vietnam tens of thousands have taken their own lives. There are higher numbers of homeless, of those incarcerated for violent crimes who are Veterans of war. Even those who aren't touched in these ways, the "success stories", are suffering. They are looking at higher than average rates of alcoholism, divorce, drug dependency (both illegal and prescribed), their children, if they have them, are also reflecting this reality hiding themselves in their rooms depressed, suicidal, cutting themselves. These are the walking wounded.

And society doesn't look, doesn't notice, it turns away thinking that by not seeing, this reality doesn't exist. It has been said "that the non-veteran is more responsible for the war than the veteran." This reality is the reason why there is a pressure to ignore the many visible realities of war and walk on through some masquerade of life haunted by it's dreams. This reality is the reason why there is a pressure to fight every minute of every day to keep them repressed. Or this reality is why there continues to exist the pressure to keep the memory of soldiering alive. A tangible reality that the "war is not over."

As surely as we are scarred physically by the cuts of knives, the puncturing of bullets, the shredding of our bodies by shrapnel - so are we scarred spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and psychically by the Trauma of War; The brutality, the inhumanity, the surrealism, the insanity. We are disfigured, permanently - indelibly, for the rest of our lives.

There is a plague affecting Veterans and other survivors of war, a plague of inexplicable proportions. So profound that it escapes medical diagnosis. This plague escapes diagnosis because it exists beyond a material plane, transcends the precedent of medicalization. It is the result of our unwillingness to look deeply, with mindfulness into the nature of war itself at whatever level it is occurring - to touch deeply and profoundly the consequences of aggression (passive or active) not only on the aggressed but also on the aggressor.

Once involved in or touched by the trauma of combat, there is no getting on with our lives in any traditional social or culture sense. To create heroes of ordinary people thrust in extra-ordinary experiences only condemns them to an attitude, a perception of themselves that they can never live up to. To create heroes of ordinary people thrust into extra-ordinary experiences DOES NOT PROMOTE HEALING!

To acquire titles, degrees, property, positions, etc. does nothing to ease the pain or relieve the suffering of living (in forgetfulness) with the consequences of our inhumanity. Ascribing to this notion that we can buy our way free, that there is some rectitude that can be claimed, clinging desperately to these illusions, merely perpetuates suffering, our suffering at deeper and more profound levels. Denying this reality, repressing it, merely causes then our suffering to express itself in manifestations that we look at with bewilderment and say (to ourselves, and out loud), "How can this be happening to us, here of all places?"

When the physical manifestation of war ends - the cessation of fighting - the effects of that Trauma "do not go away" but linger on and on, and if left unaddressed the effects of this Trauma becomes a ring through our nose dragging us through life. We can know this as we see ourselves moving from one war to another. We can know this as we begin to discover ourselves in places we don't want to be, with people we don't want to be with, doing things we don't want to be doing and telling ourselves all the while that we love it, or that we must, or that we really don't have a choice. All the while stuck in the closed loop of suffering blind to our search to escape it.

Walking through the excruciating reality of the effects of war, of trauma. Walking through the excruciating reality of the debilitating efforts to anesthetize from these effects (a social and cultural demand) I am learning a new and substantive meaning to the reality of healing and I am experiencing, that as I heal so does my father, my mother, my sister, my son, my family, my community, my society, my culture. I begin to understand more clearly the responsibility that I have to all those who have been consumed by this beast. That responsibility is to not let your lives be wasted. Through your death, through your continued suffering, you have taught and continue to teach me that war is not the way, violence is never a solution. And through this process of healing and transformation that I have found myself on I have learned that as I heal I heal you in me - REST IN PEACE!!

In Gassho:
Claude AnShin Thomas