Words in a time of war?

[RichardH]

The current flare-up of the conflict in the middle east has raised an issue in my daily practice. This is because I know people who feel very deeply the justice of either one side of this tragedy or the other. I usually do not engage in discussion about it. Zazen has helped show me that the chain of pain has no beginning. Emptiness reveals innumerable proximate causes, where no arbitrary line can be drawn as the first. Zazen isn't needed to see this, but it does go deeper by realizing it. At a time of conflict bright people who would otherwise never mistake a proximate cause for a first cause, can do so in the heat of righteousness. The long history of pain and grievance is given an origin. It is given a first date... resulting in a tidy narrative of angels and devils where all the ambiguity and shading-into-grey is no longer visible. . We have no choice but to frame situations of temporal power, in order work on a problem, but there is a world of difference between that, and grasping the picture as an absolute.

It seems likely, given the shifting politics in that region, that more conflict is to come, and more polarizing of views among friends and neighbors. There are plenty of other issues that do the same. Obviously one average person can't solve ancient conflicts, but it is possible to not bring war into our lives by polarizing people around us.

This is a maybe a wordy and abstract way of getting to a question. What are some ways that words can be used to bridge and heal deeply polarized views? Thank you.


Gassho, kojip