Strife rages, meanwhile, on and on.
What’s the answer?
What’s the question?
Then, thinking of Palestinian and Israeli, me and you, us and them, my eyes fall on a verse from Kerouac’s Dharma Bums on a postcard on my wall:
Equally empty
Equally to be loved
Equally a coming buddha.
Equally to be loved
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
Yes, glad you caught that. He’s alive and well in the California wild, singing his songs of all beings and things.
I’m so sorry for spreading litterary ignorance amongst the ranks of zen buddhists. It was unwillingly. The Japhy Ryder character was in real life Gary Snyder.
It has been a while since I last read Dharma Bums. I loved that prayer. I can’t help but imagine Kerouac’s frailty and despair and hope that his contact with buddhism somehow helped him. (And what happened to Gregory "Japhy Ryder" Corso, the most committed to zen of all the Beat poets?)
As to Palestine and Israel: have you seen the movie ‘The Commitments’? There is a scene where a not too smart english Soul musician tells one of the guys in the band that he had come to play in Northern Ireland because he heard a preacher (possibly presbyterian) say the irish had no soul (of course in the metaphysical sense)… Isn’t it hard to see ourselves as different without seing the other as worse?
A lot of love will be needed to heal all those wounds.