Excerpted from Awake in the Heartland
by Joan Tollifson
Will we put an end to terrorism through anger, hatred, and violence? Can we bomb it out of existence? Is there any other option? I honestly don’t know. There may be situations where violence is actually the least violent and most sensible option. I do know for sure that when the mentality behind it is hatred, vengeance and black and white thinking, it will in some way serve to perpetuate and strengthen the root of the problem rather than dissolving it.
Ultimately, there is no solution for the world and no need of one. The horror is horrible, the pain hurts, and at the same time, on a deeper level, all is well. Despite the fire that is raging in the movie, the screen remains undefiled. The world appears and disappears inside awareness, and awareness is not at war with anything. The heart of things is at peace.
Moreover, when you start looking into it deeply, it becomes very difficult to find the separation between light and dark. Enormous beauty and compassion have come out of the terrible experience of Nazi Germany.
The horror of the Vietnam War created huge suffering, and it also created Thich Nhat Hanh and a social revolution in US society. It changed the course of history in so many ways, some favorable and some unfavorable. The apparent misfortunes in my own life have been the sources of my deepest wisdom, insight, compassion, humor, and strength. And yet, if I were choosing my life, I’d leave them all out. Perhaps that’s why we’re not consulted. We’d write a very flat script.
This is the fallacy of positive thinking and visualization-we never visualize ourselves with cancer, losing an arm, being a drunk, biting our fingers all night, our child ending up in a wheelchair, our bank account at zero, the world suffering yet another war. We visualize some all-one-sided, happy picture that misses the richness of life as it actually is. We visualize what can never actually exist: a one-sided coin, up triumphing permanently over down. But that’s not how it works. Up cannot exist without down. They are always in perfect balance. Neither one really exists.
Perfection never exists the way we imagine it in the mind. The only real perfection is exactly what’s here right now. That doesn’t mean I like everything that happens, and it doesn’t mean I don’t act to bring about something different. I wouldn’t hope for anyone to have a bomb dropped on them, or for any child to be born disabled, and if I could snap my fingers and have a new right hand, I’m sure I’d snap those fingers. [Note: The author has a congenital condition in which she has no right hand.]
If asked to choose between a million dollars or the loss of both legs, I’d pick the million dollars without a moment of hesitation. But I know from my own life experience that loosing both legs could be incredible grace, and that having a million dollars could involve profound suffering. Life happens. Ultimately, it is beyond the scope of the mind to evaluate.
Thank you for this reading.