25th
a special place in hell
All violence is injustice. The fire of hatred and violence cannot be extinguished by adding more hatred and violence to the fire. The only antidote to violence is compassion. And what is compassion made of? It is made of understanding. When there is no understanding, how can we feel compassion, how can we begin to relieve the great suffering that is there? So understanding is the very real foundation upon which we build our compassion. - What I Would Say to Osama bin Laden - Thich Nhat Hanh, Interview by Anne A. Simpkinson
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“How do you find equanimity in this,”, she asked.
“This” was the vicious assault and robbery of our fifty-nine year old neighbor by three young men in front of his home at ten o’clock on a rainy Sunday morning. She looked out our office window and saw him face down on the pavement - the young men beating his head with a pipe, with brass-knuckled fists, and kicking his head with their feet. He was covered in blood and barely conscious. She opened the window and yelled “You better run, the police are on their way!” and ran outside to help. The kids scattered and ran. I am convinced her shout saved his life.
I was just stepping out of the shower and heard her yell, “Call the police” as she ran outside. I ran to the window, naked, water streaming, as I dialed 911 to call the police and an ambulance. I could see her holding our neighbor, keeping him from trying to stand - he was already going into shock. From the upstairs window I could see blood running down the sidewalk and a blood spattered white tennis shoe that one of the attackers had lost.
We stood outside in the rain sheltering him with umbrellas, warming him with blankets and putting pressure on his wounds while we waited for help.
Later we sat in our house waiting to hear a report from the hospital. We looked up equanimity:. “mental or emotional stability or composure, esp. under tension or strain; calmness; equilibrium”. The concept had been part of our reading that morning, prior to our sitting meditation. It seemed so far away from what we were feeling. Her question was on both our minds.
“How do we find equanimity in this?”
We sat teary-eyed, frozen, angry and fearful. We both felt a desire, if fleeting, to find and hurt them back. Seeing a friend’s face covered in bruises, scrapes, and blood in real life instead of on a screen is harder than one might imagine. Witnesses have their own flavor of shock. I kept seeing the white tennis shoe spattered with blood.
The only way to combat the anger and the fear, the only way to resist the urge to turn those young men into an “other”, into an enemy, was to try to humanize them and see them with eyes of compassion. But how do you seek compassion for attackers when the rain has not yet washed the blood they shed from your sidewalk?
The only way to navigate this trauma was to sit patiently with our fear and anger and strive to see our shared humanity. Cultivating loving-kindness toward all beings includes young men wearing brass knuckles and wielding pipes. In time we saw our anger and fear came from our helplessness. Revenge provides a distraction, if empty, from powerlessness in the face of brutality. Our urge to hate and blame came from a need to create a space between us and anyone capable of such brutality, but the truth is we all have the capacity to hate and to hurt. The best response was to sit with our powerful feelings, to stay with them without the distraction of acting out. Sitting with our feelings helped us understand the attackers and our own reactions, and to see how much we share. Understanding is the first step towards compassion.
It wasn’t and isn’t easy. An acquaintance said, “I’ll bet you wish there will be a special place in hell for those boys.” Not really. While their acts were horrific and inexcusable, their violence came from a place of deep suffering, as violence does. What we wish for is an end to the suffering that causes violence. We wish it for everyone - including ourselves, our neighbor and three angry young men.
