Read this rest of Sherry Nakanishi's beautiful essay at Kyoto Journal.
"Music vs Militarism: OKINAWA" by BY SHERRY NAKANISHI
In total, 150,000 Okinawans died during the final battles of the Second World War, a third of the civilian population. The number exceeded the total of American and Japanese dead during the same period.
Things start off quite innocently. I receive two tickets from a colleague at school. On them is printed “Okinawa LIVE.” On the appointed day I arrive at the venue, Higashi Honganji, a large Buddhist temple in midtown Kyoto.
My husband, child, and I cross the vast pigeon-thronged gravel spaces of the temple precincts, reach the correct hall and are greeted warmly by monks...
The auditorium is large, and filled. Hundreds upon hundreds of people have come to hear the Okinawan message. On center stage, a man stands alone, holding a sanshin, the traditional Okinawa three-stringed instrument. “We can only fight through our music, it is all we have,” he says. And an hour and a half passes by as the truth of Okinawa’s recent history spills out, accompanied by intermittent notes played on the sanshin — sounds of nodding agreement.
The speaker is Chibana Shoichi, an Okinawan. Labelled an “anti-base activist” by Time Magazine [April/May 1997], perhaps he is more of a peace activist; one who out of love tries to protect the children, the people, the land, and the sea from being misused and ill-treated....
In ancient times Okinawa was independent, and known as Ryukyu Onkaku, the Ryukyu Kingdom. Before being annexed by Japan in 1865 this peaceful kingdom had no army. Looking into Ma-chan’s youthful face, I recall Chibana telling me how young Okinawans are picking up the traditional instruments, shamisen , jamisen, and sanshin, and proudly carrying on their culture. Okinawa has remained connected with its ancestral soul through its music, and this is how it has responded to an unimaginable military onslaught — with songs that are the spiritual poetry of peace, prayers for nature and for people.
We bow again, he departs; I am left holding the hope of Okinawa — the ancient teaching of the sanshin, the music and song of Okinawa; its gift to the people of Honshu, and the world.
I have a friend in Kyoto, a former soldier whose mind remains disturbed by his intensive military training. He knows he’s crazy, and travels the world sporadically, soul- searching for the truth. I tell him what I have learned about Okinawa, and ask for his response. He says:
This — as all things —
does not exist to be changed,
but for us to change.
His words send a shiver through me.
“I didn’t say it — it came from up there,” he says, pointing to the sky.
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Sherry Nakanishi: "Music vs Militarism: OKINAWA"
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Sketches of Myahk explores indigenous Japanese roots - still alive in northern Japan & Okinawa
Sketches of MYAHK Trailer
スケッチ・オブ・ミャーク 宮古島スペシャル
Koichi Onishi's documentary film, Sketches of Myahk, is a fascinating exploration of Japan's obscured indigenous heritage still extant in northern Japan and Okinawa:
"I think Aomori connections with ancient Japan are much like those of Miyakojima," said Onishi, adding that he intends to shoot his next film in Aomori Prefecture.More about this beautiful film at Asahi.
Miyako is pronounced "Myahk" by locals. Two types of songs have been handed down through generations: "Aagu" folk songs that differ in style from traditional verses of the main Okinawa island and "kamiuta" sacred songs...
"Aomori (Prefecture) is home to the Sannai-Maruyama archaeological site and many other ruins from the prehistoric Jomon period (14,000 B.C. to 300 B.C.). Psychics closely related to folk beliefs like 'itako' shamans are still very much alive in our everyday lives," Onishi said. "(Aomori and) Miyakojima share a common bond in the way they retain traces of ancient Japan."
Background: DNA research has confirmed that Ainu and Okinawans are direct descendants of Japan's first people, the Jomon, who entered what is now known as the Japanese archipelago through the area now known as Sakhalin, original home (along with the Kuriles, Hokkaido, and northern Tohoku) to Ainu. Therefore Ainu and Okinawan cultures give us a sense of the richness of indigenous Japanese (Jomon) culture.
Geneticists have also confirmed that mainland Japanese have descended from intermarriage of Jomon and later immigrants from Asia who brought rice and metal culture to Japan during the Yayoi period which lasted from around 300 BCE to 300. The later-comers entered the archipelago through Kyushu. New findings show that cultural exchanges went in multiple directions, with Asian mainlanders adopting Jomon culture as well as the other way around.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Velcrow Ripper charts "humanity's immune response to a planet in crisis" in Fierce Light & Evolve Love
Here's a recent interview from his latest website, Occupy Love
.
ALIVE MIND: Occupy Love is the third film of the “Fierce Love Project.” It comes after Sacred Scared (Special Jury Prize of the Toronto Film Festival), an uplifting pilgrimage through war-torn places around the world, followed by Fierce Light, a film about bringing together spirituality, and activism. Is there a logical progression to these films? How would you relate Fierce Light to Sacred Scared and Occupy Love?Read the interview and see videos (including Summer of Change: Occupy Wall Street at Occupy Love: Global Revolution of the Heart.
VELCROW RIPPER: Indeed there is - the films are about about the “Heart of the Times” of this unique period in human history, from the millennium to 2012. It is a time of enormous crisis, and enormous possibility. The overall theme is, how can the global crises that we are facing lead to the evolution of humanity?
Scared Sacred takes us on a journey to ground zero’s of the world – places like New York City during 9.11, Afghanistan, Hiroshima, Bosnia, Cambodia, Israel and Palestine. In each of those places, I discovered some of the most remarkable individuals I have ever met. I found that there were two things that the survivors all had in common, that helped them get through the crises they faced with their spirits transformed, not crushed: having a source of meaning, which was different for each of them, and taking action.
This lead to the second film, Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, which explores the relationship between spirituality, and activism. There has long been an artificial divide between these two important aspects of human society, and this film explores the power that is released when the two come together.
In Occupy Love I ask the question: how is the economic and ecological crises we are facing a great love story? I have gone beyond the word “spiritual” to the deeper, and more universal word, “Love.” The last lines of “Fierce Light” are, “Another world is here, right now: listen.” On the sound track you can hear the rumblings of a volcano, the sleeping woman – who is now wide awake.
Occupy Love explores this awakening, this revelation of our shared heart, and our shared oppression, and the process of working together to transform the bankrupt system of today into a world that works for all life. The Occupy movement, and the related movements that are erupting around the world, from the Arab Spring, to the European Summer, are all a part of this awakening.
I recently showed Fierce Light at Occupy London and people were really struck by how the movie predicted the arising of Occupy. The films truly have their finger on the pulse of the times. In fact, Fierce Light was a little ahead of it’s time...
ALIVE MIND Commenting on the protest that spurred in Quebec City in 2004 against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, you are asking “What would I do if I did not have a camera in my hands? Would I want to pick up a rock and throw it right back at these dehumanized Plexiglass faces?” What stance do you adopt when you shoot in the midst of demonstrations? Does being an engaged filmmaker mean taking a step back from neutrality in those situations?
VELCROW RIPPER I don’t believe in neutrality. That comment, which was a rhetorical question, was answered by the film: I would do what Carly Stasko does at that moment – she dances.
My response to repression, violence and corporate dominance is to be as contrasting to that as possible – liberated, non-violent, and creative. That is the way to transform violence, not by speaking it’s language back at it...
ALIVE MIND On Sept 17, 2011, at Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of Occupy Wall Street, you’ve asked a giant FDR dime, “How could the global crisis we are facing become a love story?’ You made a short-film out of it, entitled Summer of Change: Occupy Wall Street.
Have you been personally involved in the movement since then? What are your future plans?
VELCROW RIPPER I have fallen in love with the Occupy Movement. I was at Occupy Wall Street since day one, travelled to Occupy Oakland for their epic general strike and just returned from Spain, where I was filming with the Indignados, Egypt, where I was covering Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Revolution, and Occupy London. I was looking at the roots of the movement, tracing it back from the European summer, to the Arab Spring, and looking at where the movement has evolved. The film is now called “Occupy Love.” The original project, Evolve Love, may come out after, or will be integrated into this movie.
Two years ago I asked writer Naomi Klein, “How could the crisis we are facing on the planet become a love story?” And she laughed, and said that her and I do the opposite – she points out how bad things are and I look for the love. Last week I saw her at an action and she gave me a big hug and said, “History has re-arranged itself to prove your thesis.”
The Occupy Movement, and the much bigger, and deeper global spirit of transformation from which it arises, is the love story I have been looking for, all my life. In Fierce Light I reference Paul Hawken, who in his book Blessed Unrest, talks about a global movement of movements that is emerging all over the world, what he calls “humanity's immune response to a planet in crisis," the largest movement in history. And the remarkable thing about that movement is that it is self organizing, and it didn’t even know that it existed. The Arab Spring, The European Summer, and now the Occupy Movement, is that movement standing up, looking around, and discovering itself.
And right now, this is the greatest love story on earth. This movement is rooted in interdependence, and is the opposite of the selfish, lifeless, dog eat dog-eat-dog world promoted through the vast capital of the corporations. We need to do everything we can to nurture this evolving movement, our ever-evolving global society, and keep it moving always in the direction of love, in the direction of life. Love is the movement. We are the 100%
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Zen priest in Fukushima plants flowers that absorb radiation & accepts radioactive topsoil at temple grounds
"Invisible snow" by Reuters Tokyo Pictures, Aug. 19, 2011
He is the chief monk of Fukushima's 400-year old Joenji Temple and this is a sutra for peace and rebirth, a prayer for the resurrection of an entire community choked in radiation.
KOYU ABE, BUDDHIST MONK (voiceover translation): This radiation is like an invisible snow. It's fallen and brought us a long winter. But eventually the snow will melt and spring will come.
MARK WILLACY: To help his community rid itself of this invisible snow, Monk Abe is allowing people to dump their radioactive topsoil on temple land.
Armed with his four Geiger counters, he shows me just how contaminated this earth is.
The Japanese-made Geiger counter quickly blasts off the scale. The others reveal radiation levels ten times beyond what's considered safe.
KOYU ABE, BUDDHIST MONK (voiceover translation): The radiation level here is so high that some of the Geiger counters can't measure it. But I still accept this contaminated soil.
---
Photojournalist Yuriko Nakao of Reuter has reported even more in-depth on Koyu Abe and his community at "Invisible Snow," a sensitive photo blog that includes the above video: As well as engaging in radiation clean-up, residents are planting flowers that absorb nuclear radiation:
Abe described the radiation particles as an “invisible snow”, “A snow you can’t see has covered the area, and has brought a long, long winter to Fukushima,” he said.
Abe’s organization called, “Make a wish upon flowers,” aimed to reduce the volume of radiation in Fukushima by using certain plants’ natural ability to reduce toxic materials in the ground. With his volunteer group, comprised of about 100 members, he planted sunflowers where radiation levels were high.
Abe hoped to lower the level of radiation and through that ease stress and anxiety experienced by the residents. He also strongly believed that his actions will tackle the prevalent sense of stagnation and help cultivate a sense of hope...
What moved me most was to see the residents not give up their hopes and strive to overcome their predicament. The three days that I spent with the monk’s family were very moving. They were like a blessing to me.
The monk also had his motives to tell me his story. He looked into my eyes and said: “Media outlets have the obligation to reveal and bring everything into the light, so that the people can make their decisions.” By making everything clear, the media can help stop the spread of bad rumors and lower the anxiety while speeding up the recovery process, he said.
---
On the snowy fringes of Japan's Fukushima city, now notorious as a byword for nuclear crisis, Zen monk Koyu Abe offers prayers for the souls of thousands left dead or missing after the earthquake and tsunami nearly one year ago.
But away from the ceremonial drums and the incense swirling around the Joenji temple altar, Abe has undertaken another task, no less harrowing -- to search out radioactive "hot spots" and clean them up, storing irradiated earth on temple grounds...
"You can't see it. Nothing looks as if it's changed, but really, radiation is floating through the area. It's hard for those hit by the tsunami, but it's hard to live here too."
Last summer, Abe grew and distributed sunflowers and other plants, such as field mustard and amaranthus, in an effort to lighten the impact of the radiation and cheer local residents.
Now he is trading his ceremonial robes for a protective mask, working with volunteers to track down lingering pockets of radiation and cleaning them up...
Abe said he and the other monks are storing the soil on a hill behind the temple as neither the government nor the nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) are helping with the clean-up.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace for Jeju island & the Korean Peninsula earlier this year
Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace for Jeju island and the Korean Peninsula earlier this year:
March 1, 2011 - Benediction for the Life, Peace, and Community in Korea Interfaith 100-day Pilgrimage from Jeju Island to the DMZ—for Life, Peace, & Community in the Korean Peninsula. The benediction was made in Gangjeong.
Dobub, a Buddhist monk who was born on Jeju Island, led the pilgrimage benediction on March 1. He engaged in dialogue with Fr. Kang Woo-Il, Chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, & the bishop of the Catholic Jeju district, during the designation of Jeju as a "Peace Island" in 2007.
After the ceremony, the Life and Peace Fellowship visited Gangjeong village, to meet with the villagers and to spend the first night of the pilgrimage in the Gangjeong village.
Reverend Jeon of the Life and Peace Fellowship said, “Our organization opposes those things related to war. We oppose the naval base plan with the thought that the peace in the Korean peninsula and North East Asia will be threatened if it is built on Jeju Island." He added: “We are walking with our praying hearts.”
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Urakami, Nagasaki: August 9, 1945 & Today (renewed community at Ground Zero)
The city of Nagasaki came into being when Portuguese adventurers came to Japan in 1542 and asked Lord Sumitada, who ruled the area, for the use of the beautiful harbor. Japan's most southern island, Kyushu, had long been the archipelago's principal crossroads for Silk Road traders, and, before that, prehistoric travelers, but their route took them through Hakata, an ancient port city, slightly to the north.
After a squabble with Ming China interrupted old commercial routes, the newly arrived traders became the Japanese elite's only source of Chinese silk, Indian and Persian luxury goods, and European guns. Military unifier Oda Nobunaga welcomed the European merchants and accompanying missionaries, aligning with them to create leverage against rival daimyos backed by powerful Buddhist temples in Kyoto. Franscisco de Xavier arrived with other Spanish Jesuits in 1549, and after two years, left behind behind 1,000 converts.
In 1582, after Nobunaga's suicide during a battle in Kyoto, power transferred to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who, inspired by European imperialism, launched an invasion of the Korean peninsula ten years later. Within six months, superior Korean strategists routed his troops (but not before they forcibly brought back tens of thousands of Korean master potters who created renowned Imari and Arita ceramics). Confounded by his loss and threatened by the power of Kyushu's daimyo traders and their European allies, Hideyoshi responded by issuing orders to execute Christians and instituting a draconian policy that came to define Japan: he began closing its borders to foreigners. By this time, hundreds of thousand Japanese in Kyushu had become Christian. Many of the conversions were nominal, ordered by daimyos; yet others would prove enduring.
After Hideyoshi died in 1597, his successor Ieyasu Tokugawa, restored trade with Korea, China, and European-controlled outposts throughout Asia. However the shadow cast by European imperial military power and Japan's growing community of native Christians proved too daunting for following shoguns who partially closed the archipelago's borders (allowing Chinese, Korean, Ryukuan, and Dutch exchanges at some ports).
Japanese Christians were forced to go underground, not to resurface until 1865 when several thousand Catholics from the fishing village of Urakami confessed themselves to a French priest in Nagasaki. In 1895, these descendents of Christians worshipping secretly for two centuries built the first cathedral in Asia in Urakami, a site of repeated earlier persecutions.
On August 9, 1945, clouds prevented an American B-29 from dropping a plutonium bomb on its original target, the weapons manufacturing center at Kokura. So the pilot aimed the bomb "Fat Man" towards their alternate target, the spires of Urakami Cathedral, the center point between his secondary targets, Mitsubishi's torpedo factory and steel and arms factory.
(People walking down a street in Nagasaki, unaware of the plutonium bomb explosion about to hit them.) 
The plutonium bomb exploded over Japan's (and East Asia's) largest church at 11:02 a.m.—while a priest was beginning midday Mass. More Japanese Christians (8,000 among 70,000 mostly civilian victims) were killed in that moment than in all the previous shogunate persecutions of Christians combined.
In 1959, parishioners rebuilt the cathedral on the exact spot where it was destroyed, on Angelus Street. They decorated the new cathedral with charred angel faces from the bombed building, and left blackened and broken statues of saints (now covered with chains of colorful origami cranes) standing in the front, as a memorial.
After spending the night traveling on the Akatsuki ("Red Moon"), a slow night train that left Kyoto in the early evening and arrived in Nagasaki early morning, I hopped on a streetcar and found myself in Urakami just as Sunday morning mass at St. Mary's had started. All the seats in the church were filled, so I joined people standing in the entrance way. The women all wore white veils and nuns wore old-fashioned blue habits. In this quiet place, I experienced awe, witnessing a renewed faith community that had experienced archetypal devastation.
After the service, I asked a tall, young, bushy-haired, smiling priest where I could find the ruins of the old cathedral. He asked an older, also smiling parishioner, to show me the broken and charred statues of saints, all covered with chains of colorful origami cranes. Looking into the eyes of the parishioner, a peaceful, even joyful survivor of the atomic bombing, I thought of Dr. Martin Luther King's view that the universe is held together by an invisible force of unsentimental, unshakeable love.
The recreated community seems to prove that this love that binds people together—is alive in the people of Nagasaki—and more enduring than man's greatest weapon of mass destruction.
— Jean Miyake Downey (text & contemporary photos)
Multiple traumatic effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the thousands of nuclear test explosions worldwide; other uranium weapons; and nuclear plant meltdowns have not healed, even if survivors and their descendants have been able to renew their communities. Please support nuclear abolition.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thich Nhat Hanh's and Joanna Macy's thoughts for Japan, humanity, & all beings
Via Jizo Chronicles, Thich Nhat Hanh's and Joanna Macy's thoughts for Japan after the great earthquake and tsunami:
Dear Friends in Japan,Nuclear-free activist Joanna Macy who spent time with the people of Novozybkyov, a village about 100 miles from Chernobyl, in 1992, addresses the nuclear disaster in Fukushima:
As we contemplate the great number of people who have died in this tragedy, we may feel very strongly that we ourselves, in some part or manner, also have died.
The pain of one part of humankind is the pain of the whole of humankind. And the human species and the planet Earth are one body. What happens to one part of the body happens to the whole body.
An event such as this reminds us of the impermanent nature of our lives. It helps us remember that what’s most important is to love each other, to be there for each other, and to treasure each moment we have that we are alive. This is the best that we can do for those who have died: we can live in such a way that they continue, beautifully, in us.
Here in France and at our practice centers all over the world, our bothers and sisters will continue to chant for you, sending you the energy of peace, healing and protection. Our prayers are with you.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Dear Ones,
In this hour of anguish we reach out to our Japanese colleagues and all beings of that noble and stricken land. As our hearts unite in prayer for them, we experience our own non-separation from the immeasurable suffering inflicted by the successive earthquakes and tsunamis, and by the nuclear catastrophe these have triggered.
Having just begun the last week of my three-month retreat, I break silence to give voice to my solidarity with you all. By speaking to you, I remind myself of what we can remember in this time of grief and fear.
It helps me to remember what I learned in Novozybkov with survivors of Chernobyl: that is that there are two basic responses to massive collective trauma. One response is to let it destroy our trust in life and in each other, plummeting us into division, blame and despair. The other is to let the shared cataclysm strengthen us into greater solidarity, and deepen our knowledge of our mutual belonging in the web of life. Your communications are evidence already of that second response. Indeed the Work That Reconnects has been preparing us for it.
We remember to breathe. As we have practiced, we breathe through the reports as we hear and the images of disaster. This helps us simply take in what is happening, and not be blocked by horror or the desire to fix or flee.
We also breathe with those who are caught up in this tragedy, in the intensity of panic, shock, and loss. Feel how this breathing-with helps your heart-mind fearlessly and tenderly embrace them.
You see, if we understand and accept the Great Unraveling, we can let it break us open to greater realizations of our innate solidarity. That this realization in itself is a kind of “enlightenment” has been brought home to me in my retreat by two great teachers of Japan.
One is the 13th century Zen master Dogen. He illumines our connections with the ancestors and the future ones, so that we can experience these connections in the immediate present moment. So does the other figure, the archetypal bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, who is beloved in Japan, where he/she is known as Bodhisattva Jizo, with images everywhere. Both of them help us realize that we are not alone in this moment of time, but surrounded by past and future generations ready to help. We who inhabit the present can do what they cannot: that is to make choices and take action/ But the past and future ones are right at our side with support and guidance.
Also, to hold steady and open in this anguished time, try the Spiral of the Work That Reconnects. As I take in the catastrophe in Japan, the Spiral serves to ground my heart-mind, and widen its dimensions. It brings gratitude for all those at work to bring support and clear reporting. It helps me honor the heartbreak, to simply open to it and let it reveals our true nature and mutual belonging. It shows me how solidarity can move us forward, and offer us practical, immediate steps to alleviate suffering and enact safe, sustainable, and sane energy policies. An obvious urgency is to stop US government subsidies and loan guarantees to nuclear industries, including bills that are before Congress now.
As radiation from Fukushima spreads, I know that protection of self and family is on our minds. I’m asking Anne to append here two kinds of information: about health measures, and some links to breaking news from Japan. See our page dedicated to this issue: http://joannamacy.net/nuclearguardianship/fukushima-dai-ichi-2011.html
Love,
Joanna
Monday, August 9, 2010
Urakami, Nagasaki: August 9, 1945 & Today (rebuilt cathedral & renewed community at Ground Zero)
The city of Nagasaki came into being when Portuguese adventurers came to Japan in 1542 and asked Lord Sumitada, who ruled the area, for the use of the beautiful harbor. Japan's most southern island, Kyushu, had long been the archipelago's principal crossroads for Silk Road traders, and, before that, prehistoric travelers, but their route took them through Hakata, an ancient port city, slightly to the north.
After a squabble with Ming China interrupted old commercial routes, the newly arrived traders became the Japanese elite's only source of Chinese silk, Indian and Persian luxury goods, and European guns. Military unifier Oda Nobunaga welcomed the European merchants and accompanying missionaries, aligning with them to create leverage against rival daimyos backed by powerful Buddhist temples in Kyoto. Franscisco de Xavier arrived with other Spanish Jesuits in 1549, and after two years, left behind behind 1,000 converts.
In 1582, after Nobunaga's suicide during a battle in Kyoto, power transferred to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who, inspired by European imperialism, launched an invasion of the Korean peninsula ten years later. Within six months, superior Korean strategists routed his troops (but not before they forcibly brought back tens of thousands of Korean master potters who created renowned Imari and Arita ceramics). Confounded by his loss and threatened by the power of Kyushu's daimyo traders and their European allies, Hideyoshi responded by issuing orders to execute Christians and instituting a draconian policy that came to define Japan: he began closing its borders to foreigners. By this time, hundreds of thousand Japanese in Kyushu had become Christian. Many of the conversions were nominal, ordered by daimyos; yet others would prove enduring.
After Hideyoshi died in 1597, his successor Ieyasu Tokugawa, restored trade with Korea, China, and European-controlled outposts throughout Asia. However the shadow cast by European imperial military power and Japan's growing community of native Christians proved too daunting for following shoguns who partially closed the archipelago's borders (allowing Chinese, Korean, Ryukuan, and Dutch exchanges at some ports).
Japanese Christians were forced to go underground, not to resurface until 1865 when several thousand Catholics from the fishing village of Urakami confessed themselves to a French priest in Nagasaki. In 1895, these descendents of Christians worshipping secretly for two centuries built the first cathedral in Asia in Urakami, a site of repeated earlier persecutions.
On August 9, 1945, clouds prevented an American B-29 from dropping a plutonium bomb on its original target, the weapons manufacturing center at Kokura. So the pilot aimed the bomb "Fat Man" towards their alternate target, the spires of Urakami Cathedral, the center point between his secondary targets, Mitsubishi's torpedo factory and steel and arms factory.
(People walking down a street in Nagasaki, unaware of the plutonium bomb explosion about to hit them.)
Urakami Cathedral after August 9, 1945
The plutonium bomb exploded over Japan's (and East Asia's) largest church at 11:02 a.m.—while a priest was beginning midday Mass. More Japanese Christians (8,000 among 70,000 mostly civilian victims) were killed in that moment than in all the previous shogunate persecutions of Christians combined.
In 1959, parishioners rebuilt the cathedral on the exact spot where it was destroyed, on Angelus Street. They decorated the new cathedral with charred angel faces from the bombed building, and left blackened and broken statues of saints (now covered with chains of colorful origami cranes) standing in the front, as a memorial.
After spending the night traveling on the Akatsuki ("Red Moon"), a slow night train that left Kyoto in the early evening and arrived in Nagasaki early morning, I hopped on a streetcar and found myself in Urakami just as Sunday morning mass at St. Mary's had started. All the seats in the church were filled, so I joined people standing in the entrance way. The women all wore white veils and nuns wore old-fashioned blue habits. In this quiet place, I experienced awe, witnessing a renewed faith community that had experienced archetypal devastation.
After the service, I asked a tall, young, bushy-haired, smiling priest where I could find the ruins of the old cathedral. He asked an older, also smiling parishioner, to show me the broken and charred statues of saints, all covered with chains of colorful origami cranes. Looking into the eyes of the parishioner, a peaceful, even joyful survivor of the atomic bombing, I thought of Dr. Martin Luther King's view that the universe is held together by an invisible force of unsentimental, unshakeable love.
The recreated community seems to prove that this love that binds people together—is alive in the people of Nagasaki—and more enduring than man's greatest weapon of mass destruction.
Children's art in the Urakami District
— Jean Miyake Downey (text; contemporary photos)
Multiple traumatic effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the thousands of nuclear test explosions worldwide; other uranium weapons; nuclear plant meltdowns, & uranium mining have not healed, even if survivors and their descendants have been able to renew their communities. Please support nuclear abolition.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Dalai Lama in Yokohama, Japan from June 18-28; Public Talk in Yokohama on June 26
For a larger view, click here.
The Dalai Lama will be in Japan from June 18-28. Public event schedule here (English):
His Holiness the Dalai Lama will give Public teaching and talk in Yokohama on 26th June 2010 [Saturday] at Pacifico Yokohama Exhibition Hall. The teaching and the talk will have Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian translation. Detail of the teaching and talk is as follows.
Public Teaching
Topic : Virtue and Practice of Connectedness and Generating Kind Heart
Time: 10:00 ~ 12:00 hrs. [The hall will open at 08:00 hrs]
Prayer Recitation by monks from Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan and Tibet [13:00 ~ 14:00 hrs]
Public Talk
Topic : Essence of Happiness and Healthy Co-existence
Time : 14:00 ~ 16:00 hrs
Brief content of the Teaching and the talk
Everywhere in the world humans are in trouble. Between wars, economic collapse, injustice and environmental problems, our problems sometimes seem as high as the mountains.
Given all this, how should we live in our new century? What is the essence of happiness?
His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks of the importance of our environmental challenge, our struggling economy and the possibilities of science. His Holiness will suggest what is required of us to live happily in the future, with the world and with each other.
Venue
Pacifico Yokohama Exhibition Hall, Yokohama
Address: 1-1-1 Minatomirai Nishiku, Yokohama »Access Map
Access guide phone : 045-221-2166
JR Yokohama line / Yokohama Subway : Sakuragicho Station. 12 minutes walk
Minatomirai LIne (Tokyutoyoko Line Direct) : Minatomirai Station 3 minutes walk
Ticket guidelines
Those in Japan can buy ticket from TICKET PIA machine in Sunks and Family Mart convenience stores.
Electronic ticket PIA http://pia.jp/t/ (PC & Mobile)
P-code: Lunch set 617-110 / Without Lunch 617-019
TICKET PIA Tel booking: 0570-02-9999 [Audio guidance]
S - Seat Lunch set Yen 10,500 / Without Lunch Yen 10,000
A - Seat Lunch set Yen 8,500 / Without Lunch Yen 8,000
B - Seat Lunch set Yen 5,500 / Without Lunch Yen 5,000
C - Seat Lunch set Yen 3,500 / Without Lunch Yen 3,000
A lunch-pack can be ordered along with the ticket for additional Yen 500. In order to avoid waste of time and security recheck, a ticket with lunch pack is recommended.
For more information contact
Liaison Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Hayama Bldg 5 (5F), 5-11-30 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0022, JAPAN
Tel: 03-3353-4094 Fax: 03-3225-8013
Email: lohhdl@tibethouse.jp Website: www.tibethouse.jp
More info in Japanese here.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action—Transforming Crisis into Compassionate Activism
"Fierce Light" is filmmaker Velcrow Ripper's term for what Martin Luther King called "Love in Action" and Gandhi called "Soul Force." These concepts reflect nonviolent social change philosophy and action rooted in compassion, faith, and what Gandhi called "satyagraha," the power of truth.
Ripper's 2008 documentary Fierce Light: Where Spirit Meets Action tells several stories that show the victories of grassroots activists relying on nonviolent methods against seemingly overwhelming forces of hate, oppression, greed, and violence.
The Canadian director begins his film by sharing his personal reactions to the assassination of his friend, journalist Brad Will, killed by government paramilitary gunmen in Oaxaca, Mexico, while filming a teacher's strike. He then asks himself this question:
Why do I keep working to change the world when we're up against impossible odds and how can I even think about spirituality when they're killing my friends?The film follows how Ripper and others respond to this question by affirmative attitude and action—regardless of specific outcome. And many of the multi-leveled outcomes are not what they initially appear to be.
Compassionate activists featured include civil rights activist John Lewis, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Archibishop Desmond Tutu, Daryl Hannah, eco-activist Julia Butterfly Hill, Ralph Nader, eco-organizer Van Jones, eco-activist John Quigley, actor Danny Glover, and Engaged Buddhist Joanna Macy.
Congressman Lewis described how spirituality formed the heart of the American Civil Rights Movement. His strategic advice:
Get in the way.Fierce Light followed the movement to save South Central Farms, an urban cooperative farm and garden project in Los Angeles, in real time. Daryl Hannah, Julia Butterfly Hill and John Quigley joined a mass sit-in of urban farmers who attempted to prevent the eviction and closure of the farm.
Van Jones observed during this struggle:
Our whole species is on trial.In the episode on war and the wounds of war, Thich Nhat Hahn talks about actions that come from the heart. He emphasizes that war, as with all violence, starts at the level of thought and emotion.
If we want to end the war in the world, we need to end the war in our own hearts.Two million Vietnamese people and 60,000 Americans died during the Vietnam War. Fierce Light shows Hahn returning to Vietnam in 2007 after 40 years of exile, leading a ceremony to help heal the wounds of war. At dusk, with candles floating on lotus flowers illuminating the sacred space those who have gathered have created, the Buddhist monk invites all the souls of deceased people to gather with them for release.
In the segment on the Civil Rights Movement John Lewis relates how social change for human rights merged with the movement to end the war in Vietnam. During this period, Thich Hahn and Martin Luther King became colleagues in their struggle to show the connections between racism, neo-colonialism, militarism, and war.
How do we stay strong, clear, and focused in our grassroots work to support the shift from a primitive and unsustainable civilization based on structural exploitation and state violence to an affirmative and sustainable civilization based on cooperation?
Congressman Lewis guides us:
We've been in the storm so long, I don't know of any other way—but the way of Love...The Fierce Love on YouTube offers many inspiring "video diaries" spotlighting Aung San Suu Kyi & Alan Clements (the first American ordained Buddhist priest in Burma) and the movement for democracy in Burma; the creation of Bat Nha monastery and its persecution by the Vietnamese government; Congressman John Lewis; the World Social Forum; and Gandhi's Phoenix Ashram and Robben Island in South Africa; and more.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
My Lai Peace Park where U.S. Veterans, My Lai survivors, & Hibakusha gathered to pray for the end of war and for world peace
Children in My Lai, (Photo: My Lai Peace Park website)
Beginning with the My Lai Loan Fund, established January 10, 1994, the Madison Quakers have funded a series of projects in My Lai. They include the My Lai Primary Schools, My Lai Peace Park, medical supplies, and the Art Penpals project. Other projects funded by the Madison Quakers are loan funds in seventeen other villages (as of 2007), the construction of 'compassion houses', aid for ethnic minorities, the Sisters Meeting Sisters project and more.In 2008, Nanzan University historian Hiroshi Fujimoto, together with Mike Boehm, accompanied a group of Hibakusha to My Lai Peace Park for the 40th anniversary of My Lai where they gathered with the survivors of the My Lai massacre on March 16 in a plea for the end of weapons of mass destruction and peace in the world.
The objectives of these projects go beyond economic aid. For almost 40 years My Lai has been evoked only in the context of grief, anger and recrimination. Before beginning our first project in My Lai the Madison Quakers were resolved to break that chain of hatred and to find ways to re-humanize people who had been de-humanized; the Vietnamese people certainly, but also American veterans, anti-Vietnam war protestors and others. By breaking the chains of hatred which have kept us apart we begin to understand that we are more alike than we are different.
We have shown over the years that if we can sit down with humility and respect and a willingness to listen and learn from each other then anything is possible. If hope can rise from the ashes of My Lai it can arise anywhere.
The Madison Quakers have worked with the people of My Lai to build primary schools; to fund hundreds of My Lai women in small businesses, and to build simple "Compassion Houses" for families Agent Orange victims.
Mike Boehm's moving "Hope Rises from the Ashes of My Lai," the story of his journey from war in Vietnam to "homelessness," (a healing time of retreat), to working to heal trauma from the Vietnam War in himself, other veterans, and survivors in Vietnam and their descendants--shows how positive transformation in one human being has ripple effects to others and the larger world. In Boehm's life, this led to the flowering of healing and hope at My Lai Peace Park.
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