THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE WAS RECEIVED FROM FRIENDS OF EARTHVILLE WHO ORGANIZED AND PARTICIPATED IN AN UNPRECEDENTED EXPERIENCE THAT BRINGS HOPE FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, OR AT LEAST IN THE HEARTS OF THOSE WHO SEEK IT.
On the 6th of August 2001, after a two weeks of practicing breathing, walking and eating mindfully, "being peace", and sharing deep listening sessions in Plum Village, a group of about fifteen Palestinians and Israelis were invited by [world-famous exiled Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and author] Thich Nhat Hanh to share our experience with the international community, a few hundred people attending the summer retreat in Plum Village [Thich Nhat Hanh's spiritual community in the south of France].
This sharing opened the door for us to let others understand us, our suffering and the conflict in the Middle East a little bit more, and to ask for their support. We were able to do so, having been opened up, within the group, to understand a little bit more about ourselves, the society we live in, and our friends "on the other side".
This sharing also gave us a chance to reflect upon the time we had together in Plum Village, to acknowledge what we have been through, as individuals and as a group, to acknowledge how precious and meaningful this time was for all of us, to acknowledge that many doors have been opened. We also know that it is just a start.
Our wish is to take the example and wisdom set at our meetings and practice in those two weeks, and to keep them on, let ourselves grow from it, through it, and let others the chance to experience the same.
We were warmly invited by Thich Nhat Hanh and the teachers and community of Plum Village to use their support to carry on in Israel what was started in France. To carry on the work of the group as a group, and to help others get to Plum Village and to learn what we have learned about being peace, about deep listening that heals, about deep sharing from the heart of love, about non violence, about transforming our suffering into peace, about learning that war is not the only way, and that peace begins with ourselves.
On this voyage, we need all the support we can get, so we can also offer our support to the many peace workers in Israel and Palestine. You are welcomed to write back to us, to get more information.
In the near future more transcripts will be available.
To all those who helped, in any way, we would like to express our deepest gratitude.
To all of you, here is what we have shared in Plum Village on the 6th of August. We hope it will reach the hearts of many people.
For clarity:
"Thay", means "teacher" in Vietnamese, and refers to Thich Nhat Hanh. "Practice" refers to the practice of living mindfully, awareness of what we are doing in the here and the now, as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh. "Practitioners" are those who are regular in this practice. A bell ("bell of mindfulness") is often used to help remind us to return to the present.
Transcription of Israeli-Palestinian Group Summary Presented to Plum Village, New Hamlet, 6 August 2001
Over the past few years, Thich Nhat Hanh ("Thay") has suggested more than once that Palestinians and Jews sit together in meditation and that they practice deep listening and share understanding of each other's suffering. Thay's suggestion planted the seeds of a dream.
A few weeks ago several Israeli practitioners began the process of realizing a dream they had in their hearts for a long time. Separately, these people had dreamt the same dream, and the conditions were right for them to meet, share ideas and begin to make it a reality. That dream was to bring a group of Jews and Palestinians together to Plum Village.
Now that this group have been here for two weeks, Thay has asked us to share our experience with you. Over a period of two weeks, we had meetings almost daily. The meetings were attended by a mixed group of about 15 Palestinians and Jews, with the support of attending monks and nuns, including Sr. Chan Kong, Sr. Anabel, Sr. Jina, Thay Doji, brother Ivar and brother Phap Minh.
Meetings generally ran for two hours, sometimes longer. Sharing took place in English, Hebrew and Arabic, depending on the person sharing, with translation always present. The pace and format of the process was guided by the monks and nuns, with the direction of Thay. All the meetings were recorded.
In the first few meetings, the group members were encouraged to focus on deepening their personal practice and nurturing their own grounds of stability, together with the rest of the international community. We practiced, ate, and walked together mindfully.
After a few days of nurturing our inner peace, calming body and mind, the process of deep listening began with a session with Sr. Chan Kong. People in the group shared feelings of despair and anger and asked for guidance on how to use the practice to deal with their feelings. Sr. Chan Kong shared her experience in dealing with her own anger and despair and finding inner peace and clarity during the Vietnam war.
One evening, we participated in a walking meditation into the forest in the lower hamlet, where we joined in a beginning anew circle, together with Sr. Jina, watering each others flowers. The next day we began a series of meetings in which we practiced sharing and deep listening. Over the course of the meetings, each person had the opportunity to speak mindfully and to share their personal story. Often, our stories were interwoven with the suffering of our ancestors and those in our present community.
The bell of mindfulness was invited between each sharing, and when the content became very emotional, in order to help us return to our center during this process.
The Palestinians spoke about the difficulties as Israeli-Arabs, the discrimination in Israel, and their inferior status in relation to Jews, the Israeli government, and the police. They spoke about their fear of being uprooted from their homes, because they are a minority in a Jewish state. They shared their experience of discrimination by the government that do not allow them to build homes in their villages or to develop their land. They spoke about their land that was expropriated and given to Jews.
The Palestinians who live in the occupied territories, talked about the distress that has been going on since the first Intifada (the Palestinian uprising and clashes) in 1987, the humiliating treatment they experience from the Israeli army, the difficult conditions they live under, and their poverty. They shared about the deportation of many of the Palestinians who lived in Arab villages and towns during the 1948 war, and about being scattered in the world, uprooted, unwanted and homeless. They spoke of hatred for those Jews that took their home.
The Jewish members shared about the difficulty of the struggle to protect a state surrounded with enemies, about great fear of others wanting to destroy them, about difficulties in differentiating between the Palestinian citizens in Israel and the neighboring Arabs who are considered to be enemies, about life in the shadow of constant fear. Fear of terrorist attacks in the streets or on the buses and the fear of further wars. As a result of this fear, there is a lot of violence and aggressive communication. Jewish members shared that Israeli society is mentally disabled and suffering from disconnection from its own self, suffering from apathy, and suffering from a lack of understanding for the other side. They shared that many Israelis want peace and do not want war, but they feel a lack of trust in the intentions of the Palestinians.
Jewish members shared about the holocaust and the genocide of their people in Europe by the Nazis: a trauma that is imprinted on every Jewish soul and which effects their behavior. They also talked about being homeless, in exile, for two thousand years.
Many of us had participated in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in the past, but the process in Plum Village was different in that it did not involve a dialogue or a search for solutions. It was a practice of compassionate listening without commentary or judgment. We were encouraged to use loving speech. The main theme that was expressed was "fear". The sense of safety provided in Plum Village and the presence of the teachers created a space for sharing and listening. Each one of us, in our own way, underwent transformation. As one wise brother said: "if we don't transform we transmit".
We would like to share impressions of a few members of the group that show how we arrive from listening to understanding:
"TO listen compassionately to others is to be reminded of ones own humanity. It's like looking in a mirror and seeing oneself. To see all the fear that is inside us, and all its manifestations, like anger, is very scary. It is something we are taught to do. In fact we are taught to avoid it.
My experience here has given me a cradle a place to feel held, warm and safe, so that seeing myself mirrored through others is not so scary. It is beautiful.
The conflict is not about politics. It is about human beings and about their fears."
"WE learned to speak from our hearts, without having fear that anyone would disturb, without judging and blaming.
We learned to listen with respect, deep listening to the suffering of the other.
Sharing deeply, listening deeply helped us see our deepest fears, and let the fears go, flow away. Seeing the source of suffering and fear, now is the time to learn to let it go and not to drown in it. Peace begins with me. We seek peace. If we practice the love of god, we can embrace every human act and forgive."
"USUALLY in the middle east we use so much anger to express our suffering and that is why we can not speak to or listen to each other. Here we were able to express suffering without anger and to really listen.
I was able to learn more about the suffering of my own people, and the suffering of the other.
It became clear that your suffering is my suffering.
Recognizing that we all suffer, slowly seeing the nature and source of the suffering, I could see that there is also a way to end the suffering, and that there is a place, a heaven, where there is no more suffering. Hell and heaven are in me, and in you. We have the choice to create hell for ourselves and others, or to help each other to realize heaven. I want to choose heaven".
"BOTH Jews and Palestinians share the same feelings of rootlessness and homelessness We suffer deeply because of that."
"LIVING the conflict every day somehow it becomes routine which is so unmindful and, in my view, dangerous. The community of Plum Village and of course, Thay and people from all over the world, were like bells of mindfulness for me to look deeper into our mutual conflict.
I feel there is something very unique and very serious at our hands and if we would be mindful about it, it might bring some good to this world."
"IT was the first opportunity for me to hear first hand about the pain and the difficulty of both sides, to know the people in the group closely. For me, the story of the Palestinian refugees was very meaningful and made me reconsider the whole situation and the possible solutions."
"I LEARNED I can cradle the guilt feelings in me and the shame, to softly put them to sleep, like a mother to a fragile baby. When the guilt and shame rest like this, calm and safe in my arms, then I can listen with all my heart to painful, Shocking things, to the suffering of our Palestinian brothers.
It does not matter when will a peace agreement between the two people will be signed, what time, what date, do we have the strength to put the effort needed, do we ever get to eat the fruits of the seeds we are sowing.
I learned how important practicing compassion and accepting also the bad sides in us Israeli Jews violence, anxiety, racism, so I can accept with love these sides when I meet them in others.
I learned that all the material I need to make peace are in me, and when I practice them, touch them and being aware of them, I do not suffer anymore."
"THE neutral environment, the listening, embrace the soul and enable the words and feelings, the pain, the embarrassment, the search to come from a true place. There is a lot of strength in the process of listening, in the permission that each member of the group is asking to take the time to him or herself and enable things to come up.
For me, many meaningful seeds of strength and faith in my spiritual path, in making peace, have been sowed, I found support, I found partners, I found more faith in myself."
"IF you'd had the chance to listen to our sharing, you would be able to understand how much this tragic conflict effects each and every one of us, growing up on this land that we are all so connected to.
We learned from the very deep experience that we shared here, what we already knew, that there is no one side that is right, one side that is a winner. In our situation we all lose. Our wounds will be transmitted to the next generations if we do not take care of them.
We hope that our work here has sown seeds for continuation of the process. This work has the potential to bring transformation on the personal level, resulting in the transformation of society."
"MY attitude towards the Arabs, particularly the Israeli Arabs, changed as a result of the personal transformation gained from Buddhist meditation practice.
I have a way to go, the one taught by the Buddha and Thay."
The deep feelings expressed here, prepare the ground for further activities of the group in Israel. We are now working on shaping future practice. At the moment we are planning to share days of mindfulness together in Israel, and to bring more groups from Israel and Palestine to Plum Village in the near future, following Thay's invitation.
We are deeply grateful to Thay and the community of Plum Village for their great support and guidance. We are moved by your deep care for us and your willingness to help.
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