Shanti Sena and the Modern Blooming of Ahimsa

Gandhi Memorial at the Peace Abbey. Author: Stefan Schindler

by Stefan Schindler

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Kindly join me in appreciating that The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey “family,” near and far, belong to an unofficial organization – Seth would call it an Unfoundation – called Shanti Sena.  Shanti Sena means Peace Army.  It was founded by Mahatma Gandhi in India in the 1920s.

John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and The Beatles – unofficially and unknowingly, but with great determination – joined Shanti Sena in the 1960s.

So did Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, and Yoko Ono.  So did Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.  And Paul Newman, James Baldwin, Joni Mitchell, and Muhammad Ali.

Today, their life and legacy is carried forth by Greta Thunberg, Victor Wallis, Vandana Shiva, and so many others, recalling the courage of conscience of Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, Dorothy Day, Helen Keller, Mark Twain, Thomas Merton, and Oscar Romero.

In this sense, then, we – as honored members of the Engaging Peace community and supporters of positive peace – are all students for a democratic society; indeed, for a global village of ecological sanity and egalitarian harmony.

T. S. Eliot ends his poetic masterpiece, “The Wasteland,” with … “Shantih shantih shantih.”  And thus, I salute you.  For you are bodhisattvas and kalyanamittas.

A bodhisattva is committed to a life of learning and service; and, therefore, to the active practice of “positive peace-making,” rooted in ahimsa (non-violence).  Kalyanamitta means: “virtuous friend” and “spiritual companion.”

Let us recognize that the dream that never dies also grows.  And let us remember that the dream was never over, because John never ceased to IMAGINE.

Therefore, let us keep the faith, and daily water the seeds of peace with our commitment to justice and universal brother-sisterhood.

The Shanti Sena does indeed endure.  And together, with a reverence for Mother Earth and the sacred spark that grew us in the womb, we are – Yes, we are! – creating a Rainbow Bridge to The Peaceable Queendom.

Said the sage: “The reward for service is increased opportunity to serve.”

Om Shanti Om.

Don Stefan

PS: Here is the link to the Peace Abbey website: www.peaceabbey.org.

The Peace Abbey grew out of The Life Experience School.  Together, they house The National Registry for Conscientious Objection; present The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award to individuals who embody the spirit of Shanti Sena; promote vegetarianism and animal rights; still hope to have the Memorial Stone for Unknown Civilians Killed in War planted in Arlington National Cemetery; and maintain The Pacifist Memorial Peace Park (in Sherborn), at the center of which is a nine-foot statue of Gandhi, fanning out from which are brick walls displaying bronze plaques in honor of those peacemakers who have received the Courage of Conscience and Champion of Peace awards.

Now, here is the link to a short, thrilling, video-tribute to The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey, created by film-makers at The Radiance Project. ………………………………………………………………………………….

Stefan Schindler is a philosopher, teacher, and poet.  He is co-author with Lewis Randa, the founder of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey, of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection.  Stefan is a frequent contributor to Engaging Peace; a Board Member of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey; author of The Courage of Conscience Awards for John Lennon and Howard Zinn; and author of Space is Grace, Discoursing with the Gods, The Tao of Socrates, and America’s Indochina Holocaust.  His newest book – Buddha’s Political Philosophy – will be published later this year.

TO ENGAGE OR NOT TO ENGAGE – THAT IS THE QUESTION

San Francisco protesters of the U.S. immigration ban hold signs reading “Imagine All The People” and “People For Peace”. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Pax Ahimsa Gethen

by Stefan Schindler

Part One: YESTERDAY’S STORM AND TOMORROW’S RAINBOW

There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music. – John Keats

Fifty years after President Eisenhower launched a multi-trillion dollar arms race with the Soviet Union, the Cheney-Bush Administration (in a version of “the boy who cried wolf”) saw fit to shout the greatest and most dangerous lie in American history, claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and repeating – day after day, week after week, in the post-9/11 rush to vengeance and preemptive war – “Mushroom cloud!  Mushroom cloud!  Mushroom cloud!”

Thus did Cheney-Bush – and their cabal of Gingrichian sycophants, aided by a cheering mainstream news media – bring to fruition the nightmare envisioned in Bob Dylan’s 1963 tour de force, “Masters of War.”  Dylan sings, and the lyrics still resonate:

You’ve thrown the worst fear / that can ever be hurled: 

fear to bring children / into the world.

In the dawning of the year 2019, it remains to be seen whether President Donald Trump will also escape punishment for his narcissistic and multitudinous lies, for his continuation of American militaristic violence, and for his Reagan-Cheney-Bush-like crimes – economic and ecological – against the American people and the planet.

In what Gore Vidal called “The United States of Amnesia,” the Orwellian ignoration of the citizen population continues unabated.  For example:

I go to the store and buy some stamps.  The clerk hands me a packet.  Each stamp has an American flag on it.  In the lower left hand corner of each stamp is written “USA Forever” – a truly insidious slogan.  Nothing lasts forever.  Not a season; not a life; not an empire.  George Carlin said: “That’s why they call it the American dream.  You have to be asleep to believe it.”

          In 1821, John Quincy Adams warned that America should not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy,” for in doing so, “she might become the dictatress of the world, [but] she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”

In the late 1890s, Mark Twain witnessed America’s imperial acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in the Spanish-American war.  Twain responded with an observation not taught in school: “America’s flag should be a skull-and-crossbones.”  Then he added: “America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.”  Adams and Twain understood that empire and democracy are mutually exclusive.

Lyndon Johnson said in 1964 that he did not want “a wider war” in Vietnam, even as he was lying about events in the Gulf of Tonkin and planning the invasion that President Kennedy refused to launch.  Richard Nixon said he would bring The Vietnam War to an early end with “peace and honor,” yet disgraced himself with a heartless disregard for peace and an utter lack of honor, becoming the first American president to resign from office.

Due to the lies and depredations of Johnson and Nixon, the American people grew increasingly suspicious of their political leaders.  That distrust deepened into cynicism when President George W. Bush’s claim – that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction,” which he then used as a pretext for war – proved to be an outrageous lie.  And now, alas, Donald Trump inhabits the White House, proving once again that a Nixonian neurotic and Bush-whacking ideologue can become the most powerful and most dangerous man in the world.

Yet all is not lost, not hopeless, not without redemptive possibilities.  Despite the forces of obstruction, the American landscape is filled with a multitude of brave, inquisitive, vocal, active, dedicated justice-seekers and peacemakers.  They recognize that they are not alone, that solidarity is our only hope, and that their collective voice indicates something like A Renaissance of The Renaissance.  They – We! – know who Tom Paine was, and why he wrote “Common Sense” and “The Rights of Man.”

We know that John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed for their courage of conscience; and because we refuse to let their lives and deaths be in vain, we carry the torch they lit for a sane and better world.  We dare, with John Lennon, to Imagine.  We know that there are millions around the world who feel the same, and who are also doing their part to bequeath to a new generation the world of peace and beauty they deserve.  Accordingly, we shall not despair; we shall not relinquish hope; and we shall indeed do whatever is necessary to restore America’s tarnished ideals to their once and future glory, for the sake of all humanity, and for Mother Earth and all her blessings.

Stefan Schindler

…………………….

Stefan Schindler is the co-founder of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection; a Board Member of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey; and author of America’s Indochina Holocaust: The History and Global Matrix of The Vietnam War.  His forthcoming book is entitled Buddha’s Political Philosophy.

CRAZY WISDOM

By Stefan Schindler

 Do you occasionally feel that you’re about to go crazy? Or think that perhaps you already have? Do you often feel like Don Quixote, vainly tilting at windmills? Yes, probably. But then you remember the meaning of the term Greater Fool. A Greater Fool is one who exhibits greatness in commitment to peace, no matter how foolish that commitment seems in a world intent on going mad.

You remember that you are not alone. You have comrades. Millions of brothers and sisters equally committed to kindness and compassion. They too are Greater Fools, like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Romero, Tolstoy, Emerson, Tagore. Like Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, Dorothy Day, Helen Keller, Vandana Shiva, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein. Like Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali. Like Mark Twain, William James, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn. Like Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, George Fox, Matthew Fox, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama. Like Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, Susan Sarandon, the Trung sisters of Vietnam. Like Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. John and Robert Kennedy, too. Greater Fools, one and all.

And, yes, The Beatles. “All you need is love,” they sang, and you hum it every day. War without end seems to be the world’s way, and yet you never cease to chant, “Give peace a chance.” The Statue of Liberty weeps. Mother Earth is crucified. Storm clouds darken the horizon. And yet you sing: “Here comes the sun.” Yes, I am you, you are me, and we are all the walrus. We have each other. We keep the faith. We persevere.

Chogyam Trungpa, combining Tibetan Buddhism and Zen, called it Crazy Wisdom. So, yes, it’s OK to be a little crazy, as long as your craziness is that of the Greater Fool. Humanity may elect lunatics for leaders, and go about their business sleepwalking through history. Yet you, at least, are awake. Indeed, you are part of The Great Awakening. You belong to The Global Peace Abbey. It welcomes all and has no walls. We are warriors for peace, on the cutting edge of evolution. There is no greater satisfaction, no greater joy, no greater service.

So rejoice, my friend. The angels sing your praises, and lend you unconditional support. The reward for service is increased opportunity to serve.

FROM DARKNESS AT NOON TO THE GLOW OF HOPE, Part 1

  • A Female demonstrator offers a flower to military police on guard at the Pentagon during an anti-Vietnam demonstration. Arlington, Virginia, USA. Oct 21, 1967. In the public domain. Author: S.Sgt. Albert R. Simpson.

The Tragic Triumph of the Reagan Counter-Revolution

Against The Spirit of the Sixties, Now Counterbalanced by

the Rekindling of Candles in the Wind

by Stefan Schindler

The 1960s were a time of hope in America and the world. A time of questioning and protest. A renaissance of The Renaissance. The blossoming of a counter-culture committed to peace, freedom, and creative expression.

The Spirit of The Sixties carried over into the 1970s. America and the world saw the continuation and growth of the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the environmental movement; and, of course, the feminist protest against sexism, perhaps best captured in the bumper sticker: “Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition.”

Alas, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, as were the leaders of the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.

Richard Nixon was elected president twice; then Gerald Ford pardoned him for crimes against humanity.

Jimmy Carter was convinced by his national security adviser to start a covert war against the newly elected social democratic government of Afghanistan, which led to a Russian counter-intervention, which led to America’s creating, funding, and arming of Al Qaeda.

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party saw citizen activism as a “crisis of democracy.” Ronald Reagan applauded American-financed terrorists as “freedom fighters,” and launched the Bush-whacking of FDR’s socialist inspired “New Deal” for the American people.

Bush The First continued Reagan’s attack on America’s middle class and poor, as well as continuing Reagan’s wars abroad, saying, after America shot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 civilians, including 66 children: “I will never apologize for America, I don’t care what the facts are.”

Newt Gingrich, in one of history’s greatest ironies, was elected Speaker of the House, successfully championing lies, insults, and divisive sophistry as the road to power during the failed presidency of Bill Clinton, whose Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, said that half a million dead Iraqi children from American bombings and sanctions was “a small price to pay” for freedom, although Iraq was in fact no threat to America’s national security, and Saddam Hussein had long been Ronald Reagan’s favorite dictator.

The Cheney-Bush administration lie-launched America’s Second Vietnam War, this time in the Middle East, convincing Congress to pass the least patriotic legislation in American history, called “The USA Patriot Acts.”

Obama wasted eight years compromising, betraying his base, and succumbing to a cowardice of conscience that made possible the tragic triumph of a new Trumpeting of racism, sexism, militarism, economic apartheid, and fanatical pseudo-patriotism.

Recalling Jeremiah’s warning that “Ye shall reap the whirlwind,” I’m reminded of another bumper sticker: “God is coming; and, boy, is She mad.”