A Call for Short Stories for YES! Magazine

YES! Magazine  editors are looking for short stories. They want to hear about your family's traditions, rituals and anything that makes a family healthier and happier, they want to hear about:

"What's one thing your family does that's uniquelt meaningful, memorable, or quirky?"

It could be the story you plant to tell at our upcoming community storytelling festival... check out more details at the link below. Amineh

http://www.yesmagazine.org/forms/reader-comments?utm_source=sepoct10&utm_medium=yesemail&utm_campaign=ReaderQuestion

Healing the Warrior, Healing the Invisible Wounds of War and Violence

This article is from YES! Magazine. It was posted on May 19, 2008.

Heal the Warrior, Heal the Country

Breaking the cycle of war making: our country will not find peace until we take responsibility for our wars. 

by Edward Tick

Guilt, shame, slaughter without purpose, alienation from homeland and life itself—this was the legacy that Günter passed on to his son Walt from his World War II combat service in Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Walt, “the only child born in freedom,” was born in the United States shortly after his parents emigrated here from Germany. Growing up in the Cold War 1950s, Walt longed to be an all-American boy, but was always the Indian to his friends’ cowboys and the “Kraut” to their G.I. Joes.

When he turned 18, Walt enlisted and volunteered for Vietnam. “I wanted to finally be one of the good guys,” Walt said. “Service in the American military in a righteous cause would expunge my family’s past and earn our place in society.” He could not know that, instead, he would return with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), feeling less than ever like “one of the good guys.” 

The Warrior’s Path

Our troops do not enlist because they want to destroy or kill. No matter the political climate, most troops seek to serve traditional warrior values: to protect the country they love, its ideals, and especially their families, communities, and each other. If they must kill or be killed, they need transcendent reasons to do so. Throughout history, the only reason for fighting that has survived moral scrutiny is a direct attack with real, immediate threat to one’s people. PTSD is, in part, the tortured conscience of good people who did their best under conditions that would dehumanize anyone.

Almost all cultures, past and present, have had warriors. They have also had complex stories and rituals to help them recover from combat and guide them through the life cycle. The occurrence of warriors is so universal that depth psychologists understand Warrior to be one of our foundational psycho-spiritual archetypes.

In traditional cultures, boys and men studied a “warrior’s path.” In these societies a warrior was not the same as a soldier; not merely a member of a huge, anonymous military institution used for the violent execution of political ends. Rather, warrior was one of the foundational roles that kept societies whole and strong. Warriors were fundamentally protectors, not destroyers.

People respond to the same call today. Michael, a Marine who served in Afghanistan, proudly declares that at age 18 he was the first in his state to enlist after 9/11. Nick, an army officer who served in Iraq, enlisted because of a lifelong desire “to be like Hector defending the gates of Troy.”

Warriorhood, however, is not so valued or nurtured in modern society. “Warrior” is not even a recognized social class. A veteran, especially one with disabilities, appears to many, and sometimes to him or herself, as a failure in terms of normal civilian identity. Michael fears that, as an experienced combat veteran, the only place on the planet he now fits is in the French Foreign Legion. 

The Echoes of War
War abroad fosters war at home. When we go to war, we inevitably bring its violence and horror back to our homes and streets. We cannot help it.

Rather than feeling that he had restored his family’s honor, Walt spent years ravaged by nightmares, homeless, abusing drugs and alcohol, and sitting with a shotgun in his mouth trying to find the will to end it all. He married and had children, then divorced and neglected his kids. He could not keep a job. He could not come home.

War echoes down the generations. Known or hidden, we all carry the wounds of war. Walt was wounded by his father’s history. His children were wounded by his.

When a veteran has PTSD, his or her entire family and community are inevitably affected. The individual symptoms of PTSD—sleep disturbances, substance abuse, depression, and problems with intimacy, employment and authority—are the same symptoms that are epidemic in our society. When we take a close and unprotected look, we see: We are a nation and a planet of wounded warriors, their offspring, and their neighbors. 

Cleansing the Warrior

War poisons the spirit, and warriors return tainted. This is why, among Native American, Zulu, Buddhist, ancient Israeli, and other traditional cultures, returning warriors were put through significant rituals of purification before re-entering their families and communities. Traditional cultures recognized that unpurified warriors could, in fact, be dangerous. The absence of these rituals in modern society helps explain why suicide, homicide, and other destructive acts are common among veterans.

In Viet Nam Walt had exhumed bodies of enemy dead from mass graves and reburied them. He felt like he had dirtied and damaged his soul. Nick declared that, though he had wished to be a great champion of his people, “all they gave me was this dirty stinking little Iraq War.”

In traditional cultures, warrior cleansing was often guided by shamans, and particular shamans presided over “warrior medicine.” Among his many offices and honors, for example, Sitting Bull served as Medicine Chief of the Hunkpapa Warrior Society, responsible for overseeing the spiritual lives and well-being of the society’s warriors. Sitting Bull considered this to be the most important of all the offices he held.

Walt entered individual and group psychotherapy for combat veterans. It helped to tell his stories, have his feelings and losses confirmed by other vets, and receive honor as part of a brotherhood. But he was in search of more cleansing, blessing, and soul healing than traditional therapy could provide. He eventually partnered with a Native American woman. He studied her culture, and participated in sweat lodges and other traditional rituals. He attended a Pow Wow where he was honored as a returned warrior. He was accepted by the Native community far more than he had been by mainstream America.

I annually lead healing journeys back to Viet Nam, and there, too, vets report feeling more welcomed and honored by their former foes than they have ever felt at home. 

A Double Wound

Sitting Bull and his warriors, and other bands from innumerable traditional cultures, were never plagued with self-doubt about the value of their mission, as many of our soldiers are today. In order to do battle with a whole heart, the danger and threat to one’s home must be real, and the people must experience it as immediate and about to threaten their total existence; there must be no alternative. A people and their warriors must be in unity.

The effect of that unity shows in Nguyen Van Tam, known as Mr. Tiger, a robust, friendly, and serene man of 87 living in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta. He is a veteran of wars against the Japanese, French, and Americans. Though at war for a quarter century, he has no disturbing symptoms. “We Vietnamese,” he says, “do not have PTSD because we never hated Americans. We only fought to protect our families and homes from invaders.”

When, to the contrary, wars are based on false pretenses, a moral vacuum results. As Martin Luther King Jr. observed, troops then experience “not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war,” but also “cynicism to the process of death, for our troops must know after a short time that none of the things we are fighting for are really involved.”

Walt explained, “I didn’t realize until it was too late that I was just like my father—a good man fighting on the wrong side for the wrong cause.” Moral trauma is at the core of PTSD. An idealistic and sincere young soldier discovering that he is in fact fighting for false or distorted political, economic, or historical agendas can experience deeper and more complicated psychic wounds than those traditional warriors experienced.

The severity and extent to which veterans suffer with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a direct response to our culture’s blindness about war’s true cost. PTSD is the expression of the anguish, dislocation, and rage of the self as it attempts to cope with its loss of innocence, reformulate a new personal identity and cultural role, and awaken from massive denial. Veterans with PTSD are people whose belief systems have been shattered. 

We can better understand PTSD as an identity disorder and soul wound rather than a stress and anxiety disorder, as it is presently classified. War dehumanizes anyone it touches, but especially a veteran who questions the cause he served.

Most conventional therapies teach healers to avoid talk of morality. But war is inherently a moral enterprise and veterans in search of healing are on a profound moral journey. Healers and communities must walk with them. As a society, we must honor those wounds in ways that recognize their depth and degree of psychic suffering.  

If we are to return war to its proper place as a last defense when absolutely necessary, we must heal the wounds of our soldiers and communities. We cannot achieve peace-making without first achieving true and comprehensive war-healing. 

Lifting the Burden

Warriors in traditional societies served the need for protection, and all that was done was done in the tribe’s name. They had rituals transferring responsibility for actions during warfare from veterans to the entire culture. Ultimately leaders, not ordinary troops, were held responsible for the results of battle and for the deaths that occurred.

Our veterans cannot heal unless society accepts responsibility for its war making. To the veteran, our leaders and people must say, “You did this in our name, because you were subject to our orders, and because we put you in untenable and even atrocity-producing situations. We lift the burden of your actions from you and take it onto our shoulders. We are responsible for you, for what you did, and for the consequences.”

Walt received this acceptance from Native American communities. In my seven trips to Viet Nam, and with every veteran and civilian I have met who has visited Viet Nam since the war, the Vietnamese people have offered such acceptance and forgiveness to any American returning to the country to reconcile. In contrast, since Afghanistan, Michael says, “I still love America, but America does not love me.”

Without this transfer of responsibility, the veteran carries war’s secret grief and guilt for us all. Too many veterans collapse into a silent suffering disability and thus serve as our broken scapegoats while the rest of us proceed with “business as usual.” In contrast, during my healing retreats, veterans tell their stories, civilians speak of their lost loved ones, and everyone shares their damaged values and broken dreams. Finally, our vets enter the center of our circle and civilians pledge to accept responsibility for any harm done in their name and to help carry the veterans’ stories for the rest of their lives. By sharing this burden we become a community united in service to war-healing. 

Healing for All

We wish, as the gospel song says, “to study war no more.” But scholars count over 14,600 wars in the last 5,600 years of recorded history. War is so epidemic in its occurrence, devastating in its impact, and lasting in its aftermath, that we must study it and tend to it and treat it. If we are to return war to its proper place as a last defense when absolutely necessary, we must heal the wounds of our soldiers and communities. We cannot achieve peace-making without first achieving true and comprehensive war-healing.

Walt finally put away his shotgun and quit drinking. He enjoyed a successful relationship with his new partner and was adopted by her tribe and its warrior society. He took up a spiritual path that restored his belief in the goodness of life and order of the universe. He volunteered with more disabled veterans, visiting the infirm at his regional V.A. hospital and helping create annual veteran reunions. Both in therapy and beyond, we created rituals that allowed this soldier to find healing. The Native American and veteran communities helped support and bring this warrior’s wandering spirit home. In turn, Walt became a devoted advocate for other veterans more wounded than he. The disabled veteran became an elder warrior.

But war completed its damage. Only in his 50s, Walt died of Agent Orange-related cancer last year.

We cannot heal from war without involving the entire community and society, and without invoking transpersonal help. We must develop modern rituals that acknowledge the additional wounds caused by war fought for non-defense reasons. Much as we might disagree with a war, our rituals must include purification, public storytelling, and community acceptance of responsibility for what the soldier has done.

These war-healing rituals and practices serve us all. They bring home to us the need to break the cycles of war-making and violence both within the individual soldier and within the society. When we return to our veterans their silenced voices, when we accept our true responsibility as individuals and communities, we will no longer see war as an adventure or a legitimate tool of power politics. Then, perhaps, we may see that all over our country and world, we share the same legacy of war-wounding. When we join together to address those wounds wherever they appear, we will finally “study war no more.”

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I asked Walt’s permission to tell his story during our farewell visit in the hospital where he was dying of Agent Orange cancers. He was surprised at first, but finally said, “I was afraid my life was worthless. But please tell my story. Please make it mean something. Maybe it can help some other poor souls avoid my fate.”

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Edward Tick wrote this article as part of A Just Foreign Policy, the Summer 2008 issue of YES! Magazine. Edward is author of War and the Soul and three other books. He has worked with veterans for three decades and is director and senior psychotherapist of Soldier’s Heart: Veteran’s Safe Return Initiatives.
www.soldiersheart.net.

The Power of Healing, Forgiveness and Transformation

And here is another amazing and inspiring TED talk by Emmanuel Jal. Emmanuel was born in war-torn Southern Sudan and grew up as a child soldier. He is one of  the Lost Boys of Sudan.  He struggled to transform his life, survived and rose as a poet, author and an international rap star for peace. I highly recommend that you listen to Emammuel's song no tribalism, nepotism, and racism in my motherland.  He is a re-settled refugee in the United States.  Emmanuel is an example of how a refugee can transform tragedies and sorrow into a journey of hope and inspiration to many.  Here is how his talk begins and I hope you'd watch the video and listen to the rest of Emmanuel's story. 

"I just want to say my name is Emmanuel Jal. And I come from a long way. I've been telling a story that has been so painful for me. It's been a tough journey for me, traveling the world, telling my story in form of a book. And also telling it like now.And also, the easiest one was when I was doing it in form of a music.

So I have branded myself as a war child. I'm doing this because of an old lady in my village now, who have lost her children.There is no newspaper to cover her pain, and what she wants to change in this society. And I'm doing it for a young man who want to create a change and has no way to project his voice because he can't write. Or there is no Internet, like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, for them to talk.

Also one thing that kept me pushing this story, this painful stories out, the dreams I have. Sometimes is like the voices of the dead, that I have seen would tell me, "Don't give up. Keep on going." Because sometime I feel like stopping and not doing it. Because I didn't know what I was putting myself into."

Here is an interview with Emmanuel on AlJazeera English.




Here is a video where you can see a glimpse of Emmanuel's life in Sudan, and also hear him sing.


 

"Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story"

Here is another relevant Ted talk about the power of storytelling.  Chimamanda Adichie addresses the issue of stories showing people as "one thing" and her experiences as an immigrant.  Adichie recalls members of her family dying as refugees in Africa due to poverty and lack of health care.  Here are a couple of quotes from Adichie's talk:

• Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.

• Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story, and to start with, "secondly." Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have and entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story.

The Rectifier, a Historical Muslim Short Story

The Rectifier is a historical short story by Seattle-based storyteller Wahab Alansari. The story takes place during the reign of the caliph Sulayman bin Abdulmalik.  Alansari is the author of the Arabic Dictionary of American Idioms, and An Anthology of Arabic Poetry.  He is one of the participating storytellers.  


The Rectifier 

In the days of the caliph Sulayman bin Abdulmalik there was a man by the name of Khuzayma bin Bishr who was well-known for his gallantry, generosity, and helping others. He was well-off and continued in his ways of being extravagantly generous to others until he ran out of money and he himself needed the help of those whom he used to assist and support. People whom he used to support did support him for a while but then got tired of him. When he felt that his erstwhile friends were no longer in the mood to help him and their support was no longer forthcoming he told his wife who was his cousin, “O, uncle’s daughter, my friends have changed on me, so I have decided to stay home until I die,” upon which he shut his door, started to eat out of whatever was available at home until all food ran out. He then knew not what to do. 

Meanwhile, the governor of Al-Jazeera (in Iraq between the Euphrates and the Tigris) was Ikrima al-Fayyadh. In a gathering at Ikrima’s place with the attendance of some of the folks of the town the name of Khuzayma came up so the governor, Ikrima, asked what was up with Khuzayma. He was told that Khuzayma was in dire straights and that he had shut his door and determined not to leave home. The governor—whose name was Fayyadh (abundance flowing) because he was an abundantly generous person—wondered aloud then, “Khuzayma could not find someone to support and reward him?” But he did not probe further.

When night time came he put four thousand dinars in a bag, ordered that his horse be saddled and left secretly with a lad for an assistant to carry a money bag. He made it to Khuzayma’s door, took the bag from the lad and told him to stand at a distance and walked up to Khuzayma’s door and knocked at it. Khuzayma walked out of the door and Ikrima handed him the bag and said to him “Fix your matters with this.” Ikrima found the bag to be heavy so he put it down and grabbed unto the horse’s bridle and asked, “Who are you may I be your ransom?”
“I would not have come at this late hour if I’d wanted my identity to be recognized,” Ikrima replied. “Then I will not accept this bag unless you tell me who you are.” Khuzayma said. “I am he who rectifies the falls of the noblemen,” replied Ikrima. “Tell me more,” said Khuzayma. “No,” replied Ikrima, and walked away to mount his horse.
Khuzayma walked into the house with the bag and said to his wife, “I have good news, as it looks like God has granted us comfort. Should this bag have money in it then it is a lot of money. Light the lantern.” “We have no way of lighting the lantern,” said she. He began to feel the bag and sensed the roughness of the money.

Meanwhile, Ikrima returned home only to find that his wife had been frantically trying to locate him. When she was told he had ridden his horse alone she became very suspicious and displayed signs of panic and grief (by ripping what she had on and slapping her own face). 

“What has befallen you, cousin?” he said when he saw her in that condition. “It is what you have done to the daughter of your uncle (i.e., herself). Why would the governor of Al-Jazeera leave furtively in the quiet of the night, alone with no servants, without telling his wife, if not to see another wife or a slave-girl?” she said. “God knows I did not leave for either,” said he. “You must then tell me,” she said. “If you keep it to yourself,” he said.
“I will,” she said. So he told her the story as it happened and said, “Would you like me to swear that I am telling the truth?” “No need as my heart has now settled,” she said.

In the morning Khuzayma paid his debtors and fixed himself up then prepared to go see the caliph Sulayman bin Abdulmalik in Palestine. When he came to the door of the caliph, the door-keeper told the caliph who it was who wanted to see him and he was well known for his chivalrous ways, so did the caliph know him. When permission was granted he walked and greeted the caliph. “Why did you wait so long to come to visit, Khuzayma?” said the caliph. “The dreadful situation I was in, O prince of believers,” replied Khuzayma. “Why didn’t you come to us (for help in that case)?” asked the caliph. “I was too weak,” replied Khuzayma. “So who helped you fix your situation finally?” “In the quiet of the night, O prince of believers, someone knocked at my door,” and he proceeded to tell him the whole story.

“Did you recognize who it was?” “By God no, as he was disguised, and he only identified himself as ‘he who rectifies the falls of the noblemen’.” Sulayman bin Abdulmalik in that instant was intrigued and eager to know who this mystery man might have been. “Should we know who this man is we will assist him in his chivalrous ways,” said the caliph. The caliph then decreed that Khuzayma be made the governor of Al-Jazeera and all the territory which was run by Ikrima al-Fayyadh and gave Khuzayma much wealth and commanded him to go to Al-Jazeera. When Khuzayma was close to Al-Jazeera, Ikrima and the folks of the town came out to meet him and they all walked back into the town. Khuzayma moved to the governor’s residence and ordered that the previous governor, Ikrima, be audited. Auditing showed that Ikrima owed the treasury a lot of money which he could not account for. Nor could he pay back any of the money he owed the treasury. So Khuzayma ordered that Ikrima be put in jail and once again asked him to repay the money. “I am not one who keeps money to serve himself. Do whatever you please,” said Ikrima. Ikrima was then shackled in tight iron chains for a whole month and his condition worsened as a result.

Ikrima’s cousin (his wife) was saddened and worried by the turn of the events so she called a maid of hers, one who was wise, and told her go that very moment to the door of the governor and say, “I have advice,” and when you are asked what it is, say, “I will only say it to the governor, Khuzayma,” then request that you two be alone. If he agrees say to him “Is this how you reward he who rectifies the falls of the noblemen? By jailing and shackling him?” When Khuzayma heard the maid he said, “Shame on me! Is ‘he who rectifies the falls of the noblemen’ my antagonist?” “Yes,” said the maid. Right away, Khuzayma ordered that his horse be saddled and rode to meet with the main folks of the town and gathered them. They all walked into the jail and Khuzayma entered and saw Ikrima in the middle of the jail, in bad shape and worn out.

When Ikrima looked up and saw Khuzayma and the town’s folks he was embarrassed so he lowered his gaze. Khuzayma fell on his knees and started to kiss Ikrima’s head. “What brings this about (kissing the head)?” asked Ikrima. “My evil reward to your noble deed,” replied Khuzayma. “May God forgive us all!” Ikrima ordered then that the shackles be removed and be put on his own feet instead. “What is it you are trying to do?” asked Ikrima. “I want to be punished as I have subjected you to punishment.” Ikrima put Khuzayma in the bind of an oath that he would do no such thing*. They all walked out of the jail until they made it to Khuzayma’s residence. Ikrima was going to go away but Khuzayma would not allow him to leave. “What do you want?” asked Ikrima. “I want to fix you up and my shame and embarrassment toward the daughter of your uncle is worse than my shame and embarrassment with you.”

They entered the public bath and Khuzayma ordered that the bath be vacated and he served Ikrima in the bath himself. They left the bath and Khuzayma gave Ikrima a lot of money and garments and walked with him to his house. Khuzayma requested to apologize to the Ikrima’s cousin (and wife) and so he did. Then Khuzayma requested that Ikrima would come with him to see the caliph who was staying in the al-Ramlah at that time and so they all went to the caliph. When the door-keeper told the caliph that Khuzayma wanted audience with him he received the news with a bit of a shock. “The governor of al-Jazeera has comes to see us when he we just appointed very recently. Something grave must be the matter,” the caliph thought to himself. As soon as Khuzayma entered and before he had a chance to greet the caliph, the caliph asked him, “What brings back so soon Khuzayma?” “I found him ‘he who rectifies the falls of the noblemen’ and thought it would please to know who he is as you were eager to know who he was,” said Khuzayma. “Who is he?” “Ikrima al-Fayyadh,” said Khuzayma. Ikrima was allowed in and the caliph greeted him and sat him next to himself and said to him, “your good deed towards him cost you a lot. Write down all that you wish for.” Ikrima was granted all that he wrote down, plus ten thousand dinars and other gifts. He then decreed that Ikrima be made governor of Al-Jazeera, Armenia, Azerbaijan and said to him, “The matter of Khuzayma is up to you. You may dismiss him as a governor of Al-Jazeera or keep him in that position.” “I will keep him,” said Ikrima.

They both served the caliph for the duration of the caliph’s rule.

Community Oral Storytelling Festival at Inscape Seattle

Just wanted to share that I have confirmed my participation at the Passages event at Inscape, former INS building in Seattle.

Passages is a two-day event now instead of four.  I will be participating with a special version of my international community oral storytelling festival project. 

Stay tuned for more information and updates.

Amineh

Reconciling Divisions with People through Compassion to Self

This article was posted in the YES! Magazine on June 8, 2010.

The Roots of Compassion

To be compassionate toward others, we first have to learn to be merciful with ourselves.

by Sheikh Jamal Rahman

posted Jun 08, 2010

 

Rabbi Ted Falcon, Pastor Don Mackenzie, and Sheikh Jamal Rahman, known collectively as the "Interfaith Amigos," have been learning and teaching together since 2001. They blog weekly for YES! Magazine.

As a young adult I was fascinated by a verse in the Tao Te Ching: “Compassionate towards yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.” If I desired peace in the world around me, the verse implied, I should start by practicing compassion for myself, thereby unleashing a healing energy that would help reconcile divisions with the people I encountered. Ever since I was first graced with this insight, I have tried to cultivate an awareness that any difficulty I have with another is a reflection of the relationship I have with myself—and, conversely, the more peaceful I am with myself, the more peaceful I am with those around me.

Compassion in Islam

My reverence for that verse in the Tao Te Ching deepened during the course of my studies in Islamic spirituality, as my parents and other teachers emphasized that compassion is the most critical divine attribute we can cultivate in our lives. On this mysterious journey on Earth, the most valuable provision is the understanding and practice of mercy and gentleness for oneself, which results organically in compassion for others.

The Prophet Muhammad said that the heart of the Quran is rooted in the “Basmala,” the formula that opens virtually all of the one hundred fourteen chapters of the Holy Book: “In the name of Allah, Boundlessly Compassionate and Merciful.” When a Bedouin asked the Prophet how the Basmala could be bestowed upon him, the Prophet famously replied: "Have compassion on yourself, and on others, and the Basmala will be bestowed upon you.” These words of the Prophet Muhammad constitute the core of Islamic spirituality.

The Power of Compassion

How can one begin to explain the awe-inspiring power of mercy and gentleness? Teachers from various traditions ask us to observe nature's closest metaphor to compassion: The element of water. There is nothing so soft and yielding as water, but it is powerful enough to overcome the hardest stone. This soft element has the power to wash away continents. Water, like compassion, is necessary for life: Wherever water falls, says the Quran, life flourishes. The Earth was parched, says the Holy Book, but God sent down the waters of mercy and the Earth was “clothed in green.” Likewise, the person who practices compassion is blessed with authentic strength and at the same time blesses the world with life-affirming grace.

Compassion for Self

We are placed mysteriously on Earth in a state of confusion and bewilderment. In truth, we have no idea of who we are, where we come from, or where we are going. In the poet Rumi’s playful words, “We all arrive here a little tipsy.” In this confused state, we need to be gentle with ourselves. Our beings deserve to be touched with compassion every step of the way.

To grow compassion for ourselves, we must embrace not only our ten thousand joys of life but also our ten thousand sorrows of life. We need to learn to embrace our uncomfortable feelings with mercy and gentleness. The human ego tends to avoid, deny, and minimize feelings that make it feel threatened. Unpleasant feelings such as anger, sadness, and jealousy possess an edge only because we perceive them as something separate from ourselves. When we acknowledge them and enfold them with mercy and gentleness, we allow them to become healed and integrated. When, with courage and compassion, we kiss our inner demons, they turn into princes and princesses. Spiritual teachers have said that the more space sorrow carves into our being, the more joy we can contain. There is, of course, no need to run towards pain and suffering. But we should not run away from them.

We can truly forgive only if, during the process, we practice compassion for ourselves by lovingly enfolding the difficult feelings that arise in us.

 

I once had a client who was desperately seeking spiritual techniques to forgive the man who had murdered her daughter. This was, she believed, the only way she could be freed from her burden of hate and pain. But the more she tried to forgive, the more angry she became. In fact, she began to develop illnesses. What was missing was compassion for self: the compassionate need to honor her feelings of anger and suffering, the need to make sacred the difficult feelings by embracing them with mercy and kindness. What she needed was not to push them out but to bring them in, gently, lovingly, with mercy for herself. When she allowed herself, little by little, to embrace her dragons through a spiritual practice called “sacred holding,” she experienced a remarkable healing: She was blessed with a sense of release, freedom, and unburdening, and her strange illnesses disappeared. This woman’s story demonstrates that we can truly forgive only if, during the process, we practice compassion for ourselves by lovingly enfolding the difficult feelings that arise in us.

The Charter for Compassion
Video: Thousands are uniting behind a simple principle that one scholar believes forms the basis of the world's religions: compassion.

Compassion for the Other

Over time, compassion for self creates an inner spaciousness that gives us the capacity to be compassionate with the other, no matter how confrontational or adversarial he or she is. From the place of inner spaciousness, we are able to discern between behavior and being. We realize that we are confronting the antagonism, not the antagonist.

In Sufi literature there is a story about how a judge might behave while sentencing someone who has committed a terrible crime. One judge might proclaim the sentence with contempt and disdain for the criminal, eager in his heart to banish this “scum of the Earth” into oblivion. This judge does not differentiate between behavior and being. Another judge, one who has cultivated inner spaciousness, would render the same sentence—but with solemnity and respect for the offender’s soul. Out of compassion he makes sure that the offender is accorded human dignity and is not maltreated in prison. Maybe the judge even prays for the offender, sending light from his heart to the soul of the convicted person. So the same sentencing is carried out with two different energies. Is this a big deal? Absolutely! Compassion is an energy from the soul that has the power to shift heaven and Earth, both in our own hearts and in the hearts of those whose lives we touch.

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Sheikh Jamal Rahman wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Jamal is co-founder and Muslim Sufi Minister at Interfaith Community Church in Seattle. Originally from Bangladesh, he is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Fragrance of Faith: The Enlightened Heart of Islam and Out of Darkness into Light: Spiritual Guidance in the Quran with Reflections from Jewish and Christian Sources.