August 6

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



In the months prior to August 6th 1945 the United States and its allies fire-bombed 67 cities in Japan. These were attempts to seek the surrender of Japan, Japan refused. So, this morning 66 years ago, the United States dropped the first of two atomic bombs on cities in Japan. In an instant between 90,000 to 166,000 men, women and children were killed in Hiroshima. On the 9th, another bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki, another 60,000 to 80,000 or so people killed. On August 15, Japan surrendered.



It is difficult to imagine these explosions and the great pain and suffering they caused. It is not so difficult to imagine the desire to make them happen. We were a world desperately seeking an end to war. We were a world filled with hurt and anger. We were a world which had systematically de-humanized the Japanese people.



Lessons:

Attachments to anything, including peace, can lead to great suffering.

Hurt yields anger.

The ignorance of duality leads to the objectification of others.

Objectification opens the possibility of de-humanizing.

De-humanizing allows for breaches of ethical conduct.



If we believe we have advanced much past this, consider the TSA’s creation after 9/11, the justifications to invade and occupy other countries, erode our privacy, and our national willingness to hate and de-humanize Muslims. Recently a 90 some year old woman had to remove her adult diaper in order to board an airplane. A pregnant woman had her insulin confiscated. Young children are inappropriately touched routinely be security forces. A town in Tennessee debated whether or not to ban the establishment of a mosque. All of these acts are justified by our fear. Some may say they are reasonable. I say to the extent we believe this is so is the extent to which we have slipped into delusion.



Today we practice a day of meditation in memorial to those who died and those who inflicted the deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. May our practice lead to freedom from fear.



Live in peace.

Yours,

Daiho