Je Suis Charlie

I saw Pia post it on Facebook.

Then Perla posted,

“Peace to our friends in Paris.”

Then Laurie posted “Je suis Charlie,” also.

So I looked it up.

Two muslim men,

enter a newspaper office

in Paris,

and gun down the journalists,

that are associated

with anti-muslim cartoons.

Forgive me if I don’t have all the details right,

or if there is more to it,

or if I’m mistaken.

We’re sitting in our neighborhood café,

9,000 miles away from Paris.

Camilo is looking at the jumbo screen.

“Manhunt in Paris,” is the headline. 

“What is wrong with the news?” Camilo ruminates.

“Why do they have to scare half of the world,

for things that are going on half way around the world?

Look, if it isn’t happening in my neighborhood,

if there is a not a manhunt in my neighborhood,

do I need to know about it? The news should report

about things that directly affect me.”

He is 10 years old.

I explain what the story is about,

as the images of brown young men,

with the word, terrorist, above their mugshot,

are frozen on the screen. 

“Really?  These guys killed these people

because they drew a cartoon about their god?

Have Buddhists ever killed anyone

in the name of the Buddha?”

I tell him I don’t think so.

He is proud our family practices a religion

that hasn’t killed in its name. 

Maybe we have, again, forgive my lack of scrutiny of facts.

I think about the elimination of our enemies

and those who have trespassed against us. 

In each of our hearts, we have a tendency to want to

destroy, eliminate, disappear or get far away from,

those who cause us grief. 

We are one step away

from what any murderer does.

Only difference,

is that they take actual

steps to end someone’s life. 

But we murder also,

with our words, with our thoughts,

with our complaints, and our blame,

and our laws, and our separation, and our

wishes that our enemies would go back

to their house, their state, their country. 

And simply get the fuck away from us,

so that we never have to see them again.

Buddhism suggests that a single revolution

in the heart of a single human being,

can change

the destinty of a nation, and the world. 

I told my son this morning,

that we all have the capacity,

to want to end the existence

of someone

in our lives. 

Our challenge is to challenge those feelings

in our heart,

and make every effort, in our own life,

to come to peaceful resolutions

of coexistence.