reconciliation

This thing I am feeling, I__ almost certain, is the closest I__l ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.

If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth.

This love meditation is adapted from the Visuddhimagga by Buddhaghosa, a 5th century C.E. systematization of the Buddha's teaching. We begin by practicing the love meditation on ourselves ("May I"). Until we are able to love and take care of ourselves, we cannot be much help to others. After that, we practice them on others ("May he/she/they") - first on someone we like, then on someone neutral to us, and finally on someone who makes us suffer. May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.May I be safe and free from injury.May I be free from anger, afflictions, fear and anxiety.May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of of understanding and love.May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.May I learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in myself.May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free.May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not indifferent.Love is not just the intention to love, but the capacity to reduce suffering, and offer peace and happiness. The practice of love increases our forbearance, our capacity to be patient and embrace difficulties and pain. Forbearance does mean that we try to suppress pain.

Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. It's like a drop of ink diffused in a glass of water.

A journey of forgiveness is always a right choice.

No matter what the hatred is, preserve the possibility of peace and always have room for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is always hard, but we must always try to leave room for reasonable attempts at reconciliation to occur.

Where there is forgiveness, there is always love.

Forgiveness is always worthy because it's worth.

The past was a minefield about which few maps seemed to agree. And why should that surprise me? It's a big place.p. 30

Acknowledging that all our land was stolen from Native people feels like too great a burden, so we create an alternative reality that allows us to disengage emotionally from the truth.

Gender imbalance is, at its root, a collective spiritual crisis.

Time was when much of lawyering consisted (according to turn-of-the-century lawyer and statesman Elihu Root) in "telling would-be clients that they are damned fool's, and should stop.

Unlike temporal leadership, in which violence and death often proliferate, Christ__ rule signifies reunion between predator and prey, malefactors and innocents.

The religious scholars I have consulted are passionate about the need for political leaders to educate themselves in the varieties of faith and to see religion more as a potential means for reconciliation than as a source of conflict.

Examples of goodness that know no ethnic, religious, racial, or political bounds are important documents of war, as they also represent an axis around which a healthy future can be constructed after the atrocities have halted.

Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy.

The thing is, you cannot ask people to coexist by having one side bow their heads and rely on a solution that is only good for the other side. What you can do is stop blaming each other and engage in dialogue with one person at a time. Everyone knows that violence begets violence and breeds more hatred. We need to find our way together. I feel I cannot rely on the various spokespersons who claim they act on my behalf. Invariably they have some agenda that doesn't work for me. Instead, I talk to my patients, to my neighbors and colleagues--Jews, Arabs--and I find out they feel as I do: we are more similar than we are different, and we are all fed up with the violence.