Lovingkindness and in the Face of War: A talk from the morning of October 7, 2023

During times of vast suffering, as in the terrible violence going on in Israel and Gaza, returning to the suffering of individual people, one-by-one, can help us return to our shared humanity, our shared purpose, and our shared human existence. Listening to stories with open hearts, without judgment, brings us back into connection, heart to heart. I would like to share one story. The starting place for this story is Israel. Your starting point may be different. It may be an elderly man wandering hopelessly in Gaza City or a little girl crying out for her lost parents. It doesn’t matter where we start, as long as we listen, connect, and then extend compassion outwards to all beings from that point. We cannot afford to shut down, or to lose the stories of individual people to the politics of the moment. This story began on the morning of October 7, 2023, just before Beacon Zen Temple’s Saturday morning program and Dharma talk, when I received a voice message from a dear friend in Israel. Her close friend was in a safe-room at Kibbutz Be'eri, with Hamas terrorists just outside of the door. She was terrified. This talk is from that morning. This is how we practiced.