Peace Archives ~ CommuniChi

Meditation – More than Simply Powerful Self Care

Human experience, perceived and filtered through the deeply conditioned and unconscious belief in a separate, inherently existent self, is pure fiction. The ultimate goal of meditation, from a Buddhist perspective, is to remove these faulty perceptual filters, and to free the individual from the confusion and negative consequences of being lost in delusion. Wisdom is the key. In contemporary new age, liberal capitalist thinking, meditation is often promoted as a self-help technique. Therapists and health practitioners advise clients to use it to control blood pressure and calm the emotions....

Medicine

Glacial erratic covered in moss, mushrooms, and licorice root. Groceries for the rest of week were in the cardboard box on the back of my new bike as I suddenly realized I was going down. I had tried to turn too sharply on the sidewalk, looking for the button to activate the crosswalk light. Foolish maneuver in hindsight. Bam! The sound of my helmet hitting the concrete, like a cosmic exclamation point and still reverberating days later, urges me to wake up and be more careful. Karma is ripening in each moment. Serious injury or death could be around the next corner. This moment, this life,...

Balanced Perspective

Thanksgiving 2018. A holiday founded on colonialism and genocide, repurposed to allow gratitude and connection – with family, community, and all life. As I turn the compost pile in the front yard, a neighbor walks to her car beneath a sunny Seattle morning sky with double rainbows. “Happy Thanksgiving Jordan”. Returning the perfunctory greeting, I am aware of the deep inner conflict and discomfort at any hint of celebration over a holiday which – for some – symbolizes the beginning of a centuries long European assault upon indigenous peoples in America, which...

Crisis Intervention and the Path to Freedom

“There is no path to peace, peace is the path.” Gandhi Reading the story of how one woman, tuned in to trauma dynamics, helped deescalate a hostage situation, brought back memories of my own brush with a potentially violent situation. Unfortunately, the incident last week at a Trader Joe’s in California resulted in an innocent bystander shot by police, but the potential for peaceful resolution to conflict is always present when we tune into our innate compassion and sense of connection with others. I was on a train with my wife in Northern India in 2000, traveling second...

Sol Duc

Any wilderness journey is a story of contrasts – low and high, water, rock and snow, challenges and rewards. With a sense of deep reverence for the great circle of life, the elemental forces flowing into each other, we began our journey with a trip to the seashore. An eagle drifted over head as we departed the beach for the Sol Duc trail-head, the first of many auspicious signs. Thank you little frog for...

Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall

Today, following the Supreme Court ruling which upheld Trump’s Muslim ban, our country has sunk to a new low, or rather, simply reaffirmed it’s racist history. Let there be no mistake, SCOTUS has followed in the shameful history of Dred Scott, the Chinese Exclusion Ban, Plessy vs. Ferguson, and the Korematsu decision which upheld the legitimacy of the Japanese Internment Act. Ironically, but cynically, Chief Justice Roberts today struck down the Korematsu decision, but by doing so, he gave political cover to today’s 5 to 4 ruling upholding Trump’s Muslim ban,...