Comments on: Hope for a nuclear free world

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:29:49 +0000

Robby: Thanks, I’ll send you an email sometime. Edited out your phone number by the way for safety reasons.

By: robby

robby — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:02:11 +0000

I would be happy to talk with you by email or my phone is XXX-XXX-XXXX

Thanks I didn’t know there was still testing going on. I am motivated to look into this and write my legislators to express my disagreement with this use of my taxes for this dangerous activity.

Robby Ryuzen

Note: Blog admin edited out phone number.

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:59:22 +0000

Hi Robby,

Welcome to the JLR! That’s a really powerful story, especially since the US’s testing and military use of the islands in the Pacific is still ongoing (Kwajalein among other places). This proves all the more so how regular people still get caught up in the meddling of bigger powers.

P.S. Didn’t even know there was a Soto Zen priest in Seattle. We should chat sometime. I’ve a few questions I’d like to ask if you are available.

Thanks!

By: robby

robby — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:17:47 +0000

Although my visit to the memorial in Hiroshima was painful, it was meeting of family members of the fishermen in the village where I lived with my teacher that caused me shame. I was invited to a student’s family home for dinner and when I arrived the grandfather left the room in anger. I was told that he and his son were part of the fishing fleet who were fishing apparently near the Bikini Atoll where US nuclear testing was being performed and were exposed to radiation causing his sickness and his son’s death as well as most of a generation of fishermen in Yaizu shi, Japan. Thank you for your remembrance of the tragedies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Robby
Soto Zen Priest living in Seattle

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:31:25 +0000

Great comments here, Robert. I agree that the nuclear-issue is really a minor one, but a symptom of a greater problem. Still, being conscious of the problems nuclear warfare has caused may help inspire others toward a more comprehensive approach to peace, like Nagai Takashi or the US Marine discovered.

You got it right though, we dehumanize the “other side” and create an “us vs. them” attitude which helps nobody. YOu’re right, it is a Buddhist virtue to see that all beings are interdependent. Not in the hokey “all is one” sense, but more of a simple acknowledgement that you are who you are because of other people. The classic Buddhist analogy of a candle in a hall of mirrors holds true here.

In the past, I used to say from time to time, “be a light for others” because if you do that in your own neighborhood, it eventually improves life for all. It doesn’t have to be some big effort far away, but little things done here and now make a difference. Rising tide lifts all boats and all that.

By: ロバート

ロバート — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:08:28 +0000

What allows people to kill is lack of empathy. You must first see the other person as non-human and so undeserving of life. Indeed it is what allows people to eat animals; they are seen as having a lesser right to exist or to exist only for our benefit.

And so humankind is capable of wiping out a city at the push of a button. Or killing on a huge scale up close and personal person by person in places like Rwanda or Cambodia. Unfortunately nuclear weapons only make it a little bit easier, nuclear free and we’ll just use napalm, napalm free and we’ll do it with pointy sticks if that’s all we have.

I don’t think limiting technology is truly the answer. The much harder task is for humankind to have universal empathy with an attendant lack of desire for revenge or covetous over resources or petty tribalism.
Maybe that has to start at home and with your neighbour….
from what I gather these are Buddhist virtues…