"Barbara O’Brien’s wide-ranging account of Zen history is conveyed with a master storyteller’s ability to keep the forest from getting lost in a myriad of trees. Wearing her scholarship lightly, she blends just the right amount of skepticism about her hagiographic sources with a deep appreciation for the Dharma." — Barry Magid, author of
Nothing Is Hidden and
Ending the Pursuit of Happiness Order here!
Extremely important point: to forgive is to endorse. But we need to keep our eye on the ball. There are concentric circles of complicity and we must focus on the center and work from the center outwards. The habit of letting people off the hook is very deeply ingrained and will be hard to break, but a shocking example must be made of at least the top several thousand.
Comment 1 is so important. It’s been said that part of the reason the neocons came to power with their paranoia/megalomania about the Soviet Union in the 70s/80s, and now militant Islam, is that our country never properly faced the truths behind the VietNam war.
And so, we blunder forward, and the universe gives us an even bigger problem (militant Islam), cut from the same cloth as the old (VietNam), because we failed to learn the lessons then. And so it goes, until we finally learn the lessons and outgrow the need for these problems, or the problem itself kills us.
The other part of this, is that the current regime’s beliefs, practices, and crimes are so outside the normal American experience, that to forgive the regime will mean that the regime never really died, it simply acquired new faces and names.
I believe that the true nature of forgiveness is that it is a step towards getting on with life–not staying stagnant because of resentment, obsession for revenge, etc. However, forgiveness is a positive action only for the person who forgives. It does not mean that we should forget the pain caused/crime committed; nor does it mean that the person/s who caused the pain/committed the crime should NOT be punished. Thus, I think forgiving without seeking justice leads to endorsement, not forgiveness per se.
These are the SAME people running the place that Clinton let off the hook. Let’s not make that mistake again.