{"id":20109,"date":"2021-05-03T09:37:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T13:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20109"},"modified":"2021-05-03T09:39:16","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T13:39:16","slug":"healing-takes-place-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20109","title":{"rendered":"Healing Takes Place Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3lDvD-O9xhg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>\n\n<em>Claude AnShin Thomas\nsuffered for years from the trauma of war as a Vietnam combat veteran. A\nretreat with Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh set him on the path of\nmindfulness and healing. He is now a Zen Buddhist monk. He recounts his story: <\/em>\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nI suffer from a disturbed sleep pattern that\nhas been a part of my life since a nighttime attack in Vietnam in 1967. Since\nthat time, I haven\u2019t slept for more than two consecutive hours in any one\nnight. . . . My sleeplessness became the central symbol of my not-all-rightness,\nof my deepest fears that I would never be all right. . . .\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nPart of the reason I had difficulty sleeping\nwas because of my night terrors: the sounds of artillery (that isn\u2019t there)\nfiring in the distance, of helicopters on assault, that special look of\neverything illuminated by artificial light, the sounds of small arms fire, of\nthe wounded screaming for a medic. For me, this is what rises up out of the\nsilence that is special to night. I hated the sun going down. I fought and\nstruggled with my inability to sleep, and the more I fought, the more difficult\nthe nights became. So I turned to alcohol and drugs (legal and illegal) for\nrelief, but my suffering just got worse. . . .\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nSome years after getting sober, I was standing\nat the kitchen sink in my cottage in Concord, washing dishes. Above the sink\nwas a window through which I could see a row of fifty-foot-tall pine trees that\nlined the driveway. That day as I did the dishes, I was watching a squirrel\nbusy doing whatever it is that squirrels do, when I had a powerful experience.\nA voice inside me, the voice of awareness, said to me, \u201cYou can\u2019t sleep, so now\nwhat?\u201d I began to laugh. It was a moment of complete acceptance. I finally\nunderstood that I just was how I was. To resist, to fight, to attempt to alter\nthe essential nature of my life, was in fact making matters worse, and now I\nunderstood that I simply needed to learn how to live with the reality of who I\nwas. In this moment I discovered that it was here, in the midst of suffering\nand confusion, that healing and transformation can take place, if I can stop\ntrying to escape.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nBut I\u2019m not\nspecial, you know. You can do this, too. You can face your own sorrow, your own\nwounds. You can stop wanting some other life, some other past, some other\nreality. You can stop fighting against the truth of yourself and, breathing in\nand breathing out, open to your own experience. You can just feel whatever is\nthere, exploring it, until you also discover the liberation that comes with\nstopping the struggle and becoming fully present in your own life. This is the\nreal path to peace and freedom. You could do this for yourself; you could do\nthis for your family. Our whole world will benefit.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\n<strong>What Do We Do with This Pain?<\/strong>\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nWe have heard the word <em>trauma <\/em>a lot in the last thirty years or more. I am not sure if it is happening more, or if we finally have a word to describe what has probably always been happening.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nWhen we examine history, we know that there\nhas scarcely been a time period, community, or country which did not regularly\nexperience war, famine, torture, families separated by death or distance,\nrelentless injustice against which people felt powerless, domestic violence,\nsexual abuse, imprisonment, natural disasters, disease, even wholesale enslavement,\npersecution, and genocide. All of these are emotionally traumatic for the human\npsyche; such memories are held in the body itself\u2014so much so that, in many\ncases, the mind cannot remember the trauma until years later.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nReflecting on trauma has made me think that\nmuch of the human race must have suffered from what we now call Post-Traumatic\nStress Disorder (PTSD). It is heartbreaking to imagine, but it gives me much\nmore sympathy for the human person caught in repeated cycles of historical\nviolence.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nCould this be what mythology means by \u201cthe\nsacred wound\u201d and the church describes as \u201coriginal sin,\u201d which was not\nsomething we did, but the effects of something that was done to us? I believe\nit is.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nIf religion cannot find a meaning for human\nsuffering, humanity is in major trouble. All healthy religion shows us what to\ndo with our pain. Great religion shows us what to do with the absurd, the\ntragic, the traumatic, the nonsensical, the unjust. <em>If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly\ntransmit it.<\/em>\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nIt\u2019s no surprise that the Christian logo\nbecame a naked, bleeding, suffering man. What do we do with this pain, this\nsadness, this disappointment, this absurdity? At the end of life, and probably\nat the beginning of life, too, that is the question. When I led men in rites of\npassage, this was the biggest question for the largest percentage of those in\nthe middle of life: what do we do with what has already happened to us? How do\nwe keep from the need to blame, to punish, to accuse, to sit on Job\u2019s eternal\ndung heap and pick at our sores (Job 2:8)? It seems to me that too high a\npercentage of humanity ends up there.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nIt is no wonder that Jesus teaches so much\nabout forgiveness, and shares so much healing touch and talk. He does not\nresort to the usual moral categories, punishment practices, the frequent blame,\nor the simplistic sin language of most early-stage religious people. That is\nwhy he is such a huge spiritual master. Christians almost avoided seeing this\nby too glibly calling him \u201cGod.\u201d He offers everything to us for our own\ntransformation\u2014everything! Not to change others but to change ourselves. Jesus\nnever \u201ccancels\u201d other people or groups.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nAs I wrote in the most recent edition of our biannual literary journal <em>Oneing<\/em>, this much is all I am equipped to say. This week, let my friends now take it further.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\n_____________________________________________\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nMay 3\nMORNING YOU CANNOT SERVE TWO MASTERS . If I am truly your Master, you will desire to please Me above all others. If pleasing people is your goal, you will be enslaved to them. People can be harsh taskmasters when you give them this power over you. If I am the Master of your life, I will also be your First Love. Your serving Me is rooted and grounded in My vast, unconditional Love for you. The lower you bow down before Me, the higher I lift you up into intimate relationship with Me. The Joy of living in My Presence outshines all other pleasures. I want you to reflect My joyous Light by living in increasing intimacy with Me.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nMATTHEW 6:24;\nNo one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nREVELATION 2:4;\nYet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nEPHESIANS 3:16\u201317;\nThat he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye,\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nPSALM 16:11\nYou make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n\nYoung, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling\u00ae) (p. 256). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.\n\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Claude AnShin Thomas suffered for years from the trauma of war as a Vietnam combat veteran. A retreat with Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh set him on the path of mindfulness and healing. He is now a Zen Buddhist monk. He recounts his story: I suffer from a disturbed sleep pattern that has been a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20112,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109\/revisions\/20112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}