A TIME FOR HEROES
by Sensei Robert Joshin Althouse (c) 2001

In Response to the Tragedy of September 11, 2001

Our hearts have been moved by many acts of heroism in New York City during the tragic aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center and the tragic loss of over 6,000 individual lives. These events in our world are calling each of us to respond in ways that are heroic because they take us beyond the normal edge of our conditioning. The question before us is stark and sobering. How do we respond to evil? We can not deny it. The action of flying a commercial airliner into a building for the purpose of inflicting maximum suffering is evil.

As a nation, we are being asked to prepare for a different kind of war, one that may take determination to stay the course and to fight an enemy we can not easily identify. Serious questions arise between the balance of our civil liberties and the need for security. If we do not maintain this balance, we will not have defeated our enemy, for we will have become the enemy ourselves. So our response must include a deep spiritual awareness about the roots of evil. We must understand the causes of evil. If our response seeks to inflict maximum damage and revenge upon our imagined enemy, we will easily become like our enemy. We must decide whether our response will be based on love or hate.

If our response is based on love, then it will include values of non-violence. Many think non-violence is weak, but it is the true path of spiritual warriors and heroes. Non-violence is not a sentimental evasion of unpleasant realities nor an avoidance of violence that wishes it would go away. Non-violence is the practice of opening and bearing witness to a conflict in a way that does not exclude any voice or point of view. Though it is often associated with a pacifism, a non-violent perspective might advocate the protective use of force while not condoning the punitive use of force.

If our response is based on hatred, we will become victims of the violence and terror we seek to eliminate. Violence robs us of our voice. It begins where rational communication falters. Cultures that organize for violence become systematically unreasonable and inarticulate. This path will threaten the very freedom we seek to defend.

Love seeks to understand and to listen. Love understands that at the heart of our human experience is a deep insecurity and impermanence that can never be completely fulfilled by ideas, ideologies or even religions.

We might well learn this lesson from recalling the nature of Hitler's fascism. Fascism was based on the idea that evil was irreversible. It was a blemish which should be removed once and for all. Hence the fascination with final solutions. Nazis could not tolerate uncertainty.

This inability to accept the uncertainty of life gave rise to the belief in the finality and irreversibility of evil. But the fabric of our world is not final - it is in the process of being born, of becoming and the good we do is always uncertain because suffering is constant and love triumphs not by eliminating evil but by transforming it. Love arises from the spiritual strength to assume the suffering of another and to transform this through forgiveness.

Love requires the heroic act of acknowledging evil in ourselves as well as in others. If we are honest, we must recognize the terrorist in ourselves. Who among us has not been offended, has not suffered injustice at the hands of another and wanted revenge. When we feel victimized and helpless, striking out through aggression may temporarily feel empowering.

When we understand the relationship between terrorist and victim, we may begin to understand the roots of violence not only within ourselves, but in our larger society. A society that is based on consumption and greed is one that gives rise to terrorism and oppression because it in a state of moral confusion.

Gandhi understood this and this was the spiritual basis of his nonviolence. He understood that such a society must be resisted through the practice of non-cooperation. To address terrorism, we must address injustice and the enormous disparity of wealth and poverty that exist in much of the world, outside of America. We should not really be so shocked to realize that many people in the rest of the world, view America as a terrorist state. We are not innocent. In fact, innocence and terrorism are just two sides of the same coin.

To suggest such things at a time of great national unity and patriotism may seem disloyal. But remember that in Nazi Germany, any attempt to dialogue with evil was always viewed as an act of weakness. A Rambo-type strength grows with increasing fanaticism and acts of consciousness become tinged with betrayal. As the wheel of tyranny gathers steam, acts of tolerance are increasingly viewed as threats which must be eliminated.

Questioning and not-knowing is unbearable. Bearing witness to continual pain and grief is replaced with anger and acts of aggression. Evil and good are polarized in such a way that the evil one is demonized into a clear-cut object which must be eliminated once and for all.

This nonordinary time calls for nonordinary responses. We will need to decide whether our response comes from a place of love or hate. Violence begets violence. A violent change is no change at all. Nothing is made new. Our need for safety and security is great but our need to be free of tyranny is even greater. The only response that will address this need will be one that liberates both the terrorist and victim, both the persecutor and the one oppressed.