reflection06

Deep listening and loving speech as a way to solve the southern strife? No, this is not a joke or preacher's advice that has no place in real life. It is a piece of advice from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh who lives his life to show us by example that being Buddhist is not about reciting prayers, giving alms or going to the temples.

But it is about maintaining goodwill amid hostility. It is about making peace a reality in our daily life, be it in our personal relationships, our work, or with other groups in society.

And most important of all, it is about cultivating mindfulness and peace in ourselves.

On Visakha Bucha Day today, his is timely advice we should contemplate on.

Deep listening and loving speech has been the main theme of Thich Nhat Hanh's public talks during his current visit to Thailand, where anxiety, fear and hatred is fully blown at a time when Thai Buddhists should be able to joyfully commemorate the day marking the Lord Buddha's birth, enlightenment and the end of his cycles of birth and death.

In his talk entitled "Non-discriminatory Love," Thich Nhat Hanh directly addressed the ethnicity-linked violence in the deep South and offered a Buddhist way out, step by step.

First, however, he reminded us what meditation and true love means.

"To meditate is to be there, to observe, to see deeply. The work is similar to the work of scientists. We should have the object and time to look deeply into that object, to understand its true nature."

True love (brahma vihara) in Buddhism, meanwhile, is non-discriminatory and inclusive (upekkha). It is based on our capacity to love and make our loved ones happy (metta), to free them from suffering (karuna) and to offer them joy (mudita) by doing our best to understand their needs without imposing ourselves on them.

It follows, then, that we need to meditate on the nature of terrorism.

And any effort to undo it must be based on loving kindness and understanding to live as one, not a desire to eliminate and oppress.

In Buddhism, violence results from fear, hate and anger stemming from wrong perceptions.

The southern violence is no different.

To win over hate and anger, re-establish communications and remove wrong perceptions in any violent situation is possible through sincerity, empathy and lots of loving kindness.

This requires deep listening and loving speech.

The southern violence is no different.

Thich Nhat Hanh's advice: Organise peace dialogues. Recruit the best of Buddhist and Muslim brothers and sisters who can listen deeply and who can use loving speech. Allow anger from the oppressed to be expressed freely. Look deeply into their pain in order to understand them.

Refrain from stopping them or making excuses, despite accusations and blame. Apologise when realising our wrongs which create the belief that we are out to destroy the other party's way of life and religion. Apologise for the wrong perceptions we ourselves harbour about them. And introduce information to correct their wrong perceptions only bit by bit later, not during the listening sessions, to avoid imposing our views.

The chance to speak up freely and the feeling of being fully accepted as equals is healing. Deep listening is, therefore, loving kindness in action, which waters the seeds of love and understanding in both parties.

"It is the only way to peace," said the Zen master.

For him, the Buddhist approach to the southern strife must be in line with non-discriminatory love and deep understanding of oneness.

"The Buddhists are like our right hand. The Islamic brothers and sisters are like our left hand. If you make one side suffer, you suffer. If we can take care of each other like our left and right hand, we can restore peace."

Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor (Outlook), Bangkok Post.
Email: sanitsudae@bangkokpost.co.th