I receive the following by email today. I don't know Jane Brunette or how this was first distributed but I feel this opening of Japan, this literal opening, is reaching our hearts in new and refreshing ways.
One thing I've felt in this talk about nuclear reactors is that I sit in a house with lights and heat, a dishwasher, a washer and dryer. What am I willing to give up? Am I? Do I accept the risks? It would seem I do.
Jane gives an amazing statistic: Andy Couturier wrote in a blog post that in Japan, it takes one nuclear reactor just to power all the drink dispensers that allow people instant 24-hour access to hot and cold drinks.
I think today we may all be asking ourselves whether these drink dispensers are really necessary and maybe they are. In the past, we might have built a fire to heat our soup. Now, we can push a button to add hot water to a Styrofoam cup. What aren't we noticing in what we consume?
Blossoming through shared suffering: Examples from Japan
BY JANE BRUNETTE, ON MARCH 17TH, 2011
Mixed in with the disturbing images coming out of Japan is a flower seen by a woman in Tokyo as she walked home from work after the earth shook and the waters poured in. Yuka Saionji saw a little flower and thought, “all of us can now try to run away from radiation, but what of this flower? I bent down to the flower and just felt moved to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
I read this on Yuka’s blog post and my eyes filled up. It made me want to thank her publicly for being able to maintain such sensitivity in the midst of tragedy. This is the act of a true flamingseed: one who uses difficult conditions to blossom into awareness and compassion. And she isn’t the only one. She reports on so many others using this time of deep, shared suffering as fuel to open their hearts and serve others in whatever way they can. Here are a few examples from her post:
—I saw an old lady at a bakery shop. It was totally past their closing time, but she was giving out free bread.
—There was a lady holding a sign that said, “Please use our toilet.” They were opening their house for people to go to the restroom.
—My co-worker wanted to help somehow, even if it was just one person. So he wrote a sign: “If you’re okay with a motor cycle, I will drive you to your house.” He stood in the cold with that sign. And then I saw him take a gentleman home, all the way to Tokorozawa!
—When I was waiting at the platform, so tired and exhausted, a homeless person came to us and gave us a cardboard to sit on. Even though we usually ignore them in our daily life, they were ready to serve us.
—An old man at the evacuation shelter said, “What’s going to happen now?” And then a young high school boy sitting next to him said, “Don’t worry! When we grow up, we promise to fix it back!” While saying this, he was rubbing the old man’s back.
We promise to fix it back. That one really stung me. We have left behind nuclear waste and dangerous reactors, global weather changes, oil spills, and failing economic systems for our children to fix. I want to say to that boy and to all those who will be born in the future and inherit these things, “I’m so sorry.” Thinking of them now — the future children and the future flowers as well as the good hearts inside all of us who are alive now — I want to use this tragedy as Yuka and the everyday people of Japan have been using it: to join with others and find a way to live that honors and cares for us all. Not just those living now, but also those to come. Not just the humans, but the animals, the flowers.
Andy Couturier wrote in a blog post that in Japan, it takes one nuclear reactor just to power all the drink dispensers that allow people instant 24-hour access to hot and cold drinks. I wonder how many it takes in America? Am I willing to give up instant hot and cold drinks to prevent nuclear fallout? Each of us have to make this choice, and I notice that when others around me continue to be wasteful simply because we all have trouble seeing the consequences, I find myself thinking that my little choices won’t make a difference. But just like the small choices these Japanese people made to do what little they could to help, our small choices do matter. They add up to a lifestyle, as they did for the inspiring Japanese people Andy profiles in his book.
In the tradition of the Menominee (a Native American tribe from Wisconsin that I am descended from), every person is taught as a child that before they take anything — even a blade of grass — they need to make a prayer that explains why they are taking it and what good they will use it for to benefit all beings. And for everything they take, they need to offer something in return. Because I want to become more conscious of my consumption patterns and do a better job of distinguishing what helps from what hurts, I’m thinking that this might be just the prayer to use before going shopping, before buying a drink in a styrofoam cup from an automatic hot drink dispenser, before casting my vote for anyone who advocates continued use of nuclear power, before following my conditioning toward a lifestyle that requires a great deal of resource use. I don’t know what the Menominee call this practice, but I think of it as “The Prayer before Consumption.”
The prayer before (or instead of) consumption
1-Give thanks for all that is given to me.
2-Make an offering in return.
3-Explain why I need this thing now, and how I will use it not just for my own benefit, but to benefit all. (If it fails this test, then I leave it where it is.)
I vow right now to adopt this practice wholeheartedly and with great care, in honor of all the Japanese — but especially, in honor of the boy who rubbed the back of the elderly man in the evacuation center and said, “Don’t worry! When we grow up we promise to fix it back.”
May he be given far less to fix — and far more to build on.