Today is Memorial Day, which is a day we will honor all veterans of all wars, throughout space and time and also, as Buddhists, recommit ourselves to peace and to practicing peace to ending all war and violence so that there need not be any more veterans. I think that in the realm of politics, we can get sort of twisted up in the ideological contradictions where we think that there is some reason why we can’t both honor the sacrifices of veterans and be opposed to war. But Buddhism trains us to leap clear of that sort of trap. This makes us effective peace activists, that we don’t get twisted up in ideological contradictions. We know that we can make connections across these kinds of differences. We have a way of doing that. It’s not that we believe in peace; belief has got nothing to do with it. We have a way of peace, which is the middle way.
May we honor those before us and find our way through the middle grounds of this moment known as life.
Peace and Love, Jim
