Hero Zen

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

Yesterday was a challenging day for us here in Cloudcroft. Dharma Mountain Zendo sits next to a log cabin tucked up on a mountain. Friends of McGuire-roshi's and ours, who live in El Paso, own this delightful little cabin in the woods.

The day before yesterday, Ken and Fern Roshi were leaving the zendo to go to Alamogordo. As they passed the log cabin they noticed a car with a trailer was just leaving the cabin with a bed and other items. They called our friends in El Paso and discovered no one was supposed to be there. Ken Roshi chased the car and blocked it at a cattle guard. But the driver, a woman in her 40s, slipped around him in her car and Fern Roshi jumped out of thei car and ran across the meadow to block the driver. The driver refused to stop and ran over her as she stood in front of the oncoming vehicle.

Our friends from El Paso came up, they called us yesterday afternoon to help.

We immediately drove over to the Zendo. The Sherrif was there. Fern Roshi looked horrible. She is bruised and cut all over her body. Our friend's cabin was practically stripped of its contents and our friends were very upset.

We sat and talked about feelings for sometime. It was good to get these things out. What does it mean to be robbed? What does it mean to be almost killed trying to stop a robber? How do we proceed? What is the role of each of us as friends? We all sat there in the living room of the Roshis' living quarters talking.

In the meantime, the Sherrif got a tip that there was an antiwque store in Alamorgordo that might have some of our friends items. Ken Roshi, my wife, and our friends climbed into our truck and we drove down off the mountain to the store. As we approached the stotre, sure enough a red rocking chair that belonged to our friends was right thee for sale on the front porch of the store!

Practically 80 percent of the items in that store were stolen merchandise. There were other victims there with lists of their lost things identifying them. One such person wanted to beat the you know what out of the woman thief.

It is so rare that stolen items are found. My wife and I have been burglerized several times in our life together. It is an awful feeling to come home to discover someone has broken into your home, looked through your personal things and stolen valuables, often items with great sentimental value. None of our things were ever recovered. Situations such as these certainly clarify our relationship to our precepts. They also give us grist for the mill in working through our relative attachments to things, as well as to our faith in our own security and ability to live without hindrance.

As of last night, Fern Roshi seemed to be OK. She refused (in her stoic manner) to go to a hospital for evaluation, but she was very sore indeed.

In the end, at least this far into the end, the thief has been caught, much of the stolen property of several unsolved burgleries recovered, and all is well this morning.

Today we must pack up the Refuge and get ready to close it for the winter. In the morning we will be moving down to Las Cruces. There is so much to do. So, we will just do one thing at a time until it is done.

___

I very much appreciate the discussion on the Yahoogroups' ZenLiving list surrounding the Williams execution. My personal sense is that the issue of redemption clouded the question of the propriety of the State taking life.

My question is, how is it possible for those who take the Three Refuges, and the Three Pure Precepts, and the Ten Grave Precepts, all of which are about relieving suffering and being a buddha, to sanction killing a human being coldly and without mercy?

And secondly then, what is an "appropriate" punishment for a convicted murderer?

Be well all,