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G&K:: With peaceful minds, we tackle the very difficult problems and solve them with ease through our actions JizosforPeace What to do about an old war

BY

In Japan, a 60th birthday is a special event. Next year I will celebrate my 60th birthday by making a pil- grimage to Japan, a pilgrimage of reconciliation for a war that was ending as I was being born. I am writ- This tangible expression of our desire for peace ing to invite everyone to join me in making a very seems to have universal appeal. Panels have come in large gift, a gift of thousands of tangible prayers for from children and adults, from centers and peace and for an end to nuclear destruction. Christian Sunday schools. Now we are getting Jizo In we look at cold, hard facts, such as panels sent from Japan! Two women there have the coexistence of human life and suffering. It seems through the activity of our hands and our quiet chant-made 5,000 origami Jizos! It makes me smile to think that war always has been—and always will be—a ing. We could not stop this war, but we could trans-of Jizos winging their way cross the Pacific Ocean in part of that suffering. The Buddha himself could not form our divided hearts, our anguish over the war.both directions. stop wars, even in countries where his presence was Thich Nhat Hahn says that when just one person is a Tonen Sara O’Connor, a teacher at the vivid and his teaching was most potent. How do we little more at peace, the whole world is a little moreMilwaukee at Center, has taken Jizos for Peace into reconcile what seems to be the inevitability of war peace. When outer work for peace seems blocked,the prisons in Wisconsin. The pieces of cloth and the with the prompting of our hearts that makes it imper- then the inner work becomes most important. ink pens must be approved before they are allowed ative that we work for peace? One Jizo for each person who died. As we makeinside. Many lovely panels have been created by This is the that has come alive for me as I what seems like an impossible number of Jizos, incarceratedthe men, including two delicate drawings have worked on a project called Jizos for Peace. The enormity of the destruction of life that occurredby in men in maximum security who were in handcuffs project began with my birth, to pacifist parents, on Japan 60 years ago begins to sink in. Our Jizos andare were only allowed to use the inside of a ball- August 9, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was tiny compared to the size of even a baby, but pointthe pen. The message they gave Tonen is, “ I’m try- dropped on Nagasaki, three days after the bombing prayer flags, panels, and garlands of origami Jizosing to change. I’m struggling to grow beyond the of Hiroshima. That hundreds of thousands of people pile up and overflow the tables. killer (or rapist or child molester) I was.” Tonen will died in Japan in the few days around my birth has In the last year we have taken some of the Jizoshelp to bring these banners to Japan in 2005, “to led, I think, in some mysterious way, to my becoming for Peace prayer flags and chains of origami Jizosshow to the prisoners that their messages for peace did a Zen Buddhist priest in a Japanese in a Hiroshimahibakusha and Nagasaki,) in Nagasaki, to find they out seemed if people therego out, and that people were moved by them.” The monastery, dedicated to Jizo . reservedeven and somewhatwant these nervous. offerings. I was Everyone a bit nervous, we met, fromproject gives a voice to those otherwise invisible in At our monastery, we make ceramic statues of too. Whatgovernment if we made officials thousands to peace of Jizos activists, and nobody was surprised,our society. Jizo, the special protector of children, women, travel- wanted them?happy andThe supportive.survivors listened attentively, but The hibakusha are afraid that when they die, a ers and those caught in hellish realms. A few years their expressionsWhen didn’t we firstchange sat asdown I explained to talk withthe his- the atomicnew generation will forget the devastating potential ago I decided I would take 60 of these little Jizo tory of thebomb Jizos survivors for Peace ( Project, how I had been born of nuclear weapons. They know that the world is not images to Nagasaki in August, 2005, on my birthday,to pacifist parents on the day the bomb was dropped safe from nuclear weapons. Dirty bombs are burning the 60th anniversary of the bombing there. Then,on Nagasaki, I and how I had come to be a teacher at a and radiating a new generation as I write. If anyone saw the very moving exhibits at the Atomic BombZen monastery dedicated to Jizo Bodhisattva. Their would like to do some mopping-up work, to engage Museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many wereeyebrows in lifted as I explained that we had decided to body, heart, and mind in one much-needed practice memory of the thousands of children who undertakewere a pilgrimage on the 60th anniversary of the of peace and reconciliation, please join in making mobilized to work on clearing fire lanes in casebombing, of to bring a Jizo for every person who died in Jizos for Peace. For information and detailed instruc- bombings. They were vaporized instantly, andNagasaki their and Hiroshima in the first year after the tions, see grieving families could find nothing but fragments:attack, a an incredible 270,000 Jizos in all! The Jizos school badge, a piece of a lunch box, a burnt sandal.would be offered in apology for the bombing, as a www.jizosforpeace.org. It was hard to make my way through the wholememorial of for the people who had died 60 years the exhibits, hard to look the Japanese visitors before,in the and as hundreds of thousands of prayers for Jan Bays is the co-founder, with her husband, Hogen Bays, of Great Vow eye. What terrible suffering we had all caused! peace in the future. Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon, where they teach and reside. She I began to wonder if we could make and offer oneWhen I brought out the cloth prayer flags we is also a pediatrician working in the field of child abuse. Jizo for every person who died in Hiroshimahad and made, with images of hundreds of colorful Jizos, Nagasaki. I discovered that an estimated 270,000and peo- uncoiled the red and white chains of origami ple perished, either from the bombs themselvesJizos, or the faces of the hibakusha lit up in broad smiles from the effects of radiation, in the first year afterand the they began to talk excitedly. They turned to Kaz, atomic bombs were dropped. This included Koreans,who was serving as interpreter. Chinese and prisoners of war from America and otherTears stung my eyes to see their happiness as European countries. How in the world could we theymake passed our small handmade tokens from hand to this huge number of Jizos? hand around the table. I realized that we had under- Jizos for Peace Kaz Tanahashi, a Japanese-American artisttaken and something beyond imagination. Jizos for Peace TO HELP THE HUMAN WORLD peace activist, had an idea. We could draw hadmany become a work of reconciliation, of reparation for Jizos on pieces of cloth and sew them together as the harm our ancestors had done before we were Your donations and help are welcome! prayer flags and tapestries. We began this workeven at aborn. We were working to clean up the karma of retreat on the eve of the war in Iraq. We drewa andwar that ended 59 years before. I looked back at painted, silently chanting the Jizo , other wars—the Vietnam War, the Gulf War. Would Join The Great Vow Zen Monastery and our practice call us to follow behind those wars, too, Roshi Kaz Tanahashi in making 270,000 doing what we could to clean up the karma of great Jizos as an for each person who amounts of suffering purposely inflicted? I realized that 50 years from now I would be dead, but someone died in Nagasaki & Hiroshima 60 years ago, and as prayer for world peace. kabi san ma ei sowa ka might need to make offerings in Iraq. It was then I felt the project grow out from under my small vision. Call if you would like to make a donation om ka ka or to participate in this wonderful project: , and sending a prayer for peace out as each Jizo was completed. “Peace to President Bush.” “Peace to Saddam Hussein.” ‘Peace to the sol- The Great Vow Zen Monastery: diers.” As we worked with our bod- 503-728-0654 ies the agitation and distress in our www.jizosforpeace.org minds and hearts gradually settled. Dogen Zenji was right when he said that we do this practice by Great Vow Zen Monastery means of our bodies. Peace was Led by Jan Chozen Bays restored to our hearts and minds Roshi and artist Kaz Tanahashi

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