Bearing Witness Retreat in Auschwitz, June 2010

God grant me the serenity to accept what I can not change
The courage to change what I can
And the wisdom to know the difference


Introduction

I participated in a Bearing Witness Retreat in Auschwitz, Poland from June 7-11, 2010. This was an inter-faith retreat organized by the Zen Peacemakers out of New York. I participated as an extension of my own Zen practice. There were about 150 people on the retreat from all over the world and the retreat was lead by Bernie Glassman (who started both this retreat and Zen street retreats). This post contains some impressions of my time at Auschwitz interspersed with my emails to Mitra while I was on the retreat. These are my experiences. I am not trying to speak for others.


Why did I participate in the Auschwitz retreat?

For many years, I have been drawn to the idea practicing of Zen Buddhism in a way that encompasses more than traditional practice (meditation, chanting, etc as practiced in the zendo). I have practiced with the Victoria Zen Centre for about six years now and it is important to me to compliment this traditional practice with other practices such as street retreats. For these types of practice, I have participated in retreats with the Zen Peacemakers out of NYC. I have done two street retreats - one in Vancouver and one in Victoria. I was speaking with the leader of those retreats about what to do next and he suggested that I attend the Auschwitz retreat.

Many participants attended this retreat because they have a more direct connection to the events at Auschwitz - family members that had died or family members that had been part of the SS. However, I do not have those kinds of connections. I attended because Genro suggested it to me.


First Letter to Mitra, Pre-retreat, June 6 (morning)

Hey there sweetie! I hope you had a good day traveling over to Salt Spring. How was it? Did the kids end up going to the Oak Bay tea party?

I am doing okay. I made it to Frankfurt on my own and then recognized Bernie Glassman waiting for the flight to Krakow. I went over and chatted with him and met two other folks from Zen Peacemakers - Eve and Ari. Fleet joined us as well (he was also on the same flight to Poland). Ari, Fleet, me and two others shared a cab into Krakow. The hotel is nice, but we couldn't check into our rooms because we were too early. I arrive about 10:30am and we couldn't check in until 2pm. So, I dropped off my bags and went with Ari to his hostel (there are 155 people participating in the retreat and so there wasn't enough room for everyone to stay at the same hotel in Krakow, however we will all be at the same place just outside Auschwitz).

At Ari's hostel, I met two other folks who will be on the retreat. Ari took a nap and I went to hang out in a local park, watch people and try to stay awake. After some time, I went for a walk and ended up bumping into the two folks that are staying with Ari at the hostel - Matt and Audra. We spent a very nice afternoon together.

The weather here is warm - not hot, but warm. You could see a lot of flooded fields when we flew in, but it seems rather dry where we have been. The boots that I brought are definitely too hot. I wish I had brought my crocs. Ah well. I picked up some sunglasses and sunscreen. I think that I will get a hat today as well.

I am staying right in the old town of Krakow. Yesterday afternoon I figured I should try to stay awake, so I stayed out with my new friends until 6pm. I didn't sleep on the plane over, so that meant that I was up for 27 hours straight! The old town hasn't changed much since the 1300s and there was little damage during WW2. You can tell the kids that it reminds me of Bowerstone in Fable 2. It has a very medieval sense to it. Yesterday we wandered around Old Town, took a tour, and had some great perogies and beet soup.

Krakow is the place where almost all of the events in the movie Schindler's List take place. This is the town that the real Oscar Schindler came to right after it was invaded by the Germans in 1939. Schindler's enamel factory is located in the industrial district of Krakow. The ghetto that you see liquidated in the movie is the Krakow ghetto that we visit at the start of the retreat tomorrow morning. The camp show in the movie was located close to his enamel factory in Krakow (but apparently it is just an open field now) and of course, Auschwitz is just a short distance from here. Spielberg even filmed the movie here.

I saw a note that they class lists for next year are up. Did you see them? Which classes do all three kids have?

I love you very much and I look forward to getting home and seeing you again. Give my love to our awesome kids!

XOXOXO

Eric


Second Letter to Mitra, Pre-retreat, June 6 (evening)

Great to hear from you!

It is 8:30pm for me, so about 11:30am your time. I just got back from dinner (Indian food). I have had a quiet day. I slept off and on last night - adjusting to the time change and excited/nervous about the retreat. Also the room that I am staying in is right above a bar. They had live music playing very loud until about 11pm last night and then there were people partying on the patio until 5am when the last of them left. Luckily, I am only in this room for two nights. Tomorrow I will be in the Dialogue Centre.

I spent some time reading a bunch of online resources as well. So much has happened in and around this city. Not just the death camps, but it is an old city which still looks pretty similar to how it did 500 years ago (at least in old town).

I took a long walk today. There is a big market square (the largest in medieval Europe). There is the third oldest university in Europe. There is a real castle and some of the castle walls still remain. Many of the walls were taken done and the moat was filled in during the mid-1800s. They replaced them with a strip of park all around the old city. It makes for a very pleasant walk around the city. This is a very touristy area, but a lot of the folks from Krakow enjoy coming here as well (I guess kind of like downtown for us). So, I walked around the city, explored on of the old wall's guard towers (massive place) and walked along the grounds of the castle. I bought a baseball hat, registered for the retreat and now I am going to finish the newest Robert Sawyer book that I got (on something of a Robert Sawyer kick right now), meditate and the go to bed. We meet at 7:45am tomorrow morning for the start of the tour.

I haven't seen Genro yet, but I think I am on the same bus with him tomorrow morning.

Have a great day sweetie!

BTW - good news about Dari and Alizeh's classes. Did you find out what class Kiran is in? Next year all three with be at South Park!

Love you!!!


My Dream at the Beginning

On the first day of the retreat, we toured the old Jewish quarter in Krakow and then drove to the place that we would stay in walking distance to Auschwitz. After we arrived, I took a short nap. During the nap I had a vivid dream in which members of an old culture that I didn't understand very well (conservative Jews) thanked me for coming and reached out and gave me this very sacred scroll, which was stored in a large cylinder made of white stone. The stone was old with small cracks at the top and bottom. There was a delicate white paint on the cylinder. It was chipped and peeling in places. They gave me this cylinder very gently and I took it and held it vertically in the middle of my chest. I hugged it to me and it dissolved into my body.


Third Letter to Mitra, Retreat Day 2, June 8

Sweetie - hi there! Kiss!

Just taking a break between the second day program and the evening program - We spent yesterday in the old Jewish quarter in Krakow and then traveled to Auschwitz. Today we spent the day at Auschwitz and then spent some time at Birkenau. I am not sure what to say about it all yet. Today was a lot of information and I am just overloaded right now. It is okay... I just can't really put much into words. We have processing time (council and meditation) for each of the next three days, so I expect things will settle.

It is hot! Feeling very sweaty most of the time. I am glad that I got sunscreen and a hat.

There is no wireless internet here, so it is hard to get online. I love you very much!!!!!!!

Tell the kids that I love them!!!!!!!

Eric


Impressions from Auschwitz

Auschwitz Concentration Camp was actually made up of several different camps. The first camp is Auschwitz I. It is here that there is the famous sign over the entrance. "Work will set you free". Auschwitz I is at a scale that I could get my head around it. By that, I mean its physical size was something I could understand (not the horror, just the physical scale). But Birkenau is immense. This is the site of the selection platform where train after train would arrive with people to be selected. The passengers would go into two lines: women and children on one side and men on the other. Then the healthy people would be chosen to go into the camp (where they were worked to death with an average life expectancy of 3 months) and the rest went directly to the showers (gas chambers).

Birkenau is immense. It is so large. Half of the camp is an empty field now and the remaining part of the camp is still immense. When you stand on one end of the selection platform and look down to the other end, it is so far. It is huge. The selection platform is about 750 meters long! The camp could hold up to 100,000 prisoners. It was just so large to behold.

There are no stories of survivors from the gas chambers. There are survivors from Auschwitz, but the stories that I heard are all from people who were selected to work in the camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Some (few) of those people lived. No one who went to the gas chambers lived. The camp goal was for 80% of the people shipped to Auschwitz to go to the gas chambers and only 20% to go to work camps. The average life expectancy in the work camps was 3 months. No one quite knows how many people were killed in the camps, but most historians seem to agree with the number displayed at Auschwitz of 1.1 million people (400,000 of which were killed in just two months).

All of the pictures of the dead from Auschwitz show these starved corpses. The vast majority of people killed at Auschwitz were not starved first. They were shipped directly from the Jewish ghettos that had been set up across Nazi Europe and sent directly to the gas chambers. They didn't have time in the camps to starve to death. Many died the same day they arrived and their bodies were burnt.

One of the things that struck me about the systems that were set up at Auschwitz and Birkenau is how efficient they were. These were systems on a massive scale, from the setting up of the ghettos in many cities, to the train system for moving people to the camps, to the camps themselves and their cruel systems. Birkenau could process large numbers of people very quickly. At its peak, 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered in just two months. That is an average of 6.6 thousand people a day!

These Jews were brought to Birkenau, they were sorted and then selections of healthy workers were made. Those that were not selected were sent directly to the gas chambers. They were told that they were taking a shower and needed to undress. Then they were gassed. They could kill thousands each day. It took about 4-8 minutes for people to die from the gas, but the guards would leave the chamber shut for about 20 minutes. Then all of the clothes, shoes, etc were sorted. Also all of the luggage that had been left on the sorting platform was collected and sorted.

This was a complicated and efficient process up to the point that the prisoners were murdered. However, the process seemed to me to break at that point. They could murder people in far greater numbers than they could dispose of their bodies. Disposal time was the choke point in the process, not murder time. For all of the efficiency that was clearly designed into the system, the efficiency seems to end with the deaths of those that the Nazis wanted murdered. It is all so insane.



Forth Letter to Mitra, Retreat Day 3, June 9

Hey there sweetie - the theme for today was HOT! It was a good day, but boy was it hot. We did council this morning and then 2 sits on the selection track at Birkenau, religious service (I attended the Buddhist one), soup lunch outside Birkenau and then a third sit in the sun. We then did a closing ceremony. It was really good. I really appreciated just sitting and not being rushed about to see another site (which is what the last two days were like).

I am sorry to hear that D and A are sick. It never fails, eh? One of us goes away and something happens with at least one of the kids!

I hope you are well. Don't worry about me. This has been a very positive experience so far (hopefully I haven't jinxed it!).

I love you. You are in my heart.

Give my love and hugs to the kids!

Eric


Chanting the Names of the Dead

When we meditated on the selection platform, sometimes it was done in silence and sometimes groups of people would read lists of names for people who died at Auschwitz. Many of the names seemed very unusual to me. I would listen and they would flow past like a Zen chant in Japanese. However, every now and then there would be a name that was very familiar. Occasionally there would be a last name of someone that I knew well. My first name was read. When these things happened, it was like a fishing hook going into my body and pulling me into the stones that cover the selection platform. I was bound to this place.


Language of Abuse

The language the Germans used was the language of abuse. Often there was a hint of hope in the language or an attempt to legitimize horrible and illegitimate behavior. When the Germans set up the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, they said it was for health reasons. Jews were carriers of disease and it would be healthier for the Polish population of Krakow if all of the Jews were segregated. Based on this reason, 15,000 people were crammed into a section of the city where 3,000 people used to live. They lived in poverty without enough food or water. But all of this was for health reasons and in the best interests of everyone.

When the Germans liquidated the Krakow ghetto, they put up notices. I read the text of the notice (in translation) and at no time does it mention the liquidation of the ghetto.

The Germans sold train tickets for Auschwitz to some of the people that they sent there. This was a way of legitimizing the trip.

When people arrived at the selection platform, they were told to leave their luggage on the platform with their names clearly marked on the luggage to make sure that they could find their luggage again after their shower. The changing room before the gas chamber had numbers above the hooks - make sure to remember your number so that you could retrieve your clothes from your hook after your shower.

The Germans would talk about resettlement and showers, not death camps or gas chambers. As many know, the gas chamber even had fake shower heads.

So much abuse uses language to minimize, hide or legitimize the abuse.


Fifth Letter to Mitra, Retreat Day 4, June 10

Hi,

Doing well. Still very hot. I am red after today, but I don't think I am sunburned. I have been using lots of sunscreen and drinking lots of water. The place we are staying doesn't have any warm water much of the time, but ice cold showers at the end of the day are nice. Our daily walk is 30 min each way. My feet are getting a few more blisters each day. Luckily, there is a doctor who has lots of band-aids. Thankfully nothing is too bad.

I am sorry to hear that all of the kids are sick now. Perhaps they are a little better today. It is almost dinner time now. After dinner, we will have an evening session (usually until 10pm or so).

Genro has been very busy - he is kind of like the Shoji for this retreat. I would like to chat with him, but so would many other people.

We meditated on the selection platform for two periods today. I had a turn reading names of people who died here. I was nervous but it went fine. After lunch outside the gates, we meditated and other people read names inside one of the barracks at Birkenau.

I came here thinking that this would be a retreat about the experience of genocide across the world held at Auschwitz, but what I have found is a retreat about the genocide at Auschwitz. It is much more rooted in this place, this soil and these issues that echo today. There are many Jews and Germans and much discussion of Israel. There is even one Arab and discussion about how the "west" didn't want the Jews and pushed them on the Arabs. How this site is so powerful and different groups and nations use that power towards different ends. Auschwitz proves that we should be more peaceful and that war is wrong. Auschwitz proves that you need a strong military force to guard you and sometimes violence is necessary.

So many issues for me to hear. I have learned a great deal and made some good new friends. It is not what I expected, but it has been good.

Enough writing for now. I love you and hold you in my thoughts. Thank you for giving me the support and freedom to do this. I really appreciate it.

Give the kids my love and hugs and kisses!

Sei-in


Innocence

There is blood on everyone's hands.

Survivors who escaped meant the death of prisoners who remained as examples to others. Any time people escaped the camp, the guards would kill some (I heard 10) of the prisoners who were left. Each escape by one of those survivors is held up as a heroic act, but it also meant the death of fellow prisoners.

Survivors who were rescued by the Red Army often had to do horrible things to survive while they had been in the camps. One of the survivors was forced to run in a large circle as fast as possible. He said that hundreds of them were being forced to run and that those who were weak and fell down were trampled. The SS wouldn't let them stop running. He didn't stop running. He trampled people to death.

Fifty years later, he was finally able to talk about this and asked his priest: "Am I a murderer? I didn't stop running. Am I a murderer?"

No place for innocence in Auschwitz.

If you were a Pole during the occupation, you could take the tram through the Jewish ghetto and see what was happening. If you lived next to Auschwitz, you could smell a sweet smoke. Poland talks about Poles (meaning Christians) and Jews (Polish Jews). They don't talk about all people as "Poles". This has gone on for hundreds of years. I can't recall the exact date, but five hundred years or so ago, the king in Krakow moved all of the Jewish people out of Krakow and set up a Jewish district just for Jewish people. There was even an entrance into the walled city of Krakow called "the Jewish Gate".

I heard that other countries hid more of their Jewish population during WWII. As a result, more of their Jewish population survived. However, I haven't checked to see of this is true. I have also heard that Switzerland turned away Jewish refuges at their boarders, while claiming neutrality in the conflict.

I read that the Allies received many reports that talked about what was happening (including photos as proof) in Auschwitz. These were smuggled out from the camps. The Allies knew what was happening. However, it was not a military objective to stop what was happening.

I wonder to myself what my own Zen lineage was doing in Japan during WWII. We were certainly not assisting the Allies.

And the pattern existed before the Holocaust... I think of the First Nations and their planned cultural genocide. I think of the thousands of First Nations who died over a two year period in Victoria as a result of a small pox epidemic.

The pattern continues through history from before the Holocaust through to today. I am 41 as I write this and how many genocide have happened in my lifetime? Five? Ten? How any of these genocides did Canada ignore? How many have I ignored?


Sixth Letter to Mitra, Retreat Day 5, June 11

Hey sweetie,

It is morning here. We are just waiting to go to Birkenau for the last day of sitting and service. It looks like it will be really hot. I am wearing my grey pj pants instead of jeans because they are lighter. I feel a little self conscious but by the last day of retreats like these, anything seems to go.

Last night was hard. I was in an okay space when I went to bed, but in the night... ah.... a hard night. I dreamt of bodies - rooms of bodies - white bodies like your pictures from Rwanda.

There are seven of us sharing the room together. Two nights ago, someone yelled out in the middle of the night a sentence in German. Last night, there was a scream from one of the people in the room. A scream in the darkness. In the morning, several people remember the scream, but no one remembers doing it, so I don't know who it was.

There is so much pain here and last night that pain flooded me. I woke up with all of the covers pushed on the side of me. It was like sharing the bed with someone, like someone next to me. An image flashed through my mind - it was like sleeping in the camps, where people must have screamed out in the night. Where they slept two to a bed and often the person next to you would die in the night. When there was roll call, you would need to take the person out to be counted. I heard a survivor say that it didn't make whether you were alive or dead, it only matters that the count is correct. That was where I woke up this morning - feeling that there was a dead body in bed next to me… someone who had died in the night.

------

I am back from the day now and I can write some more.

We have council first thing in the morning. I thought about talking about my night when I arrived at council. I was feeling very fragile and open. However when I got the talking piece, what came out was describing some details about when I was abused in the shower as a kid. It was the first time that I have shared those details with a group of people. I felt lighter afterward. It was a good group of people to share this with.

The day was heavy today. It was really really hot (very unusual for this spot in Poland). I drank 4L of water at the site today and I have almost finished a liter of powerade back at the Dialogue Centre. I had quite a headache when I got back today, but I am feeling better now.

Back to the day... we meditated on the selection platform again today. Then we did a variety of services through the day. Lots of feelings came up and moved through me. I just didn't realize all of the perspectives on this place. I have learned so much about these perspectives. There is a rabbi here that I have really enjoyed listening to. He does great sermons (with lots of singing and joy!). At one point today he told a story about two lovers who were separated in the camp. They both ended up living, but didn't reconnect until they were old. Then the rabbi was joined by his wife and together they led everyone in a wonderful song about lover and lovers. I had my eyes closed and I could see you so clearly in front of me - so beautiful and wonderful. You were so clear. I love you and I am so happy with you. Thank you for being with me.

Now I am back at the Dialogue Centre. It is good to be clean, showered and sitting in a comfy chair. If only I could also have a cold beer...

Tomorrow I head into Krakow. Some of my new friends are also leaving on Sunday, so we are going to hang out on Saturday. And then I will start the trip home :-)

I am really looking forward to seeing you and the kids. I think it will be wonderful to celebrate Alizeh's bday on Monday.

I hope you are well and that the kids are getting better.

Eric

My Roommates

When I checked into my room for the retreat, I was surprised to find that I was sharing the room with six other guys. Folks in the room were from the US, Germany, Poland, Israel and Canada. We were connected through our mutual interest in Zen and our participation in the retreat. It was awesome. Almost everyone snored (including me!). It seemed like an army barracks (at least the image that I have of army barracks drawn from movies): a bunch of guys going through some difficult experiences, sharing and watching out for each other. It was a real joy to get to share that kind of energy. I hadn't expected it on this retreat and realized how much I missed it in my daily life. It is ironic that while attending an Auschwitz retreat, I would enjoy being in a setting that seems to me like an army barracks (which would put myself and my roommates in the roles of soldiers).

The Heat

It was very hot at Auschwitz during the retreat. It was summer, but the weather was much hotter than normal for this time of year. We had temperatures of up to 94•F. In the early morning of the last day of the retreat I could feel the heat on my skin from meditating outside on the selection platform. I had been wearing a lot of sunscreen, but I was still slightly sun burnt. It felt like the dust, dirt and ash of Auschwitz had been baked into my skin and would never come out. It was part of me now, baked on and permanent.

Brad Warner, Dana and Dogen

Dogen: "Earning a living and doing productive work are originally nothing other than free giving."

Brad Warner on Dogen: "Working for a living is ... a means of giving freely of ourselves for the sake of others."

Sei-in on Brad on Dogen: "Receiving is a means of giving, while giving is a means of receiving."

I have to say that at the last Dana meeting, I was feeling kind of fed up. The VZC didn't actually need any more money right now and I felt it was unreasonable for Eshu to have a Dana meeting and ask for money when we didn't need any money to run the organization. To top it off, I was just getting back from a couple of days in Vancouver, which left me feeling cranky and tired.

So that was my state of mind when I arrived. We all met, shared dinner and the started the form of council. This is a form that I first experienced on the street retreats. I find it an extremely powerful way for a group to come together and collectively process their experience.

We went around the circle a couple of times. On my first turn to talk, I felt cranky (and I think my words were cranky). I was able to share my feelings without judgment and then listened to the others. As the evening progressed, I came back to a place that I have been before - a feeling that there is no giving and no receiving. If I investigate what is happening when I am giving, then I can see that I am also receiving. Similarly if I look into when I am receiving, I can see that I am giving as well.

In the end, Mitra and I were pleased to make another donation to the VZC. I left the evening in a very good mood (a big change from when I arrived).

As Dogen says, which Brad Warner comments on and then I interpret:
"Receiving is a means of giving, while giving is a means of receiving."

The Dream - Why I am a Vegetarian

I used to eat a fair amount of fast food. I would eat at McDonald's at least once a week.

One night, about eight years ago Mitra, baby Darius and I had taken the evening ferry to Vancouver. On the ferry, I had eaten a particularly gross hamburger and later that night, I had "The Dream".

In my dream, I walked into a McDonalds. It was strangely quiet and I was the only customer. This made sense in the dream. I went up to the counter and ordered my usual: a Big Mac, a regular hamburger and a vanilla milkshake.

The server handed me my food. Instead of a usual bag, the server handed me a big black garbage bag (the kind that have a hint of green in the plastic, if you hold it up to the light). The garbage bag was rolled down.

I opened up the bag and looked inside. The bottom of the bag was filled with dirty sawdust - like sawdust that had been thrown on a shop floor to soak up spilt oil. The bag also contained old black dress shoes of many different sizes.

I remember thinking in the dream, "This is odd". Another voice said in my head, "This is always what you have been getting. You just never saw it this way."

I looked closer at the shoes and was struck in horror by the realization that the shoes were mismatched. Remember the image of those huge piles of shoes in Auschwitz? It was as if someone had taken a shovel full of shoes from this massive pile and put these mismatched shoes in my bag. I could feel this whole machine turning away and cranking out my meal.

I awoke in a sweat. I lay there in bed in the early morning and felt the impact of the dream wash over me.

I made many changes in how I eat as a result of that dream. The first change was to stop eating at McDonalds. After many years of eating regularly at McDonalds, I stopped the day after my dream and haven’t eaten there once in the eight years since this dream.

A few months later, I stopped drinking coffee. I was never a big coffee drinker, but I would consistently have a cup of coffee in the morning. I noticed that within a week of not drinking coffee, my stomach stopped hurting in the evening.

About six months later, I stopped eating refined sugar for about four years. I used to eat a lot of sweet food! It was really hard to not eat candy bars, white chocolate and the like, but I did for four years. After we sold the company, I started having some sugar again. Now I eat some refined sugar, but far less than I ever had in the past. I am much more balanced in my consumption of sugar.

Then about a year after I had The Dream, I stopped eating meat. It seemed to me that not eating meat just made sense. It is not that I have any issues with killing my food. I just didn't want to participate in the industrial production of meat anymore. It was like coming full circle back to the original moment of the dream.

I find it interesting that one short dream could change so much in my life. No other dream has had such an impact on my life.


Postscript 1 - Mitra’s Reaction

A funny story...

When I came home and told Mitra that I wasn't going to eat meat any more, she just laughed at me.

"What are you going to eat? All you eat is meat!"

She was right. My diet used to be very unbalanced (lots of meat and carbs, no fruit and veggies). Becoming a vegetarian has meant that I had to eat way more fruit and veggies. After six years of no meat, I have started eating a little meat in the past six months.

It seems to me that I had been so unbalanced in one direction that I needed to go far in the other direction for some time before I could find a healthy balance (lots of fruit and veggies with a little meat once in a while).


Postscript 2 - Keeping It Quiet

When I made the other changes to my diet, I never told anyone. I just wanted to keep them to myself. However, when I stopped eating meat I found it impossible to not mention.

The day after I made the decision, I was at lunch with a business friend. I ordered a veggie pizza and he asked me if I was vegetarian. A week or two later, I was traveling for business in the US. We stopped somewhere to eat dinner and every item on the menu involved meat (even the salads!).

I often attend business lunches and dinners. Every time I do this, I always have ask the server for a vegetarian meal. Not only does this announce to everyone at the table that I am vegetarian, but it invariably means that I am served at a different time than other folks at my table.

I tried being a closet vegetarian, but found it impossible.


Postscript 3 - Part of the Family Story

Darius refuses to ever eat at McDonalds. He happily eats meat, but is adamant that he will never eat at McDonalds because McDonalds is bad.

I once asked him why he has such strong feelings about McDonalds (especially because he has never eaten there). He told me all about my dream in McDonalds. It was an odd moment for me because I had never directly talked to him about my dream. However, he had overheard me tell the story enough times that he could recite it from memory. It was surprising.

I realized in that moment that the story of my dream had become part of the fabric of our family story. The kids know the story by heart and it informs how they live their lives.

"Seeing is Believing" Tour of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver

I had the opportunity to join a "Seeing is Believing" tour of the downtown East-side of Vancouver on June 30, 2009. “Seeing is Believing” tours started in England and have been very successful at providing a way for people to understand more about life in places like the downtown East-side.

As most folks know, I have previously participated in two street retreats (one in the DTES). I figured that this tour would provide a different view into a world I had briefly experienced previously. On the street retreat, we only used a few services (like for food) and the Seeing is Believing tour gave me the opportunity to learn more about services that I had not experienced.

We started off at the Potluck Café. This is a social enterprise. It is a business which makes meaning in the world through training staff, providing meals to those who need them as well as running a restaurant and providing catering to business functions.

At the restaurant, there was an overview of the tour, the Street to Home foundation and the Potluck Cafe. The information was very well put together and the presentation was very professional.

Next we went to RainCity Housing which provides long-term and transitional housing. We got an overview by the Executive Director. The comment he made that stuck out in my mind was when he said, "Initially we would try to tell people how best they should proceed in their lives. That didn't work. When we realized that each of the people we were working with were experts in their own lives, then we could be much more helpful. These people had survived through some horrible situations and the fact that they are alive is an accomplishment to be proud of. We needed to understand that they are the experts. We are the most helpful when we ask them what they would like to achieve next and work with them to that goal."

We then divided into two groups (depending on whether you had a "1" or a "2" on your name badge). My group went for a tour of the housing first. They showed us a room. It was reasonably clean and very small. There were hotplates in the room and a shared kitchen down the hall.

They explained that their policy was to allow most things to happen as long as it didn't bother other people and it wasn't selling drugs.

Then my group went to chat with some of the folks that were staying in the place. We divided into smaller groups and 3-5 people each chatted with one tenant. My group spoke with an aboriginal man. He had been placed in the foster care system when he was a baby and had spent his entire childhood in that system. He didn't like it. When he was 16, he committed some crime (he didn't say what) and he went to jail. He had just gotten out a few months ago.

He was about the same age as me and he had never been outside of a rigidly structured system (foster care and then prison). It was striking.

Next we went to Covenant House. They provide service to street youth including a drop in centre, addictions counseling and housing. The Executive Director was very eloquent in her comments. For her it all boiled down to providing three things: support, structure and love.

She talked about how important it was to have clear structure for these kids. She was also the only person who mentioned the importance of emotions (in particular, love) in providing services.

After her talk, we once again divided into two groups. My group stayed and broke into smaller groups to chat with folks who work at Covenant House. At our table was a woman who had been working there for several years. One thing that she said really struck me: Every single kid who she has worked with at Covenant House was abused before arriving, regardless of their gender. Sometimes the abuse is recent (for example, "you can have free rent if you…") and sometimes not, but all the kids have been abused.

Next my group went and chatted with some of the kids who had gone through Covenant House. There were four kids who were all on their early twenties. One had turned his life around and was now working at Starbucks. Another had fought with the structure of Covenant House and talked about realizing that the structure was there to help her.

Another kid talked about needing money and working as a stripper to earn cash. Now she was on a path that she preferred.

The one kid who stood out in my mind the most was the oldest one. She was in her mid-twenties. Her mother was a sex worker and she was raised in the foster care system. She said that she had been through twenty six different Elementary schools.

Twenty-six schools!

Assuming that the Elementary school system went to grade 7 when she was attending (unlike now, when it goes to grade 5), then she would have averaged about four different schools a year for seven years!

She was obviously a bright woman, but she talked about how she hadn't been able to learn anything because her schooling had been so broken up. If my memory is correct, she only learned to read after turning eighteen.

She talked about how hard it was to grow up with everyone around you thinking that you would grow up to work in the sex trade.

She talked about how the foster care system paid for her bills until she turned eighteen. She turned eighteen in the middle of the month and the system wouldn't even pay for her last two weeks of rent. She was out on the street. Luckily, several kids said that the folks at Covenant House were good people. She went there and they provide what she needed: support, structure and love. She learned the skills that she needed, finished school and now is hoping to go to university to study to be a teacher.

I was really touched by her story.

The next location was the Coast Mental Health Resource Centre. Once again we had the overview briefing by the ED. We then talked to some residents and finally went on a tour.

What struck me about this final stop was seeing this one guy who looked a lot like one of my friends from university. It wasn't my friend, but he looked so much like him. It reminded me of my connection to everyone there.

Afterwards, the tour group gathered to discuss the experience and provide feedback. A few people commented that they felt the tour had been somewhat sanitized. The organizers agreed with this point. They felt it would be too dangerous to bring such a large group (30
people) to some of the more dangerous locations. However they indicated that they would be happy to arrange a tour with a plain clothes police officer.

Two of us indicated our interest in participating. Subsequently, we arranged confirmed a date with the police officer for late August.

All in all, I am very glad that I had the opportunity to attend the Seeing is Believing tour. The tour validated a lot of impressions I had from my street retreat (such as the importance of emotional connection). It also helped me to learn new things (such as the role of the foster care system in homelessness).

I look forward to seeing where this knowledge will take me.

A Moment of Change

I am standing on a dirt road in Cambodia. It is hot. I feel connected to the sky above my head and to the ground underneath my feet. I feel that I am where I should be, doing what I should be doing.

I have just finished giving out packages of school supplies to lots of children. The kids have gone off to look at what they have received and I am speaking with an old Cambodian woman. We are talking about how the Khmer Rouge killed her husband. She asked if I could give her any money and I have quietly pushed a US twenty dollar bill into her hands. She asks me why I am doing this.

"Because I am a Buddhist." I reply.

At this point, I had been practicing Buddhism for almost exactly 2 years, but that was the first time I told almost anyone that I was Buddhist.

I had just spent 6 months in Southeast Asia visiting a variety of Buddhist countries. I was keeping my head shaved at that time (looking a lot like a Buddhist monk). Folks kept asking me if I was Buddhist. I would side-step the question and just say that, "it was a good way to keep cool."

I didn't want to say that I was Buddhist.

For 18 months previously, I was in Victoria (before we left on the trip) and I didn't mention my involvement in Buddhism to anyone except a few close people.

For 24 months, I was worried about what people would think if I said that I was Buddhist. I was worried that people would think I was flaky. I was worried about how this would change what it was to be Eric. Would this change my identity (both in my own eyes and in the eyes of others)? I was worried that I was pretending and somehow a fake. Perhaps I wasn't as sincere as others? Somehow Buddhism belonged to someone else and I was intruding.

In that moment on the hot dirt road in Cambodia, I acted differently.

In that moment in Cambodia, the most truthful, deepest, honest and authentic answer that I could give to the old Cambodian woman was, "I am giving these things because I am Buddhist."

That was a turning point for me. Since then, I have been very open about my involvement with Buddhism. I had feared that I would find rejection, concern and disagreement. Instead, I have found interest, curiosity and so much more acceptance than I would have thought possible. What a wonderful surprise!

The acceptance started in this important moment with the old woman in Cambodia. When I told her, she nodded. There was no scolding or anger. There was only happiness, warm acceptance and understanding. She replied to me, "Of course you are. I am Buddhist as well."

She held my hands tight, smiled and her eyes beamed. Then she walked with me out of the sun, to sit with a dozen or so mothers and their children. We enjoy fresh coconut milk while the room filled with smiles and laughter.

Names, Names and More Names

I Want A Cool Buddhist Name!

So when I first got involved with Buddhism, I thought it was so cool to have a Buddhist name. What a great thing! To have some cool sounding Japanese name that I could use. I wanted one!


Name? I Don't Want A Buddhist Name!

I practiced with the VZC for a few years and then had the chance to attend my first sesshin. During that sesshin, I had my first clear memories of my abuse as a child. It was a very overwhelming experience. Part way through the sesshin I lost my interest in getting a Buddhist name. I asked myself, "Why would I want that? I feel so f**ked up. I am just going to focus on meditating."


Don't Think About It Too Much...

After another year and a half, I met the requirements for Jukai. I wasn’t working towards this, but it happened anyways. Eshu asked me if I wanted to do the ceremony. The idea rolled around in my head and when Eshu asked for the second time, I said yes.

The night before the ceremony Alizeh was sick all night. I stayed up with her, thinking that if I stayed up, then at least Mitra will have rested and I could get some sleep the next day after the ceremony.

So, the ceremony was very surreal on account of my exhaustion. During the ceremony, I received my Buddhist name. I hadn't really thought too much about the idea of a new name since my first sesshin almost two years earlier. I found when I had the new name, I wanted to use it. I like being called Sei-in.


There Can Be Only One!

However, I liked Sei-in so much that I wanted to get rid of Eric. I wanted to fix on Sei-in. Out with the old and in with the new.

I figures that I would try out my new name and give myself until after my third sesshin to make a decision. I really wanted to go one way or the other.

I did the sesshin in May and was confused when I came back. I wanted a decision about by name. I wanted one name. But that is not what happened for me. It felt like I was forcing it. So, I took some time and space just to let things settle.


Two Names Are Better Than One

I am not sure what I will do in the future, but for now I am using both names almost equally.

In the confusion that comes from using two names I have found the constant reminder that I am both of these names and neither of these names. I am other names too: Dad, Brother, Sweetie...

Without fixing on one name reminds me on a daily basis that I have the freedom to be all of those names and none of them. It is like the saying, “The person with one clock always knows the time, while the person with two clocks is never sure.”

I have found both fear and freedom in doubt.

How Our Family Connected to Buddhism

In 2006, we had the opportunity to pack up our life and travel in Southeast Asia for 6.5 months. When we left in late January, 2006, the kids were all very young. Kiran was only 11 months old, Alizeh was 3.5 and Darius seemed old at 6 years old.

When we left, we left as a family of five people with one person practicing Buddhism. By the time we returned, Buddhism was something we shared as a family.

Each of us came to Buddhism in our own way. My path led to Buddhism before we left. Mitra found her connection through some very strong nuns in Vietnam. In spending time with these nuns, she saw an example of well educated and powerful women practicing Zen (in stark contrast to what she had seen in Thailand).

Alizeh developed a relationship to Buddhism through visiting temples.
She really enjoyed the ritual of the temples. When I took her to a temple, she asked me what we did there. I explained that we respectfully watched what happened while the locals went through their rituals. She challenged me: "Those people are doing something. I want to do something, not just watch them do something!" And so Alizeh learned the local rituals and made offerings at many temples across Southeast Asia.

Darius visited some temples, but didn't connect as much to the form as Alizeh. For him, it just slowly became a more visible backdrop of his life. I would typically put the older two kids to bed. I would read them a story and then sit in the room with them to meditate while they went to sleep. We had a lot less space when we were traveling than we have at home. The result of this was that it pushed my meditation practice to be more visible for the kids. Soon they were asking what I was doing and asking if they could do it too. Seeing his Dad meditate on a daily basis was important in building Darius’ connection to Buddhism.

Now for Kiran, it was different. He was quite young for the whole trip. He was only 1.5 years old when we returned home. By this point, everyone else in the family had found some connection to Buddhism and Buddhism became the water that he was swimming in.

As I write this, it is almost three years after we arrived home from our trip. Buddhism has stayed with our family, while each person has developed a different relationship to it.

I continue practicing with the Victoria Zen Centre. Mitra’s focus has been on getting her Masters’ degree for the past three years. Buddhism and the community stay close to her heart, even if she has had little time to go out to the VZC. Darius likes having a Buddha statue in his room, when he is feeling scared at night. Alizeh leaves letters for Kwan Yin (a female Buddha) behind the Kwan Yin figure in her room. In the morning, she enjoys reading Kwan Yin’s replies. Kiran likes to light incense, meditate and do prostrations. As a family, we enjoy going to the VZC Sangha Sundays and Buddha’s Birthday Celebration each year.