Witnesses such as homeless

"When we got to witness life on the streets of wear, we offer ourselves.
No blankets, no food, no clothes, just ourselves. "
Bernie Glassman, a testimony

It was time to dive into the unknown. Wearing only the clothes on your back with a bottle of water and a bag to collect food, my hair unwashed for the past five days, I joined the Cherry Blossom Street Retreat.

Our group was composed of one teacher and eight students, five women and four men40-7 from the age of sixty. We had already started the journey back home begging for the cost of the withdrawal of friends. Having never begged for money, I made my feelings of extreme vulnerability has been requested and most important first step to get into the spirit of the retreat.

The start of this afternoon, we lived and wandered around Washington, DC for three days without money, begging for money, looking for food, shelter and bathrooms. L 'withdrawal was a way of three principles of engaged Buddhism, as defined by the practice Zen Peacemakers:

Not to say the hiring of fixed ideas about ourselves, others and the world • Go
• Witnesses: to open our hearts and minds without fear witness of joy and sorrow
• Loving Actions: healing ourselves, others and the world through the action of compassion and nonviolence

Feeling that I could imagine nothing could come close to what I'm talking about experience, Ibegan training camp with few expectations or fears, my only fear was aware that I needed to ask someone if I could give a mobile phone at some point in returning to call my husband and reassure him that I was alive, I did finally. The nine of us had adventures in three days and three nights we stayed together and as I expected, the lessons for me came in the form of unexpected.

After spending the first hour of the afternoon and joina group, we started to concentrate on looking for a meal and a place to sleep at night. It was said that the food distributed in a nearby park that night soup and sandwiches served by a van with a small local organization. In a row, subject to the frightened men and women around me, I felt sad and reassuring when I realized how I felt different and separate from the rest of them. Yes, I was physically in the same line, but the mental barriers that have stoodbetween them, and it seemed so real. Everything seemed to separate us, I have not been defeated by life as most of them seemed to be, I've been away cursing or muttering to myself, I did the same wildness in my eyes and above all, I was' t alone, even here, in the streets, I was with my group.

Why was I here? What was all for? Thinking about my first basic principle of "not knowing" I did my best to break up with my thoughts, to capture and observe everything, and hold the space for all that wasin my mind as everyone around me.

A few hours later that evening as I lay on the card that my body is protected against the cold concrete I was opposed to a much more direct experience of the roof and the homeless. I was frozen, so cold I could not sleep, and all I could think was that I needed something warm to protect myself for the next night to find. At the moment, I realized later that I probably had a similar experience to share with someone who was sleepingconcrete in a cold and windy night.

Homelessness in person, I had my true nature many times during these three days, because I had nothing else. I wrote in my application for funds, "Poverty is our collective shadow, global ... for three days, will not be able to close their eyes.'ll Accept their pain as mine."

This retreat was an occasion to go over my imaginary boundaries. As Sensei Grover Genro Gauntt, founder of the Zen masterPeacemaker Order, a teacher and organizer of the retreat, once said: "A withdrawal is excruciating road with rigorous self-denial."

The morning after the first sleepless night of freezing my bones, a lady in the canteen where we had breakfast offered me a blanket. I had the hardest time accepting the gift that I shared with Genro I felt as if I were the president to take away from them.

"Indeed," I insisted, "You could give someone who needed longer I whodone. "

"They are there," he said, he gave me one of his genuine smile. His teaching is simple and profound sank deep into my heart at that moment, I suddenly heard proceeding as if something had just climbed. Maybe it was my resistance perceive myself as the same as them? I do not know. I took the blanket and just felt grateful for what I wanted for the whole night was so manifest quickly. So much for the power of intention!

With the woman who also likes the actionunderstood at that time in my experience the previous evening in the park all my feelings of separation can only come from ideas and concepts that I worked on myself, in fact those of a healthy, wealthy, educated and good-hearted young white woman.

As the hours and days go roaming the streets, sharing meals with the women and men in canteens, these prejudices and to limit the drink boundaries, demanding my attention and has still notIt was a time when the boundaries dissolved.

One afternoon we arrived too late for a street food and nothing is left of us were tired and hungry. We met this very young man who offered to join us to walk to the nearest supermarket Safeway, twenty minutes to buy food with food stamps. We were all so touched by her generosity, but some of us do not want to accept his offer, because he definitely needs more good than we did. Our teacher reminded us not tointerfere with the natural functioning of the "witnesses", that generosity and compassion that flow from this action and this young man who had very little of himself, he embodies these qualities for us. I remembered that my grandmother told me: "People are often more generous than those who have not." I was wondering how I apply this learning in my life I thought of my constant battle with time, and how, instead of money, time was definitely what I perceived asmiss most in my life. Perhaps more generous with my time would be a way to cultivate generosity in my life?

Another example of a claim witness of love came our way one night we did not know where the dinner was to come. Out of nowhere appeared a beautiful Indian family. The couple and their two young adult children were distributing food from their car in a bit 'dingy square, a gathering place for the homeless and drug addicts. We found thatThey cooked the food in their house and drove 20 miles once a month to come to this dark area in downtown DC to deliver meals to the homeless. We were served a meal amazingly fragrant and colorful home of Indian food, the best I have ever enjoyed.
To quote once again Bernie Glassman:

"... Peace Foundation, the functioning of the witnesses. If we listen with our whole body and mind, loving action arises. Loving action is the right action. It 's simple as giving a handsomeone who trips or take a child who has fallen on the floor. Take, for example, direct the actions of our natural life, without being too specific. And I'm not special. Everyone is simply the best answer to this situation at that time. "

The experience was quite surreal: here I was with eight other poor children, dirty and worn out as I was after two and a half days walking aimlessly and little sleep, we were really starting to seem realhomeless people, enjoying the most delicious food and feel in complete harmony with all that has been created around me. This junkie spread on the couch, not a bit 'interested in eating, the old woman sitting alone a few meters diligently watch over the bags of the few who had that kind funky black, apparently a normal one-grab on the go as he led his chapatti Cycling, lovely Indian lady, a kind word or a smile for everyone he could find. We were one. Inthat time, the construction made of my ideas and concepts and solve all that remained was the immediate reality of the moment to take place, as has been perfect.

I started the retreat feeling different and separate from the "true homeless" and I ended up need the same basic things for everyone else: food, shelter and basic amenities. I recognized my common humanity through direct interaction with strangers and our common search for the basic survival needs. I realized my responsibility to my colleagueshuman brothers and sisters, that my goal of promoting the fullness of life and healing through all my actions and restore relationships.

I learned during this retreat, which sits on the pillow and witnesses on the street is the same: the same way that I empty into meditation, I had emptied myself to go into the street. I took almost nothing with me, the more I vacuum on the street, the more I let go of my ideas and concepts more realwere complete and my experiences and encounters with others. On the street I found plenty true. I learned that all that was needed was here when I used my intention and if I could ask.

You may be wondering what this concept withdrawal road might do or change for the poor. Or you might think that this is just about me, not the people on the street. After all, what is the point of living like a homeless person for three days, when you know that only three days? L 'Perhaps it seems an insult to the poor. I have not and can not hide that part of me that the same things.

At the same time, I felt deeply called to be part of this recall. It 'was the inner feeling that something very significant and transformative at the collective level of consciousness can occur when too few people around their own witnesses to counter the kind of suffering as a mass often we refuse to direct the eye as a part of ourselves thatwant to be away from our consciousness.

Here are the gifts that I got home I took with me:

• As a witness, let us be touched by all the pain and joy of the universe and let go of our illusion of separation: "I Hen"
• Everyone has a smile or a word away from a friend
• "not knowing" is the way to instantly see, deeper listening, understanding, more effective

As I intuitively for withdrawal, I can not close our eyes.During these three days, I have witnessed the pain and loneliness, madness, anger and pain. I also never free, connected, open and grateful for all the blessings in my life. I made new friends too: eight fellow travelers on the Buddhist path, and some individual meetings with the homeless men and women with whom I had the privilege of connecting with one-on-one. What could be better?

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