Some Things are Meant to be

The following is a story in the news I have been following.

In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple.

He was a teenager in a death camp in Nazi-controlled Germany. She was a bit younger, living free in the village, her family posing as Christians. Their eyes met through a barbed-wire fence and she wondered what she could do for this handsome young man.

She was carrying apples, and decided to throw one over the fence. He caught it and ran away toward the barracks. And so it began.

As they tell it, they returned the following day and she tossed an apple again. And each day after that, for months, the routine continued. She threw, he caught, and both scurried away.

They never knew one another's name, never uttered a single word, so fearful they'd be spotted by a guard. Until one day he came to the fence and told her he wouldn't be back.

"I won't see you anymore," she said. "Right, right. Don't come around anymore," he answered.

And so their brief and innocent tryst came to an end. Or so they thought.

Forced into a ghetto
Before he was shipped off to a death camp, before the girl with the apples appeared, Herman Rosenblat's life had already changed forever.

His family had been forced from their home into a ghetto. His father fell ill with typhus. They smuggled a doctor in, but there was little he could do to help. The man knew what was coming. He summoned his youngest son. "If you ever get out of this war," Rosenblat remembers him saying, "don't carry a grudge in your heart and tolerate everybody."

Two days later, the father was dead. Herman was just 12.

The family was moved again, this time to a ghetto where he shared a single room with his mother, three brothers, uncle, aunt and four cousins. He and his brothers got working papers and he got a factory job painting stretchers for the Germans.

Eventually, the ghetto was dissolved. As the Poles were ushered out, two lines formed. In one, those with working papers, including Rosenblat and his brothers. In the other, everyone else, including the boys' mother.

Rosenblat went over to his mother. "I want to be with you," he cried. She spoke harshly to him and one of his brothers pulled him away. His heart was broken.

"I was destroyed," Rosenblat remembers. It was the last time he would ever see her.

Reunited in New York
It was in Schlieben, Germany, that Rosenblat and the girl he later called his angel would meet. Roma Radziki worked on a nearby farm and the boy caught her eye. And bringing him food — apples, mostly, but bread, too — became part of her routine.

"Every day," she says, "every day I went."

Rosenblat says he would secretly eat the apples and never mentioned a word of it to anyone else for fear word would spread and he'd be punished or even killed. When Rosenblat learned he would be moved again — this time to Theresienstadt, in what is now the Czech Republic — he told the girl he would not return.

Not long after, the Russians rolled in on a tank and liberated Rosenblat's camp. The war was over. She went to nursing school in Israel. He went to London and learned to be an electrician.

Their daily ritual faded from their minds.

"I forgot," she says.

"I forgot about her, too," he recalls.

Rosenblat eventually moved to New York. He was running a television repair shop when a friend phoned him one Sunday afternoon and said he wanted to fix him up with a girl. Rosenblat was unenthusiastic: He didn't like blind dates, he told his friend. He didn't know what she would look like. But finally, he relented.

It went well enough. She was Polish and easygoing. Conversation flowed, and eventually talk turned to their wartime experiences. Rosenblat recited the litany of camps he had been in, and Radziki's ears perked up. She had been in Schlieben, too, hiding from the Nazis.

She spoke of a boy she would visit, of the apples she would bring, how he was sent away.

And then, the words that would change their lives forever: "That was me," he said.

Rosenblat knew he could never leave this woman again. He proposed marriage that very night. She thought he was crazy. Two months later she said yes.

In 1958, they were married at a synagogue in the Bronx — a world away from their sorrows, more than a decade after they had thought they were separated forever.

Story inspires book ‘Angel Girl’
It all seems too remarkable to be believed. Rosenblat insists it is all true.

Even after their engagement, the couple kept the story mostly to themselves, telling only those closest to them. Herman says it's because they met at a point in his life he'd rather forget. But eventually, he said, he felt the need to share it with others.

Now, the Rosenblats' story has inspired a children's book, "Angel Girl." And eventually, there are plans to turn it into a film, "The Flower of the Fence." Herman expects to publish his memoirs next year.

Michael Berenbaum, a distinguished Holocaust scholar who has authored a dozen books, has read Rosenblatt's memoir and sees no reason to question it.

"I wasn't born then so I can't say I was an eyewitness. But it's credible," Berenbaum said. "Crazier things have happened."

Herman is now 79, and Roma is three years his junior; they celebrated their 50th anniversary this summer. He often tells their story to Jewish and other groups.

He believes the lesson is the very one his father imparted.

"Not to hate and to love — that's what I am lecturing about," he said. "Not to hold a grudge and to tolerate everybody, to love people, to be tolerant of people, no matter who they are or what they are."

The anger of the death camps, Herman says, has gone away. He forgave. And his life has been filled with love.

Do you believe the account? Or feel it is a fabrication from the minds of two people who tried to find the good in a horrific memory? Either way it is an amazing story.

It is amazing that karma can pull us so strongly and that those who are destined to come together will—regardless of the odds—do so.

It is also amazing, and inspiring, that lessons of love and letting go of hate, of tolerance and not holding a grudge could arise from so much suffering and loss. Amazing and inspiring that a father's last words to his son were of loving all people regardless of who they are, that a mother's parting actions were to save her son's life. And that a young girl would repeatedly risk her life to toss apples to a hungry boy behind a high wire fence.

Tolerance and love, karma and destiny.

Amazing.

Achieving in Pure Land Practice, Part Two

Another example give by Ven. Master Chin Kung is as follows:

Venerable Xiuwu was an illiterate bricklayer before he became a monastic. After becoming a monastic, he did the most menial tasks, work that nobody else wanted to do. He cleaned the toilets, chopped wood, and grew vegetables. Always mindfully chanting “Amituofo” while doing all these tasks, he gladly did his work. Because he knew that he was able to do only the most menial work and nothing else and that he could not compare to other people, he was respectful to everybody.

The first time Jile [Ultimate Bliss] Monastery conferred the precepts, Venerable Xiuwu volunteered to take care of the sick. But after only a few days, he asked to take leave from Master Tanxu, the abbot. The master asked him to stay until all the precepts were conferred. Venerable Xiuwu said that he could not stay because he was going to the Land of Ultimate Bliss. The master was surprised and asked him when. Venerable Xiuwu said in ten days. The next day, he came and told the master he was leaving the following day [and he did]!

This is a good example for us. Venerable Xiuwu did the hard work at the monasteries without taking a day off. He succeeded in his cultivation. He had no karmic obstacles.

He did not compete with others and was respectful to everyone. Many looked down on him, but he did not get in anyone’s way. He did his work and mindfully chanted “Amituofo,” which no one knew. He showed such ease and freedom when he passed away.

If we become disturbed after we hear someone saying something negative about us, how can we attain rebirth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss? Venerable Xiuwu did not care if someone would beat him, scold him, or insulted him. He always smiled and was respectful to everyone. Why? Because he was going to the Land of Ultimate Bliss. He wanted to go, and he truly did.

Achieving in Pure Land Practice, Part One

Ven. Master Chin Kung has often told the following story to encourage us in our practice. The story was told to him by an older practitioner, Mrs. Gan, in 1984.

“Mrs. Gan had a relative, an elderly lady who had lived in San Francisco. This relative helped her son and daughter-in-law with the housework and took care of their children.

After several years, when the grandchildren had grown older and were attending elementary school, she had more time to herself. With this extra time, she was able to practice nianfo every day without interruption. Nobody knew about this. On the day she passed away, people discovered how much she had achieved in her cultivation. She passed away at night. In the morning, when her son and daughter-in-law went to her room to see why she was not yet up, they found her dead, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

They also found a will on the bed telling them how to arrange her funeral. There were even mourning clothes, which she had personally made for everyone, on the bed. She was a true practitioner, but nobody knew this when she was alive.

This elderly lady had no karmic obstacles. She knew when she would pass away. She performed her daily routine as usual and passed away without suffering from any illness. She passed away with ease and freedom. The elderly lady had achieved in her practice, so she had no obstacles.”

The First Turn is the Hardest

We often hear in Buddhism that we should never make an enemy. Additionally, we should turn enemies into friends.

Essentially, we need to turn, and this will be ever so slowly at first, the relationship around. It's the first turn that's the hardest. It starts with what we tell ourselves about the other person. We try to still the negative chatter and replace it with something positive. Also, we look for their suffering. We replace our frustrated, complaining thoughts with those that are empathetic and caring. Then we'll be ready.

During your next interaction with the person, look for something they do for you that you can label "kind." The kindness may very well not have come from a kind intention. The other person may have been thinking that you're so inept that she needs to do something for you or you'll mess it up! That's okay. What matters at this point is not the other person's intention, but rather how you choose to interpret their action and react to it. By choosing to focus on the kind act instead of the unkind intention, you have the opportunity to react out of kindness. And so you say a sincere thank you.

The other person may not seem to notice your appreciation, but it will register with them nonetheless. Every thought, word, and act is registered in our Alaya consciousness, so your sincere thank you is "recorded." 

Hopefully, during the next interaction, that appreciative seed will arise and they will be a little less annoyed with you or maybe even do something sincerely thoughtful. If, so you will have made that first turn in the relationship. The following ones will gradually be more frequent and easier.

But if that first appreciative thank you seed does not arise, don't throw up your hands in frustration and revert to negative behavior. Remind yourself of their earlier kindness and focus on that. Continue to look for their suffering so you can view them more compassionately. At some point that seed of your first sincere "thank you" will mature. The odds will be better if you keep planting similar seeds in their Alaya consciousness. Any gardener knows that if you plant several flower seeds instead of just one, you'll have a much better chance of having flowers. 

As you're doing this practice, remind yourself that all we can hope to control is our own thoughts and emotions. We have no control over how others will react. Regardless of how the other person reacts to us, we are planting those seeds of kindness in our own Alaya consciousness as well.

So while I may only be able to walk by my neighbor's barren yard and toss in a few flower seeds in hopes they will grow and bring him happiness, I can plant those seeds all over my garden. Caring for them, I'll have a beautiful garden.

And who knows, after seeing it he may ask for a few seeds for a garden of his own.

Living in Our New World Part 9: To do Right

We're stuck. And let's face it, right now, stuck is not a good place to be. It's not good for us, not good for our family and community, for those who are poorer and less powerful, or for the other species who are trying to live on this planet with us. There's nothing above us on our ladder of technological progress, so we can't go any higher. And so far, most of us don't consider going down an option. So we're stuck, unable to go up and refusing to go down.

But we are about to become unstuck. Even as we tighten our grasp on our ladder rung, the force of what is happening is rattling that ladder and eating away the rungs that we are so desperately clinging to. We're already seeing some people fall off as their homes are lost to foreclosure or hurricanes or tsunamis, or because we want others' food to run our cars. As increasing numbers of people fall off, they take still others with them. At some point, large numbers are gone. Unstuck.

Fortunately, there is still time to unstick ourselves if we act quickly enough. We don't have to wait for the forces of change to push us. Only time will tell exactly what each of us will give up. But let's face it, a lot of what we have right now isn't making us happy anyhow. We've consumed our way through so much of our finite resources that we're at the peak of oil and natural gas, and approaching peak coal and other resources. We're exploiting our planet more than ever before in history and hitting historic highs in resource depletion, soil degradation, air and water pollution, and pushing the boundaries of climate change.

We've used up much of the world's natural resources. Fortunately, we still have our inner resources. As Richard Heinberg, a peak oil writer, has said there are "some good things that are not at or near their historic highs...":

• Community
• Personal autonomy
• Satisfaction for honest work well done
• Intergenerational solidarity
• Cooperation
• Leisure time
• Happiness
• Integrity (Peak Everything, pg.14)

Adding spirituality and personal growth to this list, we'll see that among the losses, often of things that aren't making us happy anyhow, there will be much to gain.  Somehow, we became distracted by all of our technological helpers. Most of us didn't realize they were actually lowering our quality of life and anesthetizing our spiritual selves.

When times are extremely difficult, we have to struggle just to survive. When things are going well, we become lulled into complacency. It’s the conditions in between that seem to bring out the best in us. We seem to need a challenge, an urgent challenge, to get our attention and wake us up. We have that challenge today. And opportunity. For life as we know it is about to change dramatically.

We are poised to descend the technological ladder, but integrity, satisfaction for meaningful work well done, community building, family solidarity—and spiritual growth—can still be ours. They do not depend on oil or other natural resources. They are a product not of what we dig out of the earth but of how we choose to live our lives.

It is time to realize that we have conducted a massive experiment in complicating our lives, not improving their quality. And the experiment is failing. It produced some wonderful things, like medical care, public schooling, museums, and worldwide access to information. But the cost is proving too high as even these accomplishments are now in peril.

How much we can carry down the ladder with us we do not know. So we need to choose wisely what we try to retain. As a wise woman I know has said, if we live as though there is no tomorrow, there will be no tomorrow.

Hopefully, we will be able to descend our ladder with grace and honor. It will not be easy. But it is the right thing to do.