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| Taking a break between meditation periods on The Selection Ramp. |
I knew I wanted to sign up for the retreat at Auschwitz as soon as I learned about it last February. I
was reading a book about socially-engaged Buddhism, a path of special interest
to me, when Bernie Glassman’s work with the Zen Peacemakers first came to my attention.
Bernie, a Zen Buddhist teacher now
living on the East Coast, has organized annual retreats at Auschwitz for the
past 18 years. The intention is to gather together a diverse group of people to
“bear witness” to genocide and other human acts that are difficult (maybe impossible) to understand with the thinking, rational mind. The
Peacemakers, an order of Zen Buddhism Bernie founded, believe that by sitting
and walking with an attitude of “not knowing,” by being fully present for
whatever Auschwitz has to teach, a profound learning about the human
condition can take place.
When I read about the retreat, I
immediately heard myself say, “I want to do that.” And soon after, heard my voice
of self-doubt ask, “Why?” Nine months later, I landed in Krakow and, as I
waited in line in the airport terminal to exchange euros for Polish zloty,
heard an American voice ask, “Peacemaker?” I smiled an enthusiastic, “Yes!”
Between that first intuitive but still
shaky “yes” and the second confident one, came all the voices of friends and family.
The most common reaction upon hearing me say "Auschwitz" was some version of “Why
on earth would you want to do that?!” Even when their bewilderment was unspoken, they seemed surprised, even shocked. But a few, especially friends who are
meditators, seemed to understand the desire to look deeply at what is hard to
look at. Some got the concept of deciding to do something without knowing
exactly why. One old friend, a Jewish woman who had visited
Sachsenhausen, the concentration camp outside of Berlin, said, “You must go!” Another
even considered coming along.
So I told myself, “Maybe” and set out to try
to dispel my own doubts if not those of others. I studied the Peacemakers
website, looking for clues about whether this was for me: What kind of teacher was
this Bernie? What kind of people did such a thing? Was I too old? How physically
fit did one have to be to “sit in meditation by the tracks” at Birkenau. . . in November?
I emailed Ginni, the registration contact person, with my bio and talked with
her on the phone.
I bought Bernie’s book, “Bearing
Witness,” and, by the time I had finished reading it, my doubts had receded into
the background. (Well, except for doubts about whether my many layers—undershirt,
long underwear, cotton pullover, wool sweater, down sweater, microfiber jacket,
rain jacket and waterproof pants—were enough to keep me warm and dry. Those
doubts I never completely let go of!)
Bernie, I learned, was not your “typical”
Zen teacher—if there is such a thing. I stopped worrying about having to be a “good
student” when I learned that he had been known to assume the persona of a clown
named “the Bubbiesattva.” (Google “Bodhisattva” if you don’t get the joke.) Bernie
did “street retreats” in the Bowery to bear witness to homelessness. Also, Bernie
was even older than I. If Bernie could do it. . .I could do it!
As for what kind of person signs on
for this retreat, Ginni assured me there would be people with many different “reasons”
for joining the group, including people who had a reason similar to mine.
Besides many Jews from Israel, the U.S. and Europe who came to remember the victims,
there were sure to be Germans, probably some with direct family ties to the perpetrators.
Like me, Germans who had come on past retreats, Ginni said, had often experienced a life-long sense of pain because of
their national identity. Like me, these German people usually felt a deep desire
for peace within themselves and in the world.
Ginni assured me that I was not alone
in what I felt, and she also gave me the perfect way to answer my (and others’)
doubts. She reminded me of one of the three tenets of the Zen Peacemakers: not knowing, keeping the mind open, letting go of fixed ideas. I didn't have to
know “why.” I only needed to trust my intuition that something in me and in the
world might be healed by bearing witness to the horror of what took place at
Auschwitz. I could, and would, simply keep saying, “I don’t know exactly why I’m
going, but it feels right.”
And, in fact, it was.
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| Walking out of Birkenau Death Camp (Auschwitz II) at the end of the day. |
