Gone, gone, gone, to the other shore

This was an email that I sent to my family after September 11th:

I am far from home, working hard every day on my documentary, having computer problems, and am not doing as much Zen/kung fu training as I'd like to, due to the fact that I'm exhausted. Yuki has said that she's not sure why I'm sending this… I'm not either… guess I just wanted to share some thoughts that I had today with those I love:

Dear family,

I'm sure that in times like these it doesn't take a yoga master to feel the strange energy… or chi in the air. For myself, I have been feeling lots of this strange chi ever since I arrived in Sri Lanka. A friend of ours who is very spiritual says that it is from all of the fighting in the north of Sri Lanka. Actually, I believe her. Negative energy (and positive energy as well) have infinite chain reaction effects. In addition to this, televising negative or angry emotions actually amplifies the effects of this kiai. I have, in truth, been almost unable to eat. I also feel a very hot … or angry chi through my whole body.

As I had mentioned to my father this morning, although this act of violation is media worthy and poignant to the status of the world view of westerners, this tragedy is not as big or any more important than the many sufferings that go un-noticed throughout the world… ethnic cleansing in Africa for instance. Yes, I feel an unbearable compassion for this tragedy… but such an act also serves to bring to my awareness the suffering happening all over the world. Suffering and images we usually try to block from our minds.

Yesterday's events on American soil are not unique. In fact tragedy is as much a part of life as joy. Indeed it can even be stated that tragedy is joy and that joy is tragedy and that these are constructs of our minds… unable to exist without one another. But for us who are unenlightened to this truth (me included) it is clear that our perception of tragedy and joy have noticeable effects on our lives.

Even though thousands of lives have been claimed by this terrorism, how many more lives will be claimed by malnutrition, cancer, aids, and car accidents? Indeed suffering is all-pervasive. But just as there is no end to suffering, there is no end to joy as well.

I would like to end by quoting from the Hagakure (a samurai manual):

It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this.

There is nothing outside the thought of the immediate moment.

A famous Chinese monk is said to have awaken from a dream where he was a butterfly. At that moment he was unable to say whether he was a Butterfly dreaming that he was a Monk, or a Monk who was dreaming that he was a Butterfly.