We are all saddened and truly horrified by the events of September 11, 2001. There is absolutely no justification for these crimes committed against humanity. Those who are responsible for these horrific crimes must be brought to justice and stand trial for their acts. If we are to have justice, more war and destruction is not the answer. If we are to make America and the world a safer place, we must be leaders for peace.

The cycle of violence must end at home first. During our time of mourning, we must protect our friends and neighbors who are feeling the backlash from the terrible events of September 11.

In Modesto, we must not tolerate hate crimes. Hate crimes are terrorist acts. We must not remain silent when people commit hate crimes and use racist language. Modesto must protect its own citizens through non-violence for the sake of our community.

America must not be allowed to continue the violence in the quest for justice. As the U.S. military is preparing to wage war on a foreign country to seek justice for the perpetrators who do not want peace in our world, we must not forget that war has a heavy price. Innocent civilians in the war against terrorism will be caught in the cross fire, and the soldiers who fight terrorism will surely die too. This is a heavy price to pay if the United States goes to war. The cycle of violence must end. America must become a leader for peace and freedom for all. We must courageously stand up for peace and justice to prevent the deaths of more innocent people.

Furthermore, in this time of sorrow and impulse for vengeance we must not permit civil liberties to be further diminished.

ACTION: America’s relationship with other nations and peoples is complex. Think about why some of them have grievances against us. Write Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Representative Gary Condit. Urge them to seek humane, non-violent solutions in this war on terrorism. Ask them to stop using our tax dollars for weapons sales to nations using them to stop conflicts which must be settled peacefully.

This statement is a joint effort of the Modesto Committee for Peace in the Middle East and the Board of the Modesto Peace/Life Center. 

For more information: Modesto Peace/ Life Center, 720 13th Street, P.O. Box 134, Modesto, CA 95353-01134; (209) 529-5750; modestoplc@ainet.com

A military response, particularly an attack on Afghanistan, is exactly what the terrorists want. It will strengthen and swell their small but fanatical ranks.

Bomb Afghanistan with food, rice, bread, clothing and medicine. It will cost less than conventional arms, pose no threat of US casualties and might get the populace thinking that maybe the Taliban doesn’t have all the answers. After three years of drought and looming starvation, let’s offer the Afghani people the vision of a new future, one that includes full stomachs. The Taliban are telling their people to prepare for war. Instead, let’s give the Afghani people their first good meal in years. Seeing your family fully fed and the prospect of stability in terms of food and a future is a peaceful deterrent to martyrdom.

Bomb Afghanistan with information. Send video players and cassettes of world leaders, particularly Islamic leaders, condemning terrorism. Carpet the country with magazines and newspapers, showing the horror of terrorism, committed by their guests, and show them a perspective that is denied them by their government. Saturation bombing with hope will mean that some of it gets through. Send so much that the Taliban can’t collect and hide it all.

All we ask in return is that they as a people agree to enter the civilized world, that includes handing over terrorists in their midst.

In responding to terrorism we need to do something different. Something unexpected, something that addresses the root of the problem. We need to take away the well of despair, ignorance and brutality from which the Osama bin Ladens of the world water their gardens of terror.

It is important that we learn to think in NEW ways. If we continue attacking in the old ways we will get the same old results. Look at what has been happening in the Middle East for thousands of years to see what we can expect if we attack with bombs and military force.

Dear friends around the world:

The events of this day [September 11, 2001] cause every thinking person to stop their daily lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it—and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate ourselves as a human species, so that we will never treat each other this way again.

The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the highest level our most extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are. There are two possible responses to what has occurred today, The first comes from love, the second from fear.

If we come from fear we may panic and do things—as individuals and as nations—that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others.

This is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What you teach at this time, through your every word and action right now, will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose lives you touch, both now, and for years to come.

We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment. Let us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause. Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will never remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we will forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family who feel aggrieved, and, likewise, seek retribution from them.

To us (Buddhist thinkers] the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have not been listening to God, and because we have not, we watch ourselves do ungodly things.

The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is simple: Love, [in] this and every moment.

If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome?

These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at all.

If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be experienced by our children and our children’s children, we will have to become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that to happen. We must choose to be a cause in the matter.

So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people around the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the Light that dispels all fear.

That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today. Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and hatred—and the disparity that inevitably causes it—in that part of the world which I touch?

Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence that is You. What can you do TODAY ... [at] this very moment? A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to experience, provide for another.

Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience—in your own life, and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the source of that. If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another. If you wish to know that you are safe, cause [others] to know that they are safe. If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help another to better understand.

If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another.

Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for love.

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

Dalai Lama

The World In One Year

I think that feeling was true,
the world will slowly crumble,
under the marching feet of armies,
under the planes that crash to earth,
under us all.

Under the greed of mankind,
under the chemicals put there by man,
underneath the sky, all is falling.

Everything can stand,
But everything can fall.

Strong persons have feelings, too,
and brick walls crumble.

- Phoebe Tyson