difficult to hear you are heroes

In March of 2024, at the Monastic Academy in Lowell, VT, our Head Teacher Soryu Forall gave an evening talk in the main hall. It was on the subject of violence through history and how the State’s monopoly on violence provides a context that allows humans to collaborate peacefully—a peace made possible by an ever-present threat of violence.

A number of incidents disrupted the flow of the lecture.

Before it even began, it was found that Yeshe’s car was stuck on the driveway. Zopa and Virabhadra left to help her, and all three missed the first hour.

Koshin almost missed the first hour if not for my coordinated intervention to find someone else to be with Phil during his retreat, as he was struggling.

After the talk began, more disruptions arose.

Pepi, a village dog, began barking outside. Ananda had to get up and leave in order to quiet her down.

Noises were coming from the hallway; Bodhi shut the door.

Soryu said to the Head Monk Namgyal: “You know this is your responsibility, right?” Namgyal silently nodded, but I wasn’t sure he understood the implications. Seemingly right after, Keshin opened the door and stepped into the main hall. She scooted out of the room upon realizing she was interrupting something.

Soryu asked “What was that?” He couldn’t see Keshin from where he was. I explained. I put somewhat more probability on Namgyal not understanding the job he was assigned, but at this moment, I did nothing to fix it.

About an hour into the talk, Virabhadra came in from the outside. The talk was stopped yet again. Virabhadra shed his outdoor clothes and found his seat. The talk continued. Sometime later, Yeshe and Zopa crept in through the kitchen door, got chairs, and sat down as well. (At this point, ALL four doors to the main hall had been used during this talk.)

Soryu asked something like: “Do they know this affects things? It has an impact.”

Koshin asked: “What does?”

I said: “The coming and going. It disrupts the container.”

In response to Soryu, Koshin said: “Not well enough.”

We managed to finish the talk and ask Soryu questions at the end, as usual, but the energy of the evening was scattered and jarring.

I spent some time pondering why this occurred. I sensed that the topic of deep-rooted violence in civilization, century after century, was perhaps one that MAPLE’s egregore or group mind was not ready to fully face. It was spazzing out. It didn’t know how to sit still and take it in.

I felt an agitation and restlessness in the group. I looked around at them and felt into the ancient karmic connections between all the people here—how we have all been the oppressors and oppressed, victims and villains. I thought, yes this is a lot to hold.

The next day, during lunch, Soryu surprised the group by showing up and offering an impromptu lunch topic. I was appreciative when he revealed that he had also been considering why the group mind reacted the way it did during the previous night’s talk. I was eager to learn his perspective on it.

Soryu said something unsurprising and then surprising. The unsurprising thing was that the group is in fact attuned, paying attention, knowing what it’s doing. The implication is that what happened last night was not an assortment of random accidents or slip-ups, but that the group mind was in a collective reaction, even preemptive to the talk itself, which caused the problems. (This does not imply that the group was consciously coordinated in some way. Much of this seemed to happen without individuals’ conscious awareness.)

The surprising thing Soryu said was that the difficult thing to hear was this: “You are heroic. You are heroes.” This was the thing the group was avoiding, unable to take in, and spazzing out about. I didn’t expect Soryu to say that.

Choosing non-violence, going outside the frame—this was an act of heroism, Soryu said. He said he saw us as these heroes. My mind went blank in order to receive this, and the room felt still.

Somehow, discussing this over lunch relieved my mind, and some obstruction fell back. The group mind seemed to have shifted once again, but I didn’t know exactly in what way.