By Paul Volker

This is not a recipe for direct action. However, when political problems become military actions, people get restless. Perhaps this story is a description of direct inaction.

When President George Bush announced that the U.S. would begin bombing Iraq on Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, January 1991, I became unusually restless. "Operation Desert Storm" was, perhaps, the first U.S. military effort to be given a catchy name. Up until then, wars were usually named for the places where they occurred, or were numbered (WW1, WW2) but this was different. It was a new product being sold to American consumers, many of whom couldn't even locate Iraq or Kuwait on a map.

We are so accustomed to being sold things we didn't know we wanted and perhaps don't need, such as treatments for male baldness. Our society thrives on marketing quick solutions. Why should selling war be any different?

Americans were informed not only where the "operation" would take place, but also why we so eagerly wanted it. Here was a war you could buy, a war you could have fun fighting with a little extra spending money. Hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers, decorative china plates and more. And when it was over stores had clearance sales: "ALL DESERT STORM MERCHANDISE 50% OFF".

Of course, thousands were opposed to the upcoming attack and were already mobilizing protests. But weeks before the scheduled bombing of Baghdad, the anti-war movement itself had already split into two major factions, each with their own separate agendas, strategies and events.

In the poetic discourse by Seng-T'san, "On Believing in mind" are these four lines:

Abide not with dualism,
Carefully avoid pursuing it;
As soon as we have right and wrong
Confusion ensues, and Mind is lost."

This seems to be the crucial point. We don't need to have "Buddhists for this" and "Buddhists against that". A philosophy devoted to compassion may have activist implications, but dharma practice is primarily a meditative discipline, a personal journey and not a call to social agitation. At the same time, as laypeople we are not isolated from our communities. So how can one take a stand without choosing sides?

I copied off a few flyers announcing a "sixty hour meditation" which I left at a campus area coffeehouse. I painted a banner on an old window shade to display on the sidewalk:

This is a 60-hour peace vigil and meditation for all living beings. It is to remind those who may forget--that life is precious and to be a human is rare and wonderful. To trash even one life or to waste human potential is insanity. Peace is humanity. This vigil is not to argue politics or cause trouble, but is dedicated to all life. You are asked to reflect on the value of life. If you can pause to do this for even 60 seconds, you will have made this 60-hour vigil worthwhile. Thank you.
(If you have any questions please direct them to yourself and then look for the answer inside of you)
Please light a stick of incense and dedicate it to someone you love.

On Sunday morning I went to the Buddhist center. It seemed like a good way to begin.

A friend dropped me off in front of the Federal Building in Columbus, Ohio, with a wood forklift palette to sit on, some blankets and water. The air was cool and crisp. The sky was clear. I was quite warm, and spent the afternoon sitting alone. That evening, some friends brought coffee. We wondered what would come. Would the guards try to make me leave? If so, what could I do? I remembered an old story about a wolf that allows some geese to say their final prayers before he eats them. One goose starts, then another, then another and to avoid being eaten they just keep going. A Buddhist ritual can go on for an awfully long time, I thought. If one includes slow chanting, it could go on for days.

Very late that evening, a young man came by, somewhat intoxicated, on his way home from a local dance club. He didn't like the idea of bombing Iraq. He wanted to know why the government wasn't more focused on fighting AIDS. He had HIV. We shared a cup of coffee. He said he thought about life and death every day. People have so many opinions about this and that. Any of us could perish at any moment, and I wondered, what do symbolic protests really amount to?

On Sunday nights, downtown Columbus is dead. At least, very quiet. You can hear the hum of street lamps, and I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, two federal building guards were tapping me on the shoulder and handing me a cup of coffee. It was around 6:30 Monday morning. They asked if I was all right, and if I needed anything. They informed me that I had the right to conduct this event. They wanted some idea of what it was I was doing, or going to do, or not going to do. Maybe they thought I was going to incinerate myself. They told me they were also obliged to protect my right to be doing what I was doing.

On Monday, many people paused to read the banner. Many lit sticks of incense from a candle I had burning, and then paused a bit longer. A man in Navy uniform lit a stick of incense, bent down on one knee and prayed. I realized that this was not a "protest" in the usual sense. Participation was by office workers, visitors, downtown-hangarounds... people one does not usually find screaming slogans and waving signs in angry rallies. The donation can was beginning to fill up with change and dollar bills. I really hadn't thought of a use for the money. When street people came by asking if I had any money to spare, I told them to help themselves. Nobody ever took all of it. There was always a couple of dollars left.

Perhaps what a Buddhist perspective can offer is an opportunity to step back, to return to some of the basics of humanity. Nothing too heavy, Just scratching the surface of awareness a tiny bit, reminding people that we are all quietly connected.

This perspective can also present, to others, a comparative context. If you are offering calmness, what does a chaotic individual, see when they look? When people see you, what do they see in themselves?

So many people stopped and looked, and burned hundreds of sticks of incense. I was not asking for much, but in fact, I was asking for a lot. I was asking people to stop. Just stop. Sometimes you just have to stop. For ten seconds, for a minute. It is very hard for people to stop. Asking someone to stop for a whole minute is practically unthinkable.

I asked people to stop for just sixty seconds, in the comparative context of my sixty hours. Most people cannot imagine sitting still for sixty hours. The very notion challenges them to ask themselves whether they are even capable of stopping for a moment or two. Can doing "nothing" cause people to confront themselves? We are already expected to confront the enemy, or the government, or the war. Rarely are we asked to confront ourselves in that process. To do so requires stepping out of the emotional/political whirlwind and hype for a few moments.

Choosing sides is not automatically a bad thing. Perhaps the problems arise when we assume "I am this---I am that" based on those one-sided constructs. Everyone has opinions. Maybe it's the attachment to those opinions, and the violent confrontations that often result from that attachment, which not only perpetuates a warful world but also hinders efforts at realizing a peaceful one.

Giving others the opportunity to confront themselves provides people with a framework from within which to ask, "why do I believe this? Where do my opinions come from?"

By asking someone to stop and think about people they love, about how they will feel when those loved ones are gone, and to think, just for a minute, about people just like them on the other side of the planet, you allow that person a chance to go back to start, back to "their original face, before their political views were born".

On Monday, a man asked me, confronting me in fact, "Well, don't you think that a war is ever justified?" I told him maybe, maybe not. I just wanted people to stop and think. He kept asking me. He was very dissatisfied with my wishy-washy response. The purely pacifist position is that no matter what, violence is always wrong. Battles are never justified. But, with all things being interconnected as Buddhism suggests, absolute right and wrong conclusions may not be fully accurate.

Whether or not a war has the long-term result of ending suffering, and whether in one's opinion a military assault is waged in order to stop ruthless tyrants or maximize corporate profits, and for that matter whether one's actions are for or against a military action (justified or not), events of non-peace provide opportunities for inner-peace to emerge by bringing people back to the very basic issue that unites all of humanity: all beings desire to be free from suffering. This is why we want peace. Unfortunately, this is also why we wage war.

That morning was also the inaugural parade of Columbus' newly elected Republican mayor. This brought a lot of people out of their downtown offices and onto the sidewalk. A large parade balloon of King Babar The Elephant was made to tip forward, as if bowing, in order to fit under an overstreet footbridge. Things were taking a surreal twist.

The soon-to-be sworn politician passed, waving from his convertible. We made eye contact for less than a second. I waved back. He and his entourage had looks of obvious surprise at this heap of a person camped out on the sidewalk in wafts of incense smoke. He quickly looked away, and waved to the crowd on the opposite side of the street.

During that afternoon, people brought coffee, baked potatoes wrapped in foil (to be tucked inside my coat for warmth as well as to be eaten) and a pizza.

The pizza was made by two young people who had perfected the art of grocery-store dumpster diving. Slightly bruised tomatoes, subtly wrinkled green peppers and onions from a bag where one was bad, and a home-made crust. Mostly-perfect cheese. It was delicious. It was a pizza made for peace, and it's two chefs beamed in delight of having beat the system in order to produce it.

As the afternoon turned into evening, the downtown emptied again. I was getting a little tired and glad to have quiet time to just sit. That evening, the night security guard came out of the federal building every hour or so and we chatted. He said he was worried about the bombing and wondered what would happen afterwards.

In the very early hours of Tuesday morning I suddenly realized that I had been flopped over, asleep. I awoke to the sound of sneakers pounding pavement as a night jogger sped by. My eyes tried to focus and the squares of the sidewalk in front of me kaleidoscoped and for a moment I didn't remember where I was. It was the first time during this event that I felt scared. Had I been out in the January cold too long? Was I dehydrated? I stood up, walked around and swept cigarette butts and other debris with the broom I had brought, and then walked down the street to a 24-hour burger place and used the bathroom. I bought a large coffee, and stayed awake the rest of the night.

As the sun came up I thought about this last day of this vigil. A friend had called the local TV stations and asked if they had come by to interview me. No, they hadn't. He said a demonstration was planned for noon that day, a few blocks south at the state capital building, and people would march here to the federal building for more demonstrating. This was it. A big day of ...who knew what? At midnight The U.S. would bomb Baghdad.

Federal building guards came outside and asked me, very politely, if I knew anything about what the demonstrators had planned. I didn't know any more than they did. One of said that while they didn't all agree with what I was doing, "we all admire your conviction" .

Here I realized that by not stating a confrontational position, by not taking sides, I was playing a very pivotal role. The word was all over about "this guy who is sitting outside for 60 hours for peace". The Federal Guards worried about a riot.

Just before noon, the echo of anti-war chanting preceded the hundred or so marching demonstrators. As they crossed the street and began filling the sidewalk around me, most of them lit sticks of incense. They expressed their support for the 60-hour vigil.

There is a post office just inside the building. A frail, elderly woman came outside in sudden awe, worrying how she could maneuver through the crowd to a van waiting for her at the curb. I stood up and escorted her through the crowd, safely to her ride.

I had become a buffer zone, a non-confrontational, non-angry point of reference for people on both sides. The guards felt that because of the respect the crowd had given me, there would be no violence, no rock throwing. The demonstrators also realized that I had set a precedent for them. I had been sitting peacefully for two and a half days so there was a good chance that the police would not come out cracking heads. Nobody wanted a showdown, I had established a peace zone, and I was their witness.

Tuesday moved faster than Monday. Evening came even faster and with it, a whole new group of people, an older crowd, people in their 40's and '50's. People holding hands, holding candles, standing silently or singing "we shall overcome".

By 11:00 p.m. my little corner of time and space was packed with people. A TV reporter finally showed up. "What are you going to do now?" she asked. "I've been here for three days. Where were you?" I responded. I didn't make the news. I didn't care. Another friend pulled up in her truck and we tossed in all my stuff. A meeting was scheduled at a local church for later that night. I was planning to go. But I went to a friend's house and fell asleep watching the little green trails of missiles over Baghdad on TV.

I came away with three lessons from that experience that satisfied my restlessness. You don't need to be a crowd, you do need to show some sacrifice, and by doing nothing, you inadvertently force neutrality on people.

We tend to respond to events with gut-level reactions, habitual responses. Even when we always respond with calm intellectual analysis, this is automatic. When political events turn to military actions, people are quick to get angry, to want to be right about everything. Make signs and see how big of a crowd you can get for a couple of hours to shout things. Try to get on TV. Then what? Go home, see if you were on TV, and try to keep the momentum growing. In a world where people often feel isolated, demonstrations are important. They let you know that there are others out there who want peace as much as you do. They may influence policy makers. But they are not the only ways that people can respond to military actions.

I thought up a term, "Forced Neutrality". Maybe it's not the best term, but it means, in the context of a world where everyone is choosing sides, instead of adding to that duality, creating a space or situation where people must reconsider the basics, and by doing so have to turn off their opinions for a moment, and just get back to humanity, to life.

There is a need to show that people are willing to make sacrifices for what they believe. To be persuasive, you have to give something up. I felt it was important to be there, quietly waiting. By giving up sixty hours, I made it possible for others to give up sixty seconds. People saw me when they showed up for work Monday morning, and when they went out to lunch, and then again that night, and then the next morning, like a stray cat at the back door.

I felt it was important to be there in order to cause people confront their own sense of caring. In fact, I never felt cold at all, and certainly not bored. There can be something very calming about sitting, doing sitting meditation, in an environment filled with continuous automobile noises, footsteps, and the brief scraps of conversations of passers-by.
Peace, after all, isn't nothing. It's noisy, chaotic, incredibly Something.