Defuse Me
Mushin
If I were a bomb
ready to explode,
if I have become
dangerous to your life,
then you must take care of me.
You think you can get away from me,
but how?
I am here, right in your midst.
(You cannot remove me from your life.)
And I may explode
at any time.
I need your care.
I need your time.
I need you to defuse me.
You are responsible for me,
because you have made the vow (and I heard it)
to love and to care.
I know that to take care of me
you need much patience,
much coolness.
I realize that in you there is also a bomb to be defused.
So why don't we help each other?
I need you to listen to me.
No one has listened to me.
No one understands my suffering,
including the ones who say they love me.
The pain inside me
is suffocating me.
It is the TNT
that makes up the bomb.
There is no one else
who will listen to me.
That is why I need you.
But you seem to be getting away from me.
You want to run for safety,
the kind of safety
that does not exist.
I have not created my own bomb.
It is you.
It is society.
It is family.
It is school.
It is tradition.
So please don't blame it on me.
Come and help;
if not, I will explode.
This is not a threat.
It is only a plea for your help.
I will also be of help
when it is your turn.
- Thich Nath Hahn
Access: Public
acceptance
August 2008 
Yes, this is really the truth behind the violence - the truth we would rather not see. Thanks for the reminder.
Smiling - to come to this point and see you here, dear Uma.
The poem. Nothing to be said, it says it already. At first I thought it was yours, Mushin and I was going to drag you to the Diving Deeper pod, but I see it’s the wonderous Thich. And it is you too, of course.
I have not created my own bomb.
It is you.
It is society.
(But society does not want to see that. Society wants to blame. Society created a life-framework wherein everyone is every other’s enemy and rival, and says “I didnt create that”. Money based world, wherein our real interactions are the business-based ones. I m just the marginalized; I observe but am not a part of this. Who wants to belong to such a world?
“There is no ‘you’ separate from society.”
My take is that I am society, society is me. I cannot blame anyone or thing for I am it: I cannot say I am not part of this. With every violent thought I am part of it. I belong because I cannot not belong, I am here. So, what then?
I need your care.
I need your time.
I need you to defuse me.
~ Sandra
The Mirror….
I cannot blame others for my own ignorance, for fears that arise, for anything! I am you and you are me… We are one within one another…. so how can we come to a point of sharing the best we can be with one another.?.. I'll start by listening to you…. b/c you will tell me things I am not aware of about me… and then, with patience & a lot of gentle conversation, real caring, maybe we can see, really see how much we are alike….. in all the ways that we are alike…. and too, come to appreciate & respect our unique differences….
Will you help me see the real me? Will you help me rise above the distinctions & differences that divide us? Will you join with me in diffusing all the bombs between us?
PJ
This certainly puts things in perspective, don't you think?
Some of our bombs weren't diffused in time, you know. Virginia Tech comes to mind. There are many others, all around us.
I'm listening …
We're just working on communication here at the seminar this weekend… and diffusing bombs in our mind, and heart and each other - that seems to be what communication is about often.
Diffusing bombs; it is helpful in really appreciating the bomb in the first place.
Sounds maybe strange, I know. But the bomb is a way, sometimes the only one - as I've been learning from people relating their stories so far here - to be noticed, to get some attention.
And we might not like it, but attention is much craved for!
Giving total attention - as total as possible, that is - to someone ticking… not in fear, not in 'Come on now! Become peaceful!', not in any way demanding anything… but freely giving the attention we have, authentic presence… not even the slightest thought of demanding you to not be the bomb you are….
I feel that is what the poem is asking us to consider - as a real possibility.
Whatever society wants to see, whatever anyone wants to see - or says or behaves like he/she wants to see… this I can give, this I want to give: real presence, real attention.
You might ask why, and I don't really know. Why would anybody in his right mind want to give attention, loving presence to someone that might explode any moment? Because of sheer intensity? Yes, maybe.
For me, if I would have to give a reason - and really my heart's will is beyond reason alltogether - I would say because I don't want you to destroy yourself and what I love in its wake.
Loving the bomb, hearing the tick-tick-tick - it's an alarm clock!
Good morning brothers and sisters, it's a brand new morning on this planet, a brand new day for…
“If time is my vessel, then learning to love may be my way to the sea ”– Interpol; Antics – From the Song Public Pervert
Oh its great to find a post like this! Hello follow friends who see the world as their reflection.
If you are willing to take full accountability for the world, then the confusion comes to rest as to why the world is the way it is. I consider the common person, projecting judgements onto George Bush for projecting missiles onto Others… unaware of the similarity… unable to make the connection. Love the inner bomb. Love the inner terrorist. See how you are exactly the same as everything you see eventually reflected in the world. And by love it I mean recognise how you are the same as it and if you feel to change that explosive dynamic within you, do everything you can to change those ways. Present to the world a new example in seeing unity between things. In your very presence by becoming more loving you do actually become a becon of peace. In my opinion, the more things you can identify with and fuse in your mind and love wholeheartedly, the greater impact you can have on the world. Basically, the things you love, the things you can interact with and have influence of. Without that love, its impossible to breach and you’re just involved in the same war of ignorance.
We are so intimately connected to this whole situation it is crazy. So we are crazy, and crazy people need crazy solutions… like hugging bombs. Like unloading your own personal missiles and attacks on the world.
Why love? Its easy…. what is the need for projection of any kind? A missile, a bomb, a judgement? Its brought about because of the focus on seperation, yes? Its brought about because of that feeling that the motives are not the same… that there is something dischord. That feeling of opposition gives birth to the need to create distance, and with distance comes polarity. It seems on this great ball we inhabit, the harder you try to pull away from something, eventually you snap in the other direction and the thing you’re trying to get away from confronts you good and strong.
Recognising the similarity closes the gap.. allows for communication to take place. Its not rational, but a leap of faith has kind of got to be made to see how you could possibly have anything in common with the most horrible creations on this planet. Just because there bombs doesn’t mean you’re a bomb… but in my view, you are a creative god… the tiniest angry outburst in your mind fractals out to a red dwarf exploding in some distant galaxy.
What else can we defuse?
People with guns in schools. So whats the problem there? what do we need to love there? How can I possibly relate to a kid in school with a gun? How do those kids feel… they feel under pressure… fear of fitting in.. right? Don’t we all feel that? Don’t we all feel misunderstood? How do you act when you feel misunderstood? How do you feel when you lose something important to you because you were misunderstood? Want to burst out in an emotional despair?
Dancing with bombs in the real world.
Why is it that we lunge for peace and love and shy away from conflict and pain? They are all aspects of the whole that is manifested by the Absolute. Will we ever be big enough to embrace it all? Even if I explode, you are unharmed. Even if you explode, you are unharmed. What is harmed is only my illusion. My delusion that I am not that. To take care of the bombs, we simply have to be with what is.
Being with what is is not enough on the evolving edge of our kosmos. But we cannot live as the instrument of the absolute unless we can first be with what is in authentic equanimity. The state of my gut, my heart and my mind is the only true measure of how I am doing on this path. Where is my fear? Where is my violence? Where is my refusal? There is my precious teacher.
Yes, and more yes.
“The state of my gut, my heart and my mind is the only true measure of how I am doing on this path.”
My 'automatic' reaction to the various ticking bombs in my life is:
NO. Stop. Go away. I don't like that. This is not 'right'.
I've been doing a simple practise: whenever a sensation, situation, person, thing or experience arises which I pull away from, I simply breathe it - whatever it is - in.
It’s not exactly the same as the Tibetan tonglen practice of “taking over and giving,” it is more about being “purely present” for what is, and this seems to connect me to a space of boundarilessness.
Love to all
Sandra
As I sit stationary in a traffic jam on the actual “road to hell” contemplating Whitewolf's ”non-silence” - the queues of cars either side of me begin to slowly move forward and my mind “morphs” into consideration of Running Fox's ”focus on the present before moving into the future” & Whitewolf's “take” that - there is only one place I know where I can see the past the future and the present and that is when I drive. I am sitting on a comfortable seat while moving forward and I glance in the rear view mirror every now and again - and as ever before AM reminded that - I AM that non-silence, I AM that traffic jam, I AM that “road to hell” …
and by ”tuning into the silence that does not exist” - ONLY LOVE will conquer ALL when WE ALL become merchants of love
Everyone here has contributed the exact right response to Mushin's moving blog entry. Sandra is absolutely correct in her assertion that there is no you separate from society, and Peggy J speaks in the voice of the wounded bomber appealing. “All attack is a call for love” says A Course In Miracles. Mushin is so right; to be present with such a one…is to be there, standing for him/her, demonstrating our unconditional love and acceptance that no doubt he/she has never once experienced, no not even once.
Yeshe asks : Where is my fear? Where is my violence? Where is my refusal? There is my precious teacher. The terrorist all around us also lies within us, this insight alone is an invaluable jewel. There opens a space for ….something new, something whole to emerge…and Sandra once again sees that to turn away to judge to say stop doesnt stop it, it just buries it deeper.
In this dialogue initiated by wise Thay, I am beginning to see the real hope of what zaadz can begin to do. I am gladdened for this and my heart leaps with joy. THANK YOU!