Dear friends,
I'd like you to close your eyes and come with me on a journey.
Back past the turn of the century.
Through the 90s.
Back through the 80s.
Back to 1972.
The location?
Vietnam.
The image?
A nine year old Vietnamese girl,
Kim,
Running naked in the street after a napalm bomb exploded on her village.
She was screaming in Vietnamese,
Too hot,
Too hot.
It took ten years for Kim's burns to be treated,
To the point where she could move properly again.
Kim still bears the scars today,
But she works for peace.
Another image from the same war is that of a man being shot in the head by a South Vietnamese general and chief of police.
Now it is known that the man who was shot was a member of the Viet Cong and he had committed atrocities himself.
But he was unarmed and handcuffed when he was shot.
No judge,
No jury.
A gun to the head.
Some of you may have heard the Simon and Garfunkel song,
The Sound of Silence.
It refers to a vision being planted in my brain,
Which still remains.
These images are planted firmly in my own brain.
Images that remind me of what we are capable of,
If we allow ourselves to slip from what we know to be the better way.
And these two images planted themselves in the brains of people across the world.
The horror of the two images played their part in bringing an end to the Vietnam War.
But by far the worst image that I've seen is the video of George Floyd,
The 46 year old African American pinned to the ground by a white police officer.
George died pleading for his life during 8 minutes of hell.
His repeated gasp,
I can't breathe,
I can't breathe,
Is an appeal that we will never forget.
Like those awful images from Vietnam,
We hope and pray that this graphic video of the killing of George Floyd will bring about a long overdue change of heart.
A change of heart in people who up to now have treated other people as lesser beings just because of the colour of their skin.
Because of this video I believe there can be no going back.
We have all seen the horror.
Things have to change.
We have to change.
This will end.
Equality will come about.
All lives matter of course.
For too long people have suffered death and abuse by reason of difference of skin colour,
Gender,
Age,
Sexual orientation.
The painful list goes on.
But in these days the particular mistreatment and abuse of people of colour is graphically and horrifically brought to the light of day and we must all take up the challenge of saying decisively and repeatedly black lives matter.
They do and this long endured mistreatment of long suffering people of colour must come to an end.
A final thought.
Breeding exercises are so much part of mindfulness practice.
Amyte Ray tells us,
Breath is the finest gift of nature,
Be grateful for this wonderful gift.
We recall George Floyd's last words,
I can't breathe,
Repeated time and time again as he lay pinned to the ground.
Each time we sit in meditation and mindfully taking in a life giving breath,
The finest gift of nature as it is called.
Let us think of George and people like him who have suffered and died because of difference.
And ask ourselves what can we do to make things better so that all people can breathe freely.
If we work on this there'll be no going back and the awful death of George Floyd will not have been in vain.
Namaste.
