This evening, despite the tornadoes and thunderstorms that have ravaged the South in recent weeks, despite falling trees, despite the threat to cats posed by copperhead snakes, despite the possibility of a government shutdown, despite the Fukushima nuclear emergency, despite the inconvenient truth of climate change and the swiftness of impermanence, and despite mass resignations by the Zen Center Board of Directors, Monday Night Zazen proceeded as usual.

In response to yesterday's post, I got an email from one of the Officers stating that although it may have been my impression that yesterday's resignations seemed to have been intended to inflict maximum damage on the harmony and confidence of the sangha, "each of us had experienced a deterioration of our relationships with the abbot into, frankly, severe emotional abuse . . . Each of us has been terrorized to the point that we could only make this move as a group. The least harmful way to handle this was to say the least we could." A telephone conversation with another former Officer reiterated the same point, and both expressed regret at any unintended harmful consequences.

Fair enough. I warned others that there are those who will see in yesterday's events what they will want to see, and I very may well be seeing only what I'm predisposed to want to see as well. But it takes two to argue, and I still see both the Abbott and the former Officers and Board Members taking one-sided views, and justifying their words and actions based on very valid but egocentric emotional and visceral reactions. And I really can't - and won't - blame them, because I'm not in either of their shoes.

All of this seems to have resulted from unkind words, words spoken in anger. I'm told that Matsuoka Roshi, my teacher's teacher, once said that angry thoughts are like a knife through water and leave no permanent mark. However, words spoken in anger are like a knife through sand - although they leave a mark, the scar can still be smoothed over. (Actions taken in anger are like a knife on wood and make a permanent cut that can never be repaired.) With that wise thought in mind, it may be time for harmonious words spoken out of kindness to smooth the scarred surface.

Or perhaps better yet, it is time for no words at all. The least harmful way to handle this may well indeed be to say the least that we can.