Diplomatic Relations
Today I sat in Roxbury Memorial Park in Beverly Hills writing a letter. As I wrote, the picnic table began to shake sideways for 10-15 seconds. A 4.9-magnitude earthquake had struck about 80 miles away from Los Angeles. I looked around the park at children scampering about, retirees jogging, workmen digging holes, and youths playing basketball; no one seemed to notice the earth rocking beneath them.
* * *
The Zen Center Board met to discuss, among other issues, whether we are doing enough to build bridges between our Caucasian and Korean communities.
Paul, the Center’s spiritual leader, is a Korean-American who arrived in the States as a child. He is a Korean speaker, but as he listened to us talk about Korean etiquette he sometimes shook his head and said, “I don’t get that stuff – it makes me crazy sometimes.”
At one point, our senior monk, Ven. Mu Sang, teased Paul about moving back to Korea for a while so he could get in touch with his roots. Paul said, “I’d get in big trouble over there.”
“So you’ll adjust, you’ll learn Korean style again.”
Paul said, “Maybe they’ll have to learn my style!”
At which Mu Sang retorted, triumphantly: “Now that’s a Korean!”
* * *
An actual quote, uttered today by my organization’s national Director of Interreligious Affairs, during a meeting in which he announced the launch of a new interethnic and interreligious initiative:
“As for Sri Lanka… Thank God for the Buddhists, because they are killing Hindus.”
I wondered who he had killed to get this job.
