December 27, 2008
Today, ten days short of the official holiday, I had a little epiphany.
It is a Saturday which has evolved into “church” day for me, the one day a week when my routine is actually predictable by the clock. I’m up and out by 8 a.m. (applause) to swim before attending the Dharma Talk at the San Francisco Zen Center. I consume nothing but water this morning. I fast (as I once did according to Catholic Church law) before receiving this latter-day “communion” with fellow sangha members. (Sangha is a Sanskrit word that might loosely be translated as “congregation.”) I don’t know why but I pay better attention (and generally work better) on an empty stomach.
This morning, driving to the pool, I noticed the thought that arose was one that keeps tugging at me: How can I make my work as a writer more beneficial to the world? I don’t disparage the entertainment and inspirational value that mine or any book may have for readers. These are important things that feed us, our hearts, minds, and souls—but beyond that, can I be doing more? One wild and crazy thought: Wouldn’t it be cool if I could get tango dancers across the nation to unite and pass the torch for peace (in all its forms) to the January 20, 2009 inauguration? We would do this by passing the tango embrace, a simple hug, starting here on the West Coast, the Left Coast, ’cause here is where I live, and sending it out, across streets, villages, towns, cities, states, all the way to the District of Columbia.
This morning, I was so pleased to see that my Great Teacher, Blanche Hartman, would be giving the lecture. In an uncanny case of synchronicity, Blanche answered my nagging question. She began by talking about a book she had read in her youth, Microbe Hunter, about a doctor who had saved many in Africa from Yellow Fever and perhaps other infectious diseases. Blanche, who later became a chemist, thought at the time, “Yes, I want to save the world, too!” After her career as a chemist, Blanche and her husband, Lou, went on to become Buddhists in mid-life. She noted, to the sound of audibly helpless sighs around the room, how many end-of-year appeals we all get to help people who need our help immediately. There are people in states of acute suffering: The orphanages that care for the children orphaned by the tsunami two years ago are running out of money, not to mention the horrors being inflicted, even as I write, in Darfur. And, surely those affected by past civil uprisings in Rwanda and Sierra Leone still need our help. Not to mention the chronic suffering of homeless, hungry, indigent, and sick without medical coverage in our own country. I’m sure you can add to this list. It’s overwhelming.
Blanche told a parable whose message was that, of course, we cannot end all the suffering in the world. But right here, right now, we do have the power to do something so simple, so bold, so intimate, so ultimately far-reaching in its effects: to be kind, a sort of pro-active end to suffering. At times, for me I know it’s easier than it sounds.
But, I thought two years ago, when I moved to Buenos Aires, before I even began to write my book, TANGO, AN ARGENTINE LOVE STORY, why not use this dance that literally puts me flush up against so much humanity to practice always being kind? My mission as a tango missionary was not so much to spread tango, but to use tango as a vehicle of love and kindness. When I’m in my zone, or flow, or alpha state, it’s so easy. When I’m not, it has been a challenge. But that is when I believe we get the “training effect”—as runners or swimmers do, who push and kick it in for the last hundred yards, through exhaustion, when they practice for the big race. I have written on kindness in tango much, so I won’t go into it more now. But if you are a tango dancer, you have great power to help others by being there for them the best you can, the most fully present—especially when you feel challenged or exhausted. Why not, at each milonga, offer three tangos to the sake of kindness (that’s just one tanda), which ultimately spreads out to help end suffering. a sort of kind Ponzi scheme at its most beneficial to humankind.
Like millions of readers, I’ve been touched and moved by the book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. I have heard that our soldiers in Afghanistan are given this book to read. I don’t know if that is true, but I wish it were. In the early 1990s, author Greg was sleeping in his car in Berkeley, trying to get together a paltry amount of money to help build a school in the hinterland of Pakistan. It was a promise he would deliver on, do or die. In the late 1990s, he had been attempting to summit K2, when he failed, and wandered in a compromised physical state into a small Pakistani village whose people nursed him back to health. When asked what he could do for them, they said “a school.” Their children were being crudely educated with sticks in the dirt. It took a long time, but Greg finally got the funds and against all odds helped the village build that school (just what makes that little old ram think he’ll punch a hole in the dam . . . he had high hopes). More then ten years later now, he’s helped build many schools(some 78) in this much overlooked northern area of Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Greg realized my version of the American Dream—to distribute, not stockpile, the wealth of our nation to others.
He didn’t set out to make a name or to “end world suffering.” He only meant to extend a bit of kindness, right where he stood, such as had been shown him. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this is the way to promote world peace, “one school at a time.” Or one dance at a time. All else has failed, folks.
So, I have decided to direct some proceeds from sales of my book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story to Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute (CAI). What an idea of educating people instead of bombing them . . . And I have a deeply personal investment in that idea. . .
My goal is to stop the fighting in Afghanistan by September, 2009. That is when my nephew, Antonio, a Marine, is being sent to Afghanistan. Wouldn’t it be great if her were going to help build schools.
Thus, this Saturday morning, sitting hungry in half-lotus on the Japanese tatami mats, focused on my spine or axis as I do in dancing tango, came the idea to hitch my good fortune to the good work of Three Cups of Tea. It’s a small fortune, but I hear the interest is invaluable.
ABOUT GREG MORTENSON (AND HIS BOOK) – FROM HIS WEB SITE
Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute www.ikat.org, founder of Pennies For Peace www.penniesforpeace.org, and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea www.threecupsoftea.com which has been a New York Times bestseller since its January 2007 release, and was Time Magazine Asia Book of The Year.
On August 14th, 2008, Pakistan’s government announced on its Independence Day, that Greg Mortenson will receive Pakistan’ highest civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) for his courage and humanitarian effort to promote education, and literacy in rural areas for the last fifteen years. Pakistan’s President will confer the award on March 23rd, 2009, in a official ceremony in Islamabad.
Mortenson was born in Minnesota in 1957. He grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (1958 to 1973). His father Dempsey, co-founded Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC) www.kcmc.ac.tz a teaching hospital, and his mother, Jerene, founded the International School Moshi www.ismoshi.org.
He served in the U.S. Army in Germany during the Cold War (1977-1979), where he received the Army Commendation Medal, and later graduated from the University of South Dakota (1983), and pursued graduate studies in neurophysiology.
On July 24th, 1992, Mortenson’s younger sister, Christa, died from a massive seizure after a lifelong struggle with epilepsy on the eve of a trip to visit Dysersville, Iowa, where the baseball movie, ‘Field of Dreams’, was filmed in a cornfield.
In 1993, to honor his sister’s memory, Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram range.
After K2, while recovering in a local village called Korphe, Mortenson met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and made a promise to help them build a school.
From that rash promise, grew a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promote education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
As of 2008, Mortenson has established over 78 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 28,000 children, including 18,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before.
His work has not been without difficulty. In 1996, he survived an eight day armed kidnapping in the Northwest Frontier Province NWFP tribal areas of Pakistan, escaped a 2003 firefight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides in a truck going to a leather-tanning factory. He has overcome two fatwehs from enraged Islamic mullahs, endured CIA investigations, and also received hate mail and death threats from fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim children with education.
Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless effort to champion education, especially for girls.
He is one of few foreigners who has worked extensively for fifteen years (spending over 67 months) in the region now considered the front lines of the war on terror.
NBC newscaster, Tom Brokaw, calls Mortenson, “one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, who is really changing the world”.
Congresswoman Mary Bono (Rep – Cali.) says, “I’ve learned more from Greg Mortenson about the causes of terrorism than I did during all our briefings on Capitol Hill. He is a true hero, whose creativity, courage, and compassion exemplify the true ideals of the American spirit.”
Mortenson advocates girls’ education as the top priority to promote economic development, peace and prosperity, and says, “you can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change”.
While not overseas half the year, Mortenson, 50, lives in Montana with his wife, Dr. Tara Bishop, a clinical psychologist, and two children.