What was Roshi Bernie saying when he said that? I hear many people – I think it may be mostly people who didn’t know Bernie – taking it as a license to treat their own opinions as gospel. Almost. What the teacher said is just an opinion, and what I think is just opinion; all opinions are equal; one opinion is as good as another. “Just My Opinion” is a koan which somehow I began working with years before I met Bernie. It was my “boss” koan when I’d first moved into middle ma

When we set out to make peace, we need to bring the other to the table. That’s the first challenge. And often the next question is, “What do I call the other?” It might help to know how the others refer to themselves. But words keep changing. Yesterday’s word may no longer be correct. When I was kid, it was politically correct to refer to “colored people.” The leading civil rights organization was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Then it becam

It’s easy to put myself beyond the pale. Recently, I found myself othered for talking to peacemakers about the need to bring the other to the table. The implication is that I am creating the otherness by talking about it. I don’t see it that way: if we want to make peace, we have to begin by acknowledging that we see things differently. Focusing exclusively on “our common humanity” denies the difference. The others – whoever they are, including me – are often offended by th