Summary: What changed my mind was the gun under my 15-year-old son's bed. Loaded. Our son--who we raised on a commune where we believed that love was the way and that everyone could and would realize it if they were only educated in the dharma (spiritual teachings). He traded a prized possession of mine for that gun. When I confiscated it, he got right up in my face and yelled, "Give it back. I paid good money for that!" That's when we decided to hire the private police escorts to climb through his bedroom window at six AM and take him to a treatment center in Idaho. I already had plans to fly a few days later to a spiritual workshop led by Ram Dass, whom I had studied with for years. He began the workshop with a story I had heard many times before, Aikido master Terry Dobson's account of a time he nearly took down a thug on a subway. Just as Dobson was about to subdue the thug by force an old Japanese man in a kimono interrupted, distracting the thug with a cheerful account of how he and his old wife enjoyed tea in their garden together observing their persimmon tree. I reprint the story below. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. Dobson's Aikido teacher had taught that Aikido was the art of reconciliation. "Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. " Dobson had always tried to follow that guidance, but only when he saw the little old Japanese man melt the thug's heart did he recognize that "the essence of Aikido is love." This time, having just packed my gun-toting 15-year old off to Idaho by police escort, I found the story hard to swallow. During a break I asked Ram Dass how it applied to my situation. Ram Dass said that the story doesn't mean that you should give everyone everything always. It meant that you should never put anyone out of your heart even though you may have to put him out of your living room. To my mind, that was a fine distinction, probably too fine to make with reliable clarity. Was my son in my heart when I put him out of my living room? My son certainly didn't think so, but then what did he know? But then if I discount his perspective, where's the love in that? But then, he was profoundly unreliable, so maybe the only question was whether I felt that I was banishing him with love in my heart. But then what about people who believe in their hearts that they're banishing you in a loving way when they aren't? What about when a sadist says "it hurts me more than it hurts you"? I mean, lots of questions. The story that had always warmed my heart now seemed slippery. The way I had always heard it, it implied that there was always a win-win option and so you never had to put anyone out of your living room. Statements like "Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated" seem to condemn me for forcibly evicting my son. Now I was scrutinizing these words more closely than before. What does "having a mind to fight," even mean? And just what are the consequences of breaking one's connection the universe? Does the universe have no fight in it? Had the soldiers who defeated Hitler's armies broken their connection with the universe? If not, did they somehow not have a mind to fight even as they shot and bombed their way through Europe? The story started to sound like gibberish, like nonsense on stilts. The thug's fists unclench as he listens to the old Japanese man's cheerful account about his persimmon tree back home. The thug says, "Yeah, I love persimmons too." Attending that same Ram Dass workshop was a high-ranking DC political insider. I overheard him whisper to his friend an alternative thug-response to the old man's story: "Yeah, well I hate persimmons. Pow!" He had to whisper because in the cozy, warm, smarmy context of
