“BAM!”

BAM!

Apart from this being the noise that my heart made when I handed in my identity card at the till on my last day of work, BAM also stands for Buddhist Action Month. Lisa Cowan’s editorial in last month’s Art of Living included encouragement on reaching out beyond Buddhist activities, into the community. Taking action and spreading the widening ripple effect to as many pools as possible.

Having more time on my hands now, I decided to sign up for a few volunteering opportunities in the local borough. The first event I participated in was to help organise a little entertainment program for elderly people over lunch. I had chanted to bring joy to the event. So closing the door on diffidence, I welcomed people as they arrived and chatted with them about their lives before the show started.

The day transformed into a fascinating mosaic of tales about women from the Agbo tribe in Nigeria, to learning the history behind ackee and saltfish in Jamaica, to discussing the pros and cons of a Tory government, to hearing about German influence on food in Poland (they claim schnitzel is Polish in origin).  An elderly couple came in hand in hand. I learnt that the lady had just recovered from colon cancer and had completely lost vision and hearing on the right side. She was over 90 as was her husband. But just observing how he watched over her like a hawk, brought a lump to my throat many a time. Always serving her food first, repeating questions people asked into her good ear, and holding on tightly to her hand when Nigel Roche sang “I dreamed a dream” from Les Miserables, despite the fact that she herself was asleep through most of it.

Among the line-up of entertainers, was actor Peter Gale (of Empire of the Sun, The Railway Children, As You Like it, Sunset Boulevard). He spoke about his years in theatre and what it was like to act alongside Ingrid Bergman, have Steven Spielberg as a director and other fascinating experiences. But he also shared a short story about how his journey started.

His father was a shoe shiner in Slough and the family lived in extreme poverty. But Peter loved to tap dance. He had picked it up from a few boys at school. After his lessons finished, he often accompanied his father at work. One day, Peter was practising beside his father who was shining a client’s shoes.

The client said, “This boy is good! Boy – what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Peter (no surprises) “A tap dancer and an actor sir.”

Client, “Why don’t you send this boy to the state school? They teach tap dancing and drama there?”

Father, “I can’t afford it sir.”

Client, “You don’t need to! They have a scheme for talented children, where they are given jobs for a few hours a week, which then offsets their tuition fees!” There was no turning back for Peter after that.

I felt extremely fortunate to have participated in this event and hear such beautiful stories from around the world.

In the same vein as communal change, I thought it would be worth mentioning a recent documentary I watched on Netflix called “The Muslims are coming.” It highlights an extremely brave and laudable attempt by 3 American Muslim comedians, to try and change the lens through which the world viewed their community in the USA after 9/11.

Humour can be an extremely powerful tool in getting people together. However even attempting humour in the religious space requires real courage. The documentary shows how these 3 individuals embarked on a long tour of free stand-up comedy shows around America, including in the “Bible Belt”, reaching out to people and showing them Muslims were as human as they were. They also held fun games like “Go Bowling with a Muslim” or “Name the Religion this quote is from”, ending the tour outside the Mormon headquarters, holding “Hug a Muslim” sign! Which after initial hesitation from people, ended in an overwhelmingly warm response after the first person reached out and hugged them!

However, as you can imagine, it wasn’t smooth sailing for them throughout. They also got asked a lot of difficult questions that made them think, especially in the “Ask a Muslim a question” event (e.g. “We know not all Muslims are terrorists, but why don’t we ever hear the peaceful ones speaking out against the extremists?”). To say the least, the activities resulted in deep learnings on both sides of the fence.

Participating in the community event and watching this documentary made me realise how important but also how difficult it is to work towards an inclusive society. The last silent prayer that we repeat in daily gongyo (literal meaning: to exert oneself in practice) is, “I pray for peace throughout the world and for the happiness of all humanity.” Translating this from a silent wish into concrete action, requires first understanding how we can actually add value in our own unique ways, to tightly bind together the warp and weft of the communal fabric. Even the smallest step towards participating in helping to unify and harmonise the local community counts.

As Sensei says, “Small things matter. What may look like a small act of courage is courage nevertheless. The important thing is to be willing to take a step forward.”

Waiting for someone to spear head communal change or reading the news (e.g. recent massacre of innocent holiday makers in Tunisia) and feeling all fired up about something achieves nothing if the emotion ends there, without any corresponding transformative action.

“BAM!” can be a noise less associated with guns going off, and more with walls of exclusion and communal divide being pulled down.