John Seed’s visit to Taiwan

I have just spent ten days accompanying John Seed on a trip around Taiwan. John is an environmentalist from Australia well known for his efforts protecting rainforests around the world and also as a philosopher of Deep Ecology. I met John at the Taoyuan Airport on the morning of 28 March. We then took the high speed train to Kaohsiung where we met Dr Lin Yih-ren who arranged John’s visit to Taiwan.

Families of murder victims speak at forum in Taichung

Four members of the organisation Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) from the United States spoke at a forum in Taichung last night. They talked of their experiences as victims of murder and violent crime and how they came to be activists against the death penalty. It is a common assumption that the families of murder victims would all support the death penalty. However, the speakers showed that this is a false assumption and they all sought to affirm the importance of human rights and the value of human life.

Aba Gayle began by speaking about her personal experience following the murder of her 19 year old daughter Catherine. For eight years following Catherine’s murder Gayle she experienced what she called “eight years of darkness.” She was consumed with anger. Gayle said anger is a normal part of the grieving process but many families become stuck in it.

Eventually Gayle began a process of healing through practice of meditation and study of the world’s wisdom traditions. She went on to write a letter to Douglas Mickey, the man who murdered Catherine. In the moment of sending the letter all the feelings of anger were gone and she felt peace, love and joy, she said. She then went to visit Mickey in prison and resolved to become an advocate for the men on death row.

INEB study tour

After the INEB conference many of the participants joined a study tour. The bus departed from Hongshi College early in the morning of 3 September. The first destination was Dharma Drum Mountain (法鼓山) in Jinshan. During the visit to Dharma Drum Mountain we had a tour of the facilities and short symposium followed by lunch.

Soon after he arrived in Taiwan Ajarn Sulak asked me to contact his old friend Professor Cheng Chen-huang (鄭振煌教授). They met each other during the visit to Dharma Drum Mountain. Professor Cheng told Ajarn that he was working on a project about Ajarn Buddhadasa Bhikkhu.