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see it as our lesson, our karma. We cease from watering those seeds, and we learn our lessons and go on.
    We must be willing to look head-on at our suffering and what causes us to suffer. If we try to avoid this meeting, our suffering will continue to be the engine that runs our lives, filling our experience with more and more suffering. When we focus on suffering, sure as day follows night, more suffering will present itself.
    Personally, in dealing with mentally tormenting situations, ones that seem to grab us by the throat and not let go, I have found it takes tremendous energy, focus and unwavering commitment to move out of consuming negative thoughts and to shift back into the true nature of my mind.
    Lama Chonam, dear friend and Buddhist teacher, once said while teaching at my church, “Sometimes our individual and collective mind has to be shocked into seeing the nature of reality.” He said this in direct response to 9/11, when those two jets roared into the Twin Towers in New York City, a third slammed deep into the earth of rural Pennsylvania and a fourth smashed into the Pentagon. As Americans, our collective mind was shocked to its core. The unimaginable and unspeakable had occurred. We saw the images either up close or on television, and initially few of us could grasp what was happening.
    I recall that I was working at home and had stopped and turned on the television just as the first jet struck. My mind could not comprehend what my eyes had just seen. I instantly began praying and doing my utmost to remain centered. In those moments we still did not know that the horror was intentional. As that gruesome reality began to be revealed when the second jet hit the second tower, I knew I had to drive the thirty minutes to my church to be with my staff. As I drove through several suburbs of Cleveland, it was surreal. There were so few cars on the roads. At stoplights fellow drivers would look back as I looked over, and in stunned silence we would nod. It was like driving through a dream in slow motion.
    For America this was one of the worst possible illustrations of wrong thought. At times it seemed as if the world had gone stark raving mad. Congregants of mine were vacationing in Hawaii at a serene, exclusive resort when the news of the attacks on the Twin Towers began to spread.
    They were having breakfast on the lanai when guests began intently watching a television set reporting the tragedy. A Muslim woman standing next to my congregants’ table began to jump up and down with glee, clapping her hands. Apparently she could not even remotely contain her happiness at the suffering of our country, where, at that moment, she was a guest.
    My congregants were so terrified not only by what was occurring but also by the hatred playing out before them that they immediately went back to their room, packed up and took the next flight to Honolulu. They did not want to be on a remote island, not knowing what was going to be happening next, and they felt very frightened of that woman and her hate-filled reaction.
    Buddhist teachers would instruct that we must have compassion for ones exhibiting such upside-down thinking and behavior. I can understand that, as could my congregants, that they chose not to be at the same resort as that Muslim woman—a choice many of us might make under the circumstances.
    Right Thinking is always in alignment with the spiritual ideal.

Better than a speech of a thousand vain words is one thoughtful word which brings peace to the mind.
     
— THE DHAMMAPADA, VERSE 100
    RIGHT SPEECH

    THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES I have learned during many years studying Tibetan Buddhism have become so much a part of me that I have begun to constantly have insights and realizations on the ultimate nature of reality. There is a point where all teachings converge and the common thread of truth can be seen. It is happening in my life, and I am endeavoring to share how it can occur with you.
    Right Speech is the third