All humans will die.
All dictators will die.
Dictators fear death out of measure.
They often suicide themselves.
To face the inevitable is too painful for them.

For us, still surviving this life, but how long?, the only valid question is and will be:

1. How will I spend the rest of my life, with minimum repentance, much forgiveness, great gratitude and a vision for paradise (peace, love)?

2. Can I, can we freely, spontaneously visualize a world without weapon industry, war machinery, wars? Because this how much money is made and how the machinery of suffering is held in motion. This is the materialistic manifestation of our fright, greed and illusion at its worst.

3. What will I do to nourish a vision of manifested protection of life everywhere, also of “the enemy”, the children of “the enemy”, their possessions (if they are not poor. Most “enemies” are far poorer than ourselves).

4. What am I ready to give away (sacrifice, renounce to, let go) to hold up this vision

A today
B tonight
C under all circumstances

Please ask yourself an in depth-question: How have you taken benefit from wars and weapon industries, and are you taking benefit from a war and weapon industry just now?

Will you renounce to those benefits? How will others notice what you are going for?

Wars as addiction as all violence has affected the DNA of our genes. If we let this sickness unacknowledged there will not be a better world. There can be good people, fantastic initiatives, but I do not believe that we can split up our efforts in visualizing the good without undoing what is preparing us and the world for war.

It feels like an ongoing creating process of selection sites and paying those who decide: You die now.
You die by work and live a bit longer, perhaps.

I have “learned” to see this human mechanism in the six weeks in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in November. In Bosnia, in the Black Hills in South-Dakota, in Lampedusa and Sicily, in Greece/PIRAEUS, in total, 3 months and a half in such places and lots of single says and some street retreats.

Bernie Glassman Roshi has always asked us:
What are we doing to others?
Look at this!
He said, Auschwitz is his teacher.

Auschwitz is my teacher, too.

He says it as the Jew.
I say it as the German Not-Jew, descendant of Nazis.

Go to Auschwitz. And other places.
You think, why should I?
True.
But if you seek embodiment, you will find that those places soaked with shit, sweat, urine, tears, hopes, longings, prayers, despair, commendments, cries, shouts, epiphanies, and the whisper of the dead bones…

… have messages you can never find in your temple. You find almost everything there, too. But not the fullness of the experience, together with your own fright, horror, love, and coldness.

Go to the places, as long, as we cannot fly, or do not want it again.
Go to the places of massacres. Of burial sites. Let yourself guide by those who know where they are. Go with them together. Go with First people, with migrants, and refugees, go with homeless and with Latinos and Latinas. Ask them, where they grieve, how they grieve. Ask them what they want you to do for them. Go to mosques with them. Care for poor people getting burial sites.

There is so much to do. And know that most people emigrate, just as you would, when circumstances in their homes have become unbearable and people have already died. Or because of wars inflicted or by, some ways supported by us, which results in the same outcomes: poverty, misery.

The pandemic is our big chance to realize something.
A we all can die and now.
B distraction is difficult, also for the wealthy ones
C in the end we have to believe our governments, so it is good to engage for worthy and skillful leaders
D things can change in one second
E our toys such as planes, big cars and huge TV-screens, expensive watches and high education at best universities do not exempt us from any of the above questions. If nobody visits us, how can we enjoy and share our possessions? There is no fun in it.
F care for our, I mean for ALL children and teenagers, youth. Do something actively. They inherit the world from us. Teach them, convince them, where to engage. Or support them, in their own experiments.

It’s very hard to be young, now. Most of the news are not spread in a loving, encouraging way, in a way that informs not only about numbers and dangers, but about true happiness, fun, patience and the importance of right vision, right action. And the prerequisites for all of it.

Live it. Now.

With deep bows to our future, which is

NOW!

Monika Winkelmann, 19.02.2021