UKRAINE WAR
The Ukraine War needs to end!
February 28, 2025, will be a day for history books and a day of global embarrassment for America. Sitting in the Oval Office to discuss an agreement to end the Ukraine War were President Volodymr Zelesky of Ukraine, President Donald J. Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and oodles of others, including reporters. The behavior of President Trump and Vice President Vance reminded this Vietnam War combat veteran of two kids on a playground scrapping with a third playmate about who should be on the teeter totter. Berating, chastising, verbally casting stones, and testing President Zelesky’s self-restraint were quite evident. I was embarrassed for America and compassion and empathy were stirred for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine who simply want peace and for President Vladimir Putin to have his troops withdraw from Ukraine and go home.
Love is a process, evolves in stages, and is a language one can think, feel, and speak; and because of love, we have hope and build trust! And it is no secret that we humans have evolved, yet have growing up and more learning, perking, experiencing, and evolving to do. Position power, money, and unhealthy ego certainly do not offer nourishment for common good, compassion, values, virtue, helping others, serving others, loving others, and caring about others. The Ukraine War is simply unnecessary death and suffering caused by lack of sane wisdom and a thirst for front page publicity and storybook fame. President Vladimir Putin’s decisions border insanity and ridiculous. Thich Nhat Hanh[1], a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who passed away in 2022, offers guidance and counsel:
In the case of a society, take the situation of a country suffering war or any other situation of injustice. Try to see that every person involved in the conflict is a victim. See that no person, including all those in warring parties or in what appear to be opposing sides, desires the suffering to continue. See that it is only one or a few persons who are to blame for the situation. See that the situation is possible because of the clinging to ideologies and to an unjust world economic system which is upheld by every person through ignorance or lack of resolve to change it. See that two sides in a conflict are not really opposing, but two aspects of the same reality. See that the most essential thing is life and that killing or oppressing one another will not solve anything.
The Ukraine War is simply the creation of fear, suffering, and death to maintain perceived power and legitimacy, to establish a “perceived empire,” and to pursue a dream “— greatness of the “new” Soviet empire —” that can never exist. Concerning Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice and counsel, Martin Luther King, Jr., offered, “Thich Nhat Hanh’s ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”
A personal sentiment for a strategic objective is to have a democracy that is measured, evaluated, and incented based on achievement of common good. This is an overwhelming task when one climbs into an Elon Musk SpaceX satellite and looks around. There are millions of global citizens with inner consciousness, psychology, purposes, values, goals, objectives, physics, biology, and neurology. There are myriads of families, collectives, cultures, groups, and communities with music, art, political values, and connections. And there are multitudes of institutions, social systems, economies, and environments. In today’s diverse, politically sorted world, integration is certainly not an easy task! Where does one start to create processes that are measured, evaluated, and incented based on contributions to the common good? Reminds of a jig saw puzzle. Perhaps a nice place to start is with a definition of common good.
“In philosophy, economics, and political science, the common good refers to either what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community, or alternatively, what is achieved by citizenship, collective action, and active participation in the realm of politics and public service.” (Wikipedia)
Today, it feels like human chaos rules; and he-she who creates the greatest chaos rules and becomes today’s distraction from what needs to be done. President Putin, President Trump, and Vice President Vance, and cronies, will continue to have the same assortment of candies and perks while Ukrainian citizens suffer, Russian citizens suffer, and global citizens suffer. The Ukraine War is wrong! Absent mindfulness, awareness, and self-restraint, people, events, and places are simply distractions that mask the need for action to hasten the journey to common good. Nice reads are The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins, Jay Shetty’s Think Like a Monk and Eight Rules of Love, Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness, Lotus in a Sea of Fire and Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World. Authentic joy can evolve with peace-of-mind and connections and purpose created on a foundation of compassion, gratitude, trust and hope, certainly not war. Martin Luther King III offers, “My father believed that non-violence was not passive but the most courageous form of action-choosing peace when hatred tries to provoke. By refusing to react with bitterness, we reclaim our power and shape a better future.” (The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins, 39)
[1] Thich Nhat Hanh was a peace activist, prolific author, poet, and founder of the Plum Village Tradition, the foundation of Engaged Buddhism. Known as the “father of mindfulness,” Nhat Hanh was a major influence on Western practices of Buddhism. (Wikipedia) A portion of his ashes have been ceremoniously scattered in Plum Village, France.
