Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse details the need for nonviolent action that moves beyond “us vs them” dynamics, recognizes the need for healing collective trauma, and reconnects spiritual practice to standing up against injustice.
Author and activist Kazu Haga explores important elements including vulnerability, power, belonging, and rage. He recognizes the ways that our relationship to these elements informs how we show up in the world. Through thoughtful practices, questions, and honest personal experiences, this book invites you into conversation. This conversation can expand to include your friends, family, and community members. Fierce Vulnerability encourages you to practice, not just theorize about, relating to yourself and others in a new way.
Resistance as Spiritual Practice
As I was reading Fierce Vulnerability with our Parallax Press book club, I had the opportunity to participate in the Interfaith Action for Palestine in Washington, DC at the end of June. With the support of my dad, who helped to care for my two dogs while I was taking part in the actions, I joined hundreds of others to unite and raise our voices over the course of three days. We gathered as a multifaith, multiracial, queer and trans-affirming coalition to oppose the weaponization of religion that makes Palestinians, Israelis, and all other beings across the world less safe and less free. We came together to shine a light on the extremism, hate, and violence fueled by Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and to uplift calls for a Free Palestine.
This collective effort involved multiple nonviolent actions, centered around singing as a form of disruption. Each day, I saw implementation of what author Kazu Haga calls “resistance as spiritual practice.” Because each participating organization in the coalition brought songs, rituals, and values of their faith, the actions (and the thoughtfully organized preparation for them) felt like sacred ceremonies. While there was some chanting like that of more typical protests, there was a deliberate focus on singing songs of peace from different traditions.
To begin our actions, we sang the Namo’valokiteshvaraya Great Compassion Chant of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, composed by dear Parallax Press senior editor Terry Barber, who passed away in November 2024. The chant was re-envisioned by Parallax Press children’s book author Sophie Sarkar to include Palestine Will Be Free, a round by Pax Ressler. The beautiful songs we sang together invoked our ancestors who saw through the illusion of separateness and who bravely stood united against injustice.
You are welcome to download and share the IAP songbook, courtesy of the IAP coalition.
The Two Hands of Nonviolence
On the second day of the IAP, we gathered to sing these songs of peace outside the CUFI convention. As we walked towards the convention space, I saw someone holding a banner on their own. Its width was just beyond one person’s arm span, so I asked if I could hold it with them. With one hand I held the top of the banner and with the other I kept the bottom of the banner relatively flat as we walked. After some time, I suddenly became aware that my hands were representative of the two hands of nonviolence, with the top hand facing out and fingers pointing up to the sky and the bottom hand facing out with fingers pointing down to the Earth.
The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” In many ways, I believe the heart of nonviolence tries to balance two seemingly opposing ideas. In one hand is fierceness, assertiveness, at times even militancy, the ability to say no—to refuse to allow injustice to continue and to demand change. In the other hand is vulnerability, understanding, and unwavering compassion for all beings—the refusal to disregard anyone’s inherent dignity.
In Revolution & Equilibrium, activist Barbara Deming wrote:
With one hand we say to one who is angry, or to an oppressor, or to an unjust system, “Stop what you are doing. I refuse to honor the role you are choosing to play. I refuse to obey you. I refuse to cooperate with your demands. I refuse to build the walls and the bombs. I refuse to pay for the guns. With this hand I will even interfere with the wrong you are doing. I want to disrupt the easy pattern of your life.”But then the advocate of nonviolence raises the other hand. It is raised outstretched—maybe with love and sympathy, maybe not—but always outstretched. . . . With this hand we say, “I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make a better choice than you are making now, and I’ll be here when you are ready. Like it or not, we are part of one another.
This realization of my hand placement reaffirmed my fierce vulnerability in that moment. I kept my hands in that position for the rest of the action. When we began walking back to our starting location, we passed by an Asian fusion restaurant that had several different Buddha statues outside of the building. There was one statue facing us directly as we walked by. A standing Buddha reflecting back to me the two hands of nonviolence. I smiled at the chances of this and felt the presence of countless teachers and their wisdom. I knew our nonviolent action was rooted in our love of humanity and our understanding that we are capable of change.
Grieving in Community
On the final day of action, we gathered together in a Christian church to hear from voices of different faiths. We were invited to grieve together in several ways. During one shared practice, each person walked up to an altar and placed upon it a red poppy flower made of paper. Before I picked up a poppy, I bowed to give thanks to the IAP attendees who crafted these flowers with care, and thanks to the beautiful poppy for its representation of all the beings of the living ecosystem known today as Palestine.
I approached the altar with reverence and quiet, and as I placed my poppy next to the others, I cultivated the energies of gratitude, love, and grief for Medo Halimy. Medo was a young Palestinian who shared his experience in Gaza on social media, including his intention to grow plants as a form of resistance, despite the challenges of doing so during genocide.
Medo was determined to bring life to the Earth while others were determined to destroy it. He was killed by an Israeli airstrike on August 26, 2024. In a tribute for Medo, his friends said of him that he was the easiest person to be around, always smiling, supportive, and generous.
Listening to Medo and his friends, all children and teenagers with so much life ahead of them, I see how deeply and clearly they understand what we call the Dharma. Medo’s friends recognize that he continues to live on in them, and beyond them. Medo knew how to cultivate awe and enjoy the present moment by allowing the rays of the sunset and the waves of the ocean to liberate him from overwhelming suffering. Medo knew that everything Palestinians were going through would eventually come to an end, and that Palestinians’ love of life could never be taken from them.
Placing the poppies carefully, one at a time—each of us honoring the lives of so many beautiful Palestinians—I felt the sacred energy of grieving, especially in community and across faiths. Taking this time allowed us to hold the truth that each life is a whole world in itself and each person is much more than their oppression and their unjust deaths. Together we were tending to the wounds that our society has been actively ignoring and denying, a form of neglect that results in the deterioration of our faiths and our spirits.
Moving Forward
At the end of Fierce Vulnerability, Kazu shares his seven hypotheses that he continues to experiment with. He shares his faith that we can affirm life, create beauty, cultivate connection, and move toward healing, even in the midst of collapse. Reading and practicing with this book, as the facade of justice and democracy continues to collapse all around us, I share this faith and I feel a fire within me that is fueled by compassion for all beings. I recognize that this fire has continued through every generation of life and links all of us across time and space.
May we continue to care for this fire so that it illuminates the truth that we are inseparable from one another. May our practice contribute to our collective liberation and the awakening of all beings. May we reconnect to our role as stewards of the land, cultivating life and restoring balance to our beloved Mother Earth. May we remember how precious life is, and recommit to protecting all forms of life through our thoughts, speech, and actions.
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To learn more about the Interfaith Action for Palestine, you are invited to attend a virtual event on Sunday, October 19th from 11am-1pm CT to hear from a panel of Buddhist practitioners in attendance at the IAP and to practice Dharma sharing in the lineage of Plum Village. Please register on Zoom to attend this event hosted by the Plum Village Solidarity Council.
The IAP is a coalitional effort led by the following organizations. Follow them on social media for updates and opportunities to participate in nonviolent action and community building.
- Buddhist Peace Fellowship — @buddhist.peace.fellowship
- Christians for a Free Palestine — @christiansforafreepalestine
- Christians for Ceasefire and a Just Peace Coalition — @christians4ceasefire_justpeace
- Fellowship of Reconciliation — @FORUSApeace
- Hindus for Human Rights — @hindusforhumanrights
- IfNotNow — @ifnotnoworg + @ifnotnowdc
- Jewish Voice for Peace — @jewishvoiceforpeace + @jvpdemetro
- Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinic Council
- Mennonite Action — @mennoniteaction
- Rabbis for Ceasefire — @Rabbis4Ceasefire
- Tending Futures — @tendingfuturesorg