NA MU MYO HO REN GE KYO

JON KATZ'S PERSONAL PAGE

AWESOME RESPONSIBILITY

April 23, 2002 - This morning, I helped complete a small leg of an ongoing journey that started several months ago in Hiroshima.

My friend Jun Yasuda is an organizer of the Hiroshima flame peace walk, which started this past January in Washington state, and ends in New York City's ground zero and United Nations.

This peace walk, which averages 16-18 miles daily, with a weekly rest day and occasional automobile transport, carries a peace flame brought from Hiroshima, and kept in two lanterns, lit at all times. The journey started when no airline would allow the flame on board; it was post September 11. Several shipping companies rejected the cargo, too. Then one shipper agreed.

The flame took a circuitous route. It apparently landed in Hawaii on Pearl Harbor day. Next the flame went to Mexico. Eventually it got to the Washington state starting point.

The peace walkers finally arrived in Washington, DC, this past Sunday. They proceeded yesterday morning from Dupont Circle to a prayer vigil at Martin Marietta in Maryland. You can't miss them; the walkers beat on ceremonial drums on a strong length of wood, repeatedly chanting the introduction to the Lotus Sutra: Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo.

I joined the peace walkers last night for dinner, at the church that was housing them. I caught up with Jun-san, who is one of my four main gurus, the other ones being Steve Rench (trial practice), the late Cheng Man Ching (the t'ai chi master whom I never met, and Victoria Boutenko.

Jun-san took me to the Hiroshima peace flame, which sat at the altar area as the centerpiece of a makeshift Buddhist prayer center, where she told me about the journey of the flame from Hiroshima to Hawaii to Mexico to DC.

We gathered for a poetry semi-circle around the peace flame, with Sayuri Miyazaki as the poet. Her first poem left an indelible mark on me- "Enola Gay". Read first in the original Japanese, and written about six years ago at the airplane's then site at the Air and Space Museum, Sayuri's Japanese made clear to the speaker of any language her feelings and sadness and pain not just about the Enola Gay, but about war itself. Although not a full pacifist, I've been very influenced by numerous peace activists; my visit three years ago to Hiroshima was very sad.

Today the peace walkers proceeded to visit the Enola Gay that Sayuri introduced us to through poetry, now in pieces -- the symbolism blares out-- at a federal building in or near Suitland, Maryland. Before the drum-beating procession to the Enola Gay, I assisted with the 4-car caravan that brought the 30 walkers' belongings from their DC location this morning to their College Park location where they will stay tonight, on their way to Jessup tomorrow, Baltimore Thursday, and ultimately Manhattan.

The walkers started loading up my car at 7:30 in the morning. Teresa carefully placed a box on the whole front seat, and cushioned it with blankets and other soft material. It was the peace flame; both lanterns. The buddha box sat in the back.

This was different than the time Woody Shaw handed me his Yamaha trumpet to look at, in 1983, after all I did was ask who made his horn; if I dropped it, I could have bought another. Teresa had placed two eggs in one basket, and told me to keep the windows at least partially open, to keep the flame going. I was alone in the car, with the peace flame beside me.

My gas tank was low. What's that about keeping flames away from gas stations? I pumped in a few gallons, anyway. Fifteen miles later, we arrived at our destination near College Park. The walker driving behind me in his gas/electric Honda breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't have the responsibility to drive the flame. Both lanterns continued to burn.

Woody Shaw's trumpet felt like less of a burden than carrying the peace flame. The peace flame seems like nothing compared to the awesome responsibility I take on as the lawyer for my clients. Whenever anything threatens to obscure that, I'll remember my experience this morning with the peace flame.