In this second talk following Donald’s five weeks in Israel/Palestine, we focus first on how to bring our practice to difficult and sometimes stuck places generally, whether individual, interpersonal, or collective. What helps? We then, with a deep breath, examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the aim of bringing empathy, compassion, understanding, and other aspects of our practice to what we interpret as a conflict between two traumatized peoples (albeit an asymmetrical conflict in which one side has much more economic, social, political, and military power). How do we understand, approach, and transform such inter-generational trauma? Some initial steps are identified, again with the suggestion that the dynamics are similar to many less complex but still very difficult and stuck situations of an individual or interpersonal nature.

In the first of two talks reflecting on just returning from five weeks of teaching and traveling in Israel/Palestine, we start to explore two themes: (1) identity in the context of Buddhist teachings about anatta and Donald's experience of being with many people in Israel with very similar East European Jewish ancestry; and (2) how to understand, be with, respond to, and transform unresolved and tragic historical trauma and suffering, found both with Jewish Israelis and Palestinians both in Israel and the occupied territories. A second talk will continue this exploration.