has the experience changed your mind at all, about the problem of terrorism or how to solve it? Or do you remain steadfast in the conclusions you've already reached on those issues?

I'm not sure. I know that it's lead me to question a lot of things, not just the terrorist activities and how to solve them. I still hold certain ideals, but i realize that those ideals are just that - ideals. The world requires us to be practical....I'm still not through with the thought process yet, but once I am I'll let you know. I'd prefer to do it away from JU, if you don't mind...so if you want to drop me an email (dharmagirl69@gmail.com) I'll send you a response.

...I know that you really don't mean that. Those that truly believe in the Holy Scriptures of the Koran are not responsible for those attrocities.

I'd like to do it to the fuckers that perpetrated this 9/11 and 7/7 stuff. They hit us where we live, so I'd like to return the favor.

I'd like to do it to the fuckers that perpetrated this 9/11 and 7/7 stuff.

those bastards are not the ones I speak of.

those bastards are not the ones I speak of.

I know that, and I'm not tarring all of them with the same brush.  Just the ones who like to blow up innocent people in the name of Allah.  Those ones.....i have this raging defiance I'd like to show them.  A 'you killed my people, but you'll never break us...see, we are still defiant'  kind of attitude. 

I saw a photo album a while back that one of our judge maintains of all the inquest he has worked over the years. Hundreds and hundreds of accident victims as well as murder and suicide victims including small children. Not long ago I saw in real life a girl who overdosed and died, her "kit" still laying on the bed beside her.

Creepy stuff...

Hundreds and hundreds of accident victims as well as murder and suicide victims including small children.

I can understand why he does something like that.  It's as a reminder, I guess, to not get too jaded and regard the victim as just a name.

It's easy to become desensitized to things like that.  We have so realistic effects on horror and gore movies that it's almost a weekly thing for us to see someone being maimed or mutilated.

I think that everyone who says that Osama is just giving as good as his gets or who sympathises wil Al Queda in any way should be made to sit and watch/hear things like I saw this morning.  They should have to spend time with the familes of the dead and injured, they should be made to see the human face of these atrocities.

Not long ago I saw in real life a girl who overdosed and died, her "kit" still laying on the bed beside her.

A couple of years ago there was an anti-drug campaign poster that was an actual photo from a crime scene.  This girl had OD' on smack, and she was in a kneeling position with her head on the floor in front of her, needle still in her arm and her gear on the floor next to her.  She'd been that way for a couple of days, so livor mortis had set in and her lower extremities were purple, as was her face and hands (from where the blood had pooled).  Her parents agreed to let her image be used in the hopes that it would deter someone else from using....

Seeing and hearing the atrocities does indeed wound one's heart

I agree. Once the wounds are healed, we can become stronger and wiser souls. It's only temporary, this suffering lark. In the midst of this life, we need to feel our feelings, cry our cries, and honour our truths. Yet when the emotion is done, in the words of God: "Be still and know I am God." (Dharma, as a Buddhist, I'm sure you understand the deeper meaning of that statement.)

As for those who died in the recent terrorist attacks, they are safe as houses now. And as for those who are presently suffering, they can take comfort in the fact that our lives down here are merely blinks of an eye in context with our eternal journey. Someday soon they’ll realise that they have become stronger souls than if they hadn't faced suffering at all - even if it doesn't seem that way at the moment.

“Fear not, for I am with you”, are the comforting words from our Lord. Even in the midst of our trials and suffering, God is with us. And when Jesus faced suffering, pain and death, his words on the cross can be a lesson for us all: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

In face of the recent terrorist attacks, is it possible to forgive them? It seems like such an impossible thing to do. Yet when we move into God consciousness, we can do it. (“These things and more shall you also do”, Jesus said.) It so happens that it’s more a question of spiritual growth, but it’s certainly within the human potential.

it's lead me to question a lot of things, not just the terrorist activities and how to solve them. I still hold certain ideals, but i realize that those ideals are just that - ideals. The world requires us to be practical

All of life is spiritual, and therefore all of life’s problems are spiritually based, and spiritually solved. I believe that what is needed primarily is not a change of circumstance, but a change of consciousness. The circumstances will then begin to change naturally for the better. The bombs and guns aren’t the problem. It’s the minds and attitudes of the people who use them. As long as we have an attitude of “revenge is sweet”, “might is right”, or “let’s show them”, we perpetuate the friction and misunderstandings that cause violence in the first place. A safer world isn’t something that can be achieved over night. But before we can make a change to the outside world, we first need to make a change within. I think that each of us can begin to do this, in our own little way. The consciousness that will save us is a shift toward love.