The Book of Peace: Intention and Desire by Karin Lisa Atkinson: Beijing 1990: Fear That Shakes Us From Our Power

Tonight after teaching,
at the secret underground school
in Beijing's university district,
I met my Friend at a cafe
to eat some late night dumplings.

We discussed what Mengzi wrote in 289 BC:
“Never give way to anger,
otherwise in one day you could burn up the wood
that you collected in many bitter weeks.”

We observed the irritation in Beijing,
it circulated fast, it was spreading,
from individual to individual.

Touching feelings buried so deep,

everything felt like a trigger,

for yet another emotional explosion.

We noticed a group of men.
They took seats at the table across from us.

They looked like Workers

imported, from the countryside, as city labor.

Their volume raised, with each beer they drank.

These Workers became post-sports-game-loud,

increasing their hand-gesturing with their cursing.

They were outraged against the Students,

for demonstrating in the streets.

State-owned media blamed the 'Student Protests',
for causing prolonged disruptions to the local economy.

So, these Workers blamed the Students

for the current inflation, unemployment,
and economic terror imposed after
Beijing's Spring protests crashed -
and we were all burned.

These Workers considered the Students extremists.
Media portrayed the Students as young terrorists,
in tension, armed with intention and the desire,
for authentic social change.

The Protestor's will, bent the will of society.

Everyone desired social change, but -
not the unexpected creation of universal upheaval.

These Workers were not from Beijing.
If they had been then they would have known,
that the Workers walked equally along side
the Teachers, Journalists, Doctors and Artists.

People from all walks of life, all together,
walked the streets of Beijing, arm in arm,
in protest as protectors of the peace and human rights.
Protectors and educators of the rights of humans to be.

Sometimes silence spreads false rumours of truth.
Sometimes silence creates truth that spreads faster than lies.

These itinerant labourers,
armed with their particular perception,

were too drunk to care about the truth.

These Workers yelled, cursed, screamed -
so everyone could hear what they cared about.

Their blur of slurs was their protest -
a pouring forth of all their Worker feelings.

Arms flailing high filling into half the sky -
fists pumped the air seeking contact,
inventing rage against the Student protectors.
There seemed to be no peace,
and no justice for all.

"Young-egotistical-foolish!"

"Self-absorbed agitators!"

Outbursts over the Workers

labored drunkenly to the door.
Leaving their lasting impressions,
they searched for an exit -

weaving a safe place and open space

for themselves in this world.

Everyone in the café
was also moved to leave.

I stayed sitting. Still.

I was waiting for more to come.

I had noticed the Leader,

the most vocally upset of the group,

had a gun

tucked into the waistband

of his pants.

While my friend sat frozen

in suspended animation,
I deepened my journey within.
I made peace with my inner peace.
I made more peace,

more than I began the night with -
more to carry me through

the whole night's journey.

We discussed the Leader's gun.

Food comforts in times of difficulty.
We ate more dumplings,

soaked in black vinegar and ginger.

As we discussed the Leader's gun,

we gulped down raw garlic,

we were quick to chew,

but hesitant to swallow.

Personally-owned guns

in Beijing are very rare,

and bullets even more scarce

to come by.

My friend and I eventually exited the cafe -

just in time to see the Leader,

the angriest man of all the Workers,
now, even more angry, at everyone,

then suddenly at someone.

He reached out

and grabbed by the neck,

a Student,

who was riding past

on his bicycle.

Excluding the Student,

who was now lying on the ground,

all eight of us, witnesses, stunned.

We were in shock

at the unexpected suddenness,

of late night dumplings

mixed with drunken frenzy.

The Worker's Leader

was incensed.
He insistently pulled

the protesting Student,

to a kneeling position.

This person, this Student,
who might not have been a Protestor at all,

was suddenly the target
of all this unreleased, unexpressed,
frustrated Worker worked-up pent-up anger.

The Student was kicked repeatedly and cursed.

I stepped forward, to do something, anything -

but I was pulled back into spectator position.

My Friend did not want us to get involved.

It was against his code of ethics.

I disagreed, resisted
and verbally challenged my Friend

over the differences in our beliefs.

But as we debated,

the world grew even more surreal.

As my Friend and I battled each other,

about the wisdom of interfering

with the desires of a man

on a drunken rampage waving a gun -

our whole mythic world tumbled.

We witnessed socialist equality among the classes

become violently overturned and redefined.

The Worker's Leader gun was pulled,

cocked and placed next to the Student’s head.

The swing of the gun,

the metal blur and click

created a silence that punctured

and slowed all motion.

The nightmare heightened,
as we witnessed,

that some nights seem
as if the whole world is reduced

to a dream sequence of confrontations.

Our hearts chilled watching these sights -

Hate being acted out, within.
Within the grasp of our intimate surroundings.

All of our potential added up to nothing,

just frozen interactions.

Justice froze, until Someone reacted.

The angry man’s girlfriend responded.

She came forward braking the trauma -

she hauntingly broke the tension.

I watched
as breathless passion
suppressed the surreal,

and smeared her lipstick-mouth
tense-red then twisted.

Her lips addressed her struggle
to pin down her fear

while convincing her boyfriend

that his feelings

are not worth killing for.

I watched this angry man.
His down-deep gut-felt feelings

wrestle a rise from his unconsciousness -

sudden awareness looking for a way out,

of his bewildering emotional encasement.

I had no doubt that he wanted an escape.
He wanted to leave his life,
change his predetermined outcome.
I went inward to make more peace.

I imagined an end to his suffering.
Suddenly he was altered.

Suddenly altered,

into a state of consciousness,

he paused –

then kicked the Student

into the ditch

and left.

I moved towards the Student,

then my Friend pulled me back ...

whispering softly -

leave the Student alone ...

let him deal with his humiliation ...

give him time ...

to recover his lost composure.

Unsure,

I wanted to give more.

So, my Friend reassured me,

that what the Student needed from us

was the space to recover his dignity.

Worked into exhaustion,
the drunken man left.

No longer a Leader

of a group of Workers,

he wondered off solo

gone in search of Self-recovery.

He arrived

at the beginning of this night
a leader of men,
and now he left remorseful
a drunk sober with self-discovery.

I imagined him renewed.
Re-centered from that to this,

from what was to what now is.
Our recently shared trauma renewed.

Inconclusively incomprehensibly inspiring.

I imagined that he would regain
his lost composure

once he self-realized,

to re-find himself,

then he would refine himself.

He might reinvent himself,

reinvigorated from his Self-awakenings

he might re-visit his natural born depth.

His deep tunneling to reimagine himself,

might expose the healing effects

of his newest self-imposed experience.

I imagined his Self-awareness

would return to him, wiser,

after his body de-stressed from the wisening.

I witnessed him move through these events.
I watched him passage.

Through this twisted mass of time,

the shape shifting occurred.

Entering into the void of his suffering,

his mind created space

to emotionally vacate, eject, reject, object.

He became a maturer measurement

of our human testament

to our humanity's longevity.

I saw all his buried sentiments stress.
I witnessed his pressure rise

to forge from his unexpressed,

a sudden get loose to let loose,

become emotionally unstuck to un-become.

A rage against the machine of man's making,

the unmaking of humanity's scourged wellness,

by reimagining the worse into betterment.

To watch an individual consciously manifest war,
is to observe hate activate a personalized weapon.
A dense mass of personality becoming destructive.
I watched his senseless body go

from fluid physical possibility
to mental unconsciousness unpotentialized.

Over time the unspeakable terror of change,

unites us all with the uncomfortable.

The uncontrollable all of existence

is forced inside and married with feeling.

Here the unresolved builds up pressure,

all natural unnatural forces twist
to bends into shapelessness

a person's sensory body of humanity.

Rage is a shapeless shifting force.

Shamefulness becomes over time,
a shameless weapon of mass destruction.
A rage that ravishes by feeding on revenge.

Witnesses to his turmoil,

we all become moved.
He is shaken, he shakes,