Modern science, through genetic and other research, traces life back to its Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA), approximately four billion years ago. Within space and time, coexistence and competition began. About two billion years ago, eukaryotic organisms emerged, and endosymbiosis paved the way for complex life. Between 600 and 400 million years ago, the diversification of multicellular animals brought increasingly complex forms of predation and defense.
Beginning about seven million years ago, various human species and ancient hominins adapted to changing environments, survived, or became extinct. Modern humans, emerging approximately 300,000 years ago, survived through both competition and cooperation. Responding to environmental changes and drawing upon their distinctive physical, mental, cerebral, and manual capacities, they developed language, idea, cooperation, technology, tools, migration, complex societies, and cumulative culture. Through revolutions in production, society, and spiritual life, they eventually gained dominance.
Before the development of animal brains, evolution proceeded through natural selection without self-consciousness. As bodies, minds, and brains evolved, however, competition for survival intensified, while physical and mental capacities were strengthened. The formation of societies further heightened self-consciousness and awareness of self and others through relationships within and between individuals and social groups. Complex patterns of self-interest and altruism, likes and dislikes, love and hatred became imprinted in karma.
Language, concepts, roles, responsibilities, actions, transactions, and habits influenced bodily and mental functions. As self-consciousness intensified, the three poisons could become increasingly reinforced in karma—understood here as actions, habits, and heredity. These poisons are greed and hatred toward others, and delusion concerning the self: the mistaken belief in and attachment to an isolated, absolute self, despite the universal Dharma of dependent origination, in which all things are interrelated and relative.
The Buddha explained human existential suffering—the suffering of saṃsāra, or the constant flow of birth and death—through the twelve links of dependent origination. He identified two roots of suffering: nescience (avidyā), no-witness of nirvāṇa: stilling the karma winds, and desire or craving (tṛṣṇā, lit. thirst). These give rise to the constant flow of birth and death and its suffering. They correspond to the first four and the following three of the Eight Sufferings: birth, aging, illness, and death, followed by separation from loved ones, encountering those we dislike, and not obtaining what we desire. In short, the causes of all existential suffering lie in the delusion of self and the blind beliefs and misguided actions of greed and hatred arising from it.
Culture, a word derived from cultivation, is the totality of knowledge, values, habits, institutions, and other attainments acquired through cultivation and learning. Civilization (Urbanization), a word derived from the city (civitas), is the collective wealth and achievements of political, economic, and social cooperation, involving matter, might, and money. Culture existed among human and other social groups before the emergence of cities, whereas civilization is a distinctively human phenomenon that developed with urban societies.
The German distinction between Kultur, or spiritual culture, and Zivilisation, or material civilization, has parallels elsewhere. Particularly important is the criticism of civilization’s pursuit of wealth and comfort by thinkers such as Gandhi, who emphasized spiritual values and ethical actions. The accumulation of resources made possible by the Agricultural Revolution led to the Urban Revolution, while a subsequent Spiritual Revolution brought about a fundamental transformation in values and direction.
Throughout human history, revolutions in production, society, and spiritual life have repeatedly transformed human existence. These revolutions have sought to correct the evolutionary movement from the cooperative societies of culture toward the competitive societies of civilization. Their aim has been to move from specialization and monopolization toward universalization and sharing, realizing truth, goodness, beauty, and holiness. Religion, in particular, has sought a revolutionary return from sin— separate sickness, and suffering—to holiness, wholly wholesomeness and happiness of all.
The emergence and development of the Five Calamities—Delusion, Bondage, Discrimination, Exploitation, and Destruction—through competition for the three Ms (Money, Matter, Might) characterize our artificial, one-directional, pyramidal civilization. This pattern also applies to Barney’s five major fictitious bodies of modern society: states, corporations, media, religious, and educational institutions. Through the four forms of collective suffering produced by collective karma, civilization has reached a dead end and a condition of impending catastrophe.
In The Myth of the State (published in 1946), Ernst Cassia explained how political power exploits collective emotions through symbols, rituals, propaganda, and other means to manipulate people’s consciousness and behavior. By treating the state and political authority as absolute, and through rituals, laws, and regulations, such power deprives individuals of conscience, reason, and freedom, thereby justifying discrimination, persecution, war, and sacrifice.
The causes of catastrophic suffering lie in the myth of the state, its institutionalization, and the fanaticism and violent acts arising from it. Loyalty to rulers and patriotism are cultivated so that killing, stealing, falsehood, violence, and destruction—acts prohibited by the laws and ethics of one’s own country—are praised as courage and honor when committed for the state. This has even led to kamikaze suicide attacks and the deification of those killed in war. The resulting devastation and loss of life have been far greater than those caused by human sacrifice in the ancient world.
The Buddha (the Awakened One) said, “The tears you have shed throughout the long course of saṃsāra (birth-death) are far greater than the waters of the four great oceans.” The sufferings of oneself and others, of all beings and all existence, throughout the past, present, and future, are immeasurable. The sufferings of the past extend into the present, and those of the present reach into the future. What brings pleasure to oneself today may bring suffering to others and all existence in the future.
Every living being inevitably encounters the Four Sufferings of birth, aging, illness, and death. Together with the four additional sufferings—separation from loved ones, encountering those one hates, not obtaining what one desires, and the suffering of the flourishing five aggregates—these constitute the Eight Sufferings. The Three Poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion, inherited through humanity’s accumulated karma, have expanded across space and time into delusion, bondage, discrimination, exploitation, slaughter, and destruction within human communities, societies, states, and civilizations.
The wars, slavery, colonization, conquest, discrimination, destruction, and slaughter of the past—based on culture, religion, race, ethnicity, indigenous identity, gender, and other distinctions—together with industrial, military, and nuclear activities, pollution, destruction, and killing, have produced discrimination and suffering that persist into the present. Likewise, today’s wars, nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, pollution and destruction, discrimination against other species, their exploitation and slaughter, and environmental contamination and devastation may become sources of suffering for the world of the future.
At the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions, where the Declaration toward a Global Ethic was proclaimed, Gerald Barney delivered an address entitled “What Shall We Do?” He described the interconnected problems of population, poverty, food, resources, the environment, species extinction, and other global concerns as the “Global Problematique.” He emphasized that these problems could not be solved by science and technology alone, but required transformations in human values and behavior, calling upon religions to reflect critically on themselves and fulfill their responsibilities.
It was hoped that humanity would move beyond the twentieth century, the “century of nationalism and war,” into a new and better twenty-first century. Instead, we have witnessed Russia’s war against Ukraine, Israel’s destruction and devastation of Gaza, war involving the United States and Iran, reversals in climate-change measures, the resurgence of nationalism, military and nuclear buildups, and military dictatorships. In addition, new forms of suffering have emerged through pandemics, the misuse of artificial intelligence, and other developments.
The Doomsday Clock has been set at 85 seconds to midnight, its closest point ever to global catastrophe. Yet the power to initiate nuclear war rests in the hands of individuals, and no one can predict what might happen under the changing circumstances and psychological pressures of war. In this sense, we might say that the clock already stands at zero seconds. Steven Starr and others have warned that nuclear weapons capable of producing electromagnetic pulses through high-altitude nuclear explosions could destroy the very foundations of modern civilization.
In the world of Dependent Origination, all things are interconnected. Even a small disturbance in one place may lead to death, devastation, or catastrophe affecting individuals, societies, and the entire world. This world of interdependence is illustrated by Indra’s Net, in which every jewel reflects all the others. Yet even these individual jewels are not truly separate: through oxygen, gravity, electromagnetic fields, elementary particles, quantum phenomena, and other physical relationships, they are mutually connected and interwoven.
Electromagnetic pulses generated by high-altitude nuclear explosions could destroy essential infrastructure, including electric power grids and communications systems. Smoke and soot from massive urban fires could produce a nuclear winter, drastically reducing sunlight, temperatures, and agricultural production, potentially causing worldwide famine. Climate change, deforestation, ocean pollution, and other forms of environmental destruction also threaten the conditions that sustain life.
These forms of suffering extend beyond the boundaries of individuals, nations, generations, and species. Humanity’s present pursuit of convenience, profit, and power may deprive others, other species, and future generations of their lives and the conditions necessary for survival.
The defining characteristic of catastrophic suffering is that different forms of suffering are interconnected, accumulating, intensifying, and cascading into one another until they threaten to destroy the very conditions that sustain life as a whole.
I’ve recently begun volunteering at a local elementary school, just a few blocks from my house.I volunteer through a reading program, so the emphasis is on reading with the students, just helping them to get a little more practice, encouraging them, helping them to build some confidence.They’re fun to work with, and I’ve really been enjoying my time there.
It’s also interesting to see how they learn to read.I’ve tutored before, but I don’t have a background in childhood education, so my observations are just those of a lay person.I’ve been fortunate to see many times how the act of decoding — sounding out individual words one by one — evens out over time into sentences that flow more smoothly, as if the words become invisible and the text just goes right in.
I recognize that this slow binding with words, language, and concepts over the course of a lifetime creates a sense of self, and that from time to time — maybe while chopping vegetables, or setting policy, or looking at the stars, or walking in the woods — words will be suspended, and that sense of self will fall away for a moment.
I wish these students well.All children, their teachers, and parents, and pets, and their schools and the people who help them to operate, I wish them well.May we all create a world where they can be happy, healthy, and safe.
We live in an age of concepts and definitions. We like to name a thing, categorize it, and file it away so we can feel we understand it. Lately, where I live in Columbia, MO there is a community interest in the ‘One Health’ initiative involving the health benefits of getting outdoors. A beautiful practice you may have heard of is called Shinrin-yoku, or ‘forest bathing’. This is being studied at the university. We are instructed to go into the woods, to use our five senses intentionally, to lower our cortisol, and to heal our nervous systems. It is a practice that provides a map of sorts to achieve better health, more peace and calm in our lives.
This is a wonderful map. It is a healthy practice. But today, I want to invite you to burn the map.
I want to talk about what happens when you step off the path of concepts entirely. I want to talk about getting lost. Not lost in a way that requires a search party, but lost in the way Zen Master Dôgen spoke of—where the small, anxious ego gets so utterly mislaid in nature that it simply forgets to come home.
Every month, I lead a hike as an outings leader for the Sierra Club. My job on those days is completely bound by words, guidelines, and concepts. I carry a physical map. I check the weather reports. I keep track of the headcount, monitor the pace, and point out trail markers to ensure everyone stays safely on the path. We talk, we share snacks, and we label the landscape as we walk through it. As a botanist I am obsessed with identifying every wildflower in our path.
But every now and then, on these monthly hikes, a strange shift happens. We will reach a high ridge, or descend into a valley with a beautiful stream bordered by majestic cliffs, and cottonwood and sycamore trees, and a sudden, unprompted silence will fall over the entire group. Without anyone giving a command, the chatter stops. The heavy breathing slows. And the rustle of boots fades.
In those moments, as a leader, I look at the faces of the people around me, and I can see that we have collectively stepped off the official trail. We have entered an experience that is entirely beyond words. Nobody is checking their watches. Nobody is thinking about the mileage. The concepts of “leader” and “group” melt away. We are no longer a club hiking through nature; we are completely submerged in a vast, silent occurrence. We went out there looking for an experience in nature, but accidentally stumbled into a great emergence.
The Illusion of the Visitor
When we first walk into the woods, we usually take our narrator with us. The mind walks a few paces ahead, commenting on everything: “Look at that beautiful wildflower”. “Listen to that bird”. “I am forest bathing right now”. “I am practicing mindfulness.” Notice what is happening here. There is still a “me” over here and a “forest” over there. The mind is treating nature like a museum gallery, and we are the critics walking through, checking off boxes, hanging onto words. But if you stay out there long enough, and if you walk quietly enough, something beautiful begins to fracture. The linear concept of time begins to shift. You stop trying to get to the end of the path. You stop checking your watch. You slip out of the horizontal stream of past and future, and you drop straight down into the transcendant radiance that reveals the present moment. Dogen refers this in his fascicle Uji, as “being-time” or existing wholeheartedly in the ‘now’. The forest ceases to be a place you are visiting. You are the forest.
The Great Emergence
Then, a moment arrives. It usually happens when you are completely still. Perhaps you are leaning against a sycamore tree, or sitting on the gravel bank of a stream. Suddenly, the internal narrator runs out of things to say. The labels stop. You look at a leaf, but the word “leaf” dissolves. You are left only with the raw, green suchness of reality. A bird calls out, and because there is no thought the sound strikes your eardrum like a sudden crack of thunder. In that exact millisecond, before the brain can interpret the data, where are you?
This is the state of Mushin—No-Mind. It is a complete and radical emergence. In this state of no-thought, the boundary line between your skin and the forest and the stream completely vanishes. You realize that your lungs are inhaling what the trees are exhaling, and the trees are inhaling what you exhale. The mirror of your consciousness becomes so completely empty, so perfectly clear, that you disappear. There is no hiker looking at the forest. There is only the forest and stream, experiencing itself, right here.
Beyond Self Identity
To experience this is to step entirely beyond words. And because it is beyond words, we cannot bring it back in a bucket. We cannot write it down in a journal. The moment we try to tell someone, “I experienced total oneness today,” we have created a concept, and the truth has slipped through our fingers like dry sand.
Zen Master Cuiwei Wuxue was once asked by his student (Qingping Lingzun), “What is the meaning of the Zen Patriarch coming from the West?”
Cuiwei looked at him and simply said, “Wait until there is no one around, and I will tell you.”
Later, the student found the Master alone in a garden and said, “There is no one here now. Please tell
me.”
Cuiwei pointed to a bamboo grove nearby and said: “How can this bamboo stalk be so long, and that stalk so short.”On hearing these words Quingping experienced his great awakening.
The Invitation
So, my invitation to you the next time you walk out among the trees is this: do not go out there to
be a “forest bather.” Do not go out there to be “mindful”. Go out there to lose your vocabulary.
Listen to the wind until you forget your own name. Let the thoughts rise and fall like clouds over the canopy, but do not claim them. Stand entirely naked of concepts. And when you return to your daily life, you will find that you don’t need to explain what happened. Your silence, your presence, and the way you step gently upon the earth will speak for you. These brief moments of oneness and clarity is why we return to the cushion again and again – to drop off linear time and practice vertical integration. To open ourselves to all possibilities. This requires continual practice.
The Meaning of the Universe and the Preciousness of Sangha
When I was growing up during the late 50s and early 60s we lived in a small farm town and we lived right on the edge of town. A block south of us was a small farm where you could hear cows lowing in the morning, and across the street to the west was a corral and stables where horses were quartered. Since there was little light pollution, when I looked up at the night sky, especially on a cold, clear winter night I could see countless stars; thousands maybe millions. I used to lie on my back looking up at the night sky with awe trying to imagine the immenseness of it with a deep sense of wondering, “ What’s out there?”
Since that day there have been many scientific advancements not just in astronomy but in electronics physics, chemistry, medicine and so on. It seems to me, though, that as each scientific question is answered it comes at the expense of more questions. This means that mankind may never reach the end of its search for how and why, and the limits may only be the limits of the ability of the human mind to comprehend. It also means that scientific inquiry, the acquisition of knowledge, can never reach the point of explaining the meaning of the universe. In other words it can only explain the how and never the why.
The motivation behind this constant drive for more knowledge, this sort of infinite curiosity is in many cases a good one. Many advances in science and technology have benefited mankind through improved health, and forms of communication that were impossible when I was a child. But it is also true that these advances can seem to feed into our human need for certainty. It is the hope of many that science can somehow lead us into a world of prosperity and peace. But too many times we see that the opposite is true. The search for cures of an illness, for example, may be perverted into development of biological weaponry. The technology that allows us greater and greater communication and access to information also makes us vulnerable to thieves and con artists.
The problem doesn’t stem from science. The cause is the clinging to the idea that we can manipulate the world to meet our needs. And throughout history we have seen global suffering created by those who would use these tools to fortifytheir position of power.
The answer to the ultimate purpose, meaning or moral value of our existence cannot be found through mathematics or scientific inquiry. The goal of Buddhism is not comfort, self improvement or even a more peaceful lifestyle, even if these may happen to appear along the way. What Buddhist practice offers us is a clear observation of our existence. We can cultivate a mind which can hold the discoveries of our inquiries without judgment or mental clinging. The benefit of this is that we can experience our life with direct intimacy, and freedom to act, not from habit or self-interest, but from a perspective of freedom; a freedom away from our reliance on limited, habitual perspective which leads us toward a perspective of openness.
With the clarity gained through the practice of shikantaza, we can experience this freedom, this openness. In his essay ‘Bussho’, Dogen says,”Therefore the very impermanency of grass and tree, thicket and forest is the Buddha Nature. Nature and lands, mountains and rivers, are impermanent because they are the Buddha nature. Supreme and complete enlightenment, because it is impermanent, is the Buddha Nature”. The practice of the Dharma leads us beyond the questions of “Why?”, “What is the meaning?”, or “What is the purpose?” When we find ourselves in the great ocean of the Dharma, of Buddha nature, we understand the purpose is exactly that; the realization of the direct experience of the Dharma at the very heart of our Buddha nature.
Many years ago there was a science fiction movie called Contact. In the movie highly advanced beings from some distant world contacted earth scientists and instructed them in the construction of a vehicle that could be used to travel to that distant world. There they explained to the protagonist that they now use this means of travel, which they themselves had inherited from even more advanced culture from the remote past. They now use this means a travel to explore and meet other intelligent beings. When they were asked “What is the meaning of it all”, the response was, “In all of our travels the only thing that we have found with any meaning is each other.”
I think perhaps we could make this our mantra. Because it is so ephemeral, this gift of the sangha is made precious. We should make our lives about each other, because the purpose and meaning of our existence cannot be found ‘out there’, but by means of what we discover about ourselves.
Nuclear destruction―through nuclear weapons and nuclear power, both utilizing nuclear energy―introduces nuclear explosions and radiation exposure into the living world on a scale unknown to natural ecosystems. It violates the conditions sustaining life, destroying living beings and ecosystems from within and without, and threatening catastrophic consequences for the entire web of life. Nine countries―Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea―possess more than 12,000 nuclear warheads.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are estimated to have killed approximately 140,000 and 74,000 people, respectively, by the end of 1945. By 2026, the combined number of names recorded in the memorial registers of the deceased had exceeded 558,000. The victims included Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Europeans, and Americans. Furthermore, there remain concerns about internal radiation exposure among survivors and possible hereditary effects on their descendants, while more than 2,000 nuclear tests have exposed over two million people to radiation.
In addition to the nine nuclear-armed countries, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Spain, and approximately twenty other countries have operated nuclear power plants. Serious nuclear accidents have occurred in the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States, causing deaths, injuries, accident-related fatalities, evacuations, and the loss of homes, communities, and livelihoods. Nuclear power also presents numerous problems throughout its entire cycle, from uranium mining to reactor operation, radioactive contamination, and the storage of spent nuclear fuel for tens of thousands of years.
Nuclear technology developed with the dual potential of generating electricity and producing materials for nuclear weapons. Consequently, uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel reprocessing, separated plutonium stockpiles, and international inspections have remained persistent concerns. South Africa and other countries voluntarily relinquished nuclear weapons in the interest of peace, while Germany, Italy, Taiwan, and others phased out nuclear power to avoid the risks of nuclear accidents.
Compared with renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal power, nuclear electricity also faces questions of economic competitiveness. Its problems extend from uranium mining, fuel production, operation, and waste disposal to radioactive contamination, marine pollution, thermal discharges, environmental and climate impacts, accidents, falsification or concealment of safety information, operational errors, evacuations, decommissioning, and the ultimate financial burden borne by electricity consumers and society.
The myth of absolute nuclear safety has collapsed. Fifteen years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, major problems remain: the removal of melted nuclear fuel debris; the management of contaminated and treated water; long-term storage and final disposal of radioactive waste; evacuation, return, and reconstruction of people’s lives; health effects and long-term monitoring; the safety and costs of decommissioning; the restoration of public trust; and responsibility toward future generations.
Plutonium, named after Pluto, the ruler of the underworld, is an extremely hazardous radioactive substance produced in nuclear reactors. It can be used in atomic bombs and remains in spent nuclear fuel. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of approximately 24,100 years, and traces remain even after ten half-lives. Other radioactive substances, including isotopes of cesium, iodine, and uranium, have half-lives ranging from years to millions or billions of years. Nuclear power generation began without a demonstrated guarantee of safe permanent disposal for all these long-lived radioactive materials.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster resulted from the earthquake and tsunami that led to reactor core meltdowns and radioactive contamination. Finland’s Onkalo geological repository is designed with safety considerations extending over 100,000 years and assessments reaching as far as one million years. Yet the history of modern humanity extends only a few hundred thousand years. Geological movements, groundwater changes, future ice ages, and other long-term uncertainties raise profound questions about responsibility toward future generations.
Nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons are both consequences and reinforcing causes of the irresponsibility embedded in the power structures of our pyramidal civilization. Nuclear weapons are maintained under the doctrine of MAD―Mutually Assured Destruction. The MAGIC―Military, Academic, Governmental, Industrial Complex―is driven by the three karmic poisons and competition for the 3Ms: Money, Matter, and Might. The resulting Five Calamities―Delusion, Bondage, Discrimination, Exploitation, and Destruction―have brought humanity into a dangerous impasse, symbolized by the Doomsday Clock standing at 85 seconds to midnight.
The self-centered and monopolizing power generated by the three karmic poisons is not justice. The universal Dharma of Dependent Origination teaches that all things exist through mutual relationship and relativity. Isolated, sovereign entities such as the supposedly independent self or state have no ultimate existence; they are conventional designations. Failure to recognize this truth gives rise to the collective karmic suffering of dictatorship, war, nuclear destruction, and civilizational collapse. Dharma, not power, is the foundation of justice. When people awaken and act in accordance with Dharma, they can share the 3Hs―Holy Life, Heart, and Harmony―and practice the Three Learnings: Ethical Conduct, Mental Cultivation, and Wisdom.
Those who hold power are reluctant to relinquish their militaries, wars, and nuclear weapons because these sustain their power. This is one reason progress toward nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has been obstructed. For the sake of humanity and all living beings, the public must support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, share the 3Hs of Holy Life, Heart, and Harmony, cultivate the Three Learnings, and advance the Five Blessings―Awakening, Freedom, Equality, Friendship, and Peace. In this way, humanity can realize the immeasurable cultural values of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness (wholly wholesomeness).
Dharma is both the foundation and the fulfillment of the Life–Indra’s Net Culture. By awakening to and acting upon the universal Dharma of Dependent Origination, discovered and articulated during the Axial Age, we can awaken from conventional truth to ultimate truth. We can move beyond the resignation imposed by a pyramidal civilization ruled by a few and arrive at the clear realization of truth within a harmonious culture shared by the many. In Japanese, this is a transformation from akirame (諦め)―resignation―to akirame (明らめ)―clarification or realization―recovering the original meaning of tai (諦): truth. Such awakening makes responsible transformation through awakened action possible.
“Where there is a will, there is a way.”
“The voice of the people is the voice of God”―that is, of Dharma or Dao.
The people constitute the great majority, while all living beings and ecosystems constitute the entire community of life. Ultimately, “Truth Alone Triumphs.”
This is the teaching of Self Refuge and Dharma Refuge, proclaimed by the great religious traditions of the Axial Age. It is the essence of genuine faith and the good news of liberation.
Let us know our Original Face, our True Human Being, and our Dharma Body!
参考文献： John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp. 167–174.
Holding Fast, Letting Go: What Work Reveals
Good morning.
Yesterday I returned home from Missouri. I didn’t get to see everyone I had hoped to see, but I completed my interviews and spent time sitting and gardening with Roshi Rosan and our sangha in person at the Missouri Zen Center.
Gardening is an activity I love. So, preparing the garden for fall by pulling up plants, trimming
trees, and clearing vines from the paths was joyful work.
When I sit, a clear mind doesn’t always come easily. But when I garden, there is nothing but
gardening. Everything is clear. I’ve been reflecting on that experience while reading John Daido Loori’s chapter on “Sacred Activity: Work Practice” in The Eight Gates of Zen.
He writes: “Work emerges as an active function of zazen.”
That phrase asks something more of us than simply finding work relaxing or satisfying. It asks: What happens to our sitting when we stand up? What becomes of our practice when there is something to do, and someone beside us doing it?
Last week, I spoke about cooking as an expression of care. Today, I want to consider another aspect of work: its ability to show us our habits. Loori describes the monastery not simply as a sanctuary, but as a furnace in which practice prepares us to meet everyday life.
A sanctuary offers refuge. A furnace transforms. We may come to practice hoping for quiet,
relief, or a little distance from the demands of our lives. There is nothing wrong with needing
that refuge. But practice also brings us into contact with the ways we resist the life immediately in front of us. Work makes those patterns visible.
Perhaps we rush because we want to be finished. Perhaps we hesitate because we are afraid of doing something wrong. Perhaps we want to be useful, but only in ways that allow us to feel competent. Perhaps we are already planning the next task while our hands are still occupied with this one.
These are possibilities to notice, not faults to condemn. And this is one reason practicing with sangha matters. Alone, we can often arrange things around our preferences. Together, we meet a pace, a need, or a way of doing things that is not entirely our own. The person beside us is not an interruption to our practice. Working together is an opportunity to discover where we are holding too tightly.
Loori describes two movements in work practice: “holding fast” and “letting go.” Holding fast
means giving ourselves fully to what we are doing. When we are clearing vines, we clear vines. We attend to the task rather than continually stepping away from it in our minds. But attention also requires letting go.
When it is time to move on, can we move on? Or do we carry the last task into the next one
along with our satisfaction, our frustration, or our judgment about how it should have gone?
Loori calls this carrying the debris of the previous activity with us.
In the garden, we can remove the vines from a path. But what are we carrying inwardly?
Can we put down the thought, “I should have done more”?
Can we release the need to have our contribution noticed?
Can we finish one thing without immediately turning it into a judgment about ourselves?
This does not mean that practice requires an empty mind or that distraction makes us
unsuccessful. Loori describes returning to work much as we return to the breath in zazen. We notice that attention has wandered. We acknowledge what is happening, let go, and return. There is no need to make a second task out of criticizing ourselves. Returning is the practice.
So, when I say that gardening feels clear, I don’t want to turn that clarity into something I must reproduce. The garden does not have to give me a particular experience. There is work to meet, whether my mind feels settled or not. And there is another person there, practicing too. We can support one another without needing to explain everything. Sometimes that support is a necessary question or instruction. Sometimes it is simply working alongside someone without filling the space with conversation. Loori is careful about this: silence does not mean refusing to speak when communication is needed. It means noticing when talk is only another way of stepping away from what is here.
Finally, work practice includes finishing. Not only completing the visible task, but cleaning up,
putting things away, and releasing the work. Loori calls this “leaving no trace.” We might also
hear an inward invitation in those words: to finish without carrying away a little monument to
ourselves.
We did the work. Now we can let it go. Perhaps that is something sangha helps us learn — not simply how to accomplish more together, but how to participate without making ourselves the center of everything. To give ourselves fully. To notice when we have wandered. To return. And when the work is done, to put it down.
The path is clear. What is needed now?
Thank you.
Rofu (露風)
Reference: John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp.
Yesterday I returned home from Missouri. I didn’t get to see everyone I had hoped to see, but I completed my interviews and spent time sitting and gardening with Roshi Rosan and our sangha in person at the Missouri Zen Center.
Gardening is an activity I love. So, preparing the garden for fall by pulling up plants, trimming
trees, and clearing vines from the paths was joyful work.
When I sit, a clear mind doesn’t always come easily. But when I garden, there is nothing but
gardening. Everything is clear. I’ve been reflecting on that experience while reading John Daido Loori’s chapter on “Sacred Activity: Work Practice” in The Eight Gates of Zen.
He writes: “Work emerges as an active function of zazen.”
That phrase asks something more of us than simply finding work relaxing or satisfying. It asks: What happens to our sitting when we stand up? What becomes of our practice when there is something to do, and someone beside us doing it?
Last week, I spoke about cooking as an expression of care. Today, I want to consider another aspect of work: its ability to show us our habits. Loori describes the monastery not simply as a sanctuary, but as a furnace in which practice prepares us to meet everyday life.
A sanctuary offers refuge. A furnace transforms. We may come to practice hoping for quiet,
relief, or a little distance from the demands of our lives. There is nothing wrong with needing
that refuge. But practice also brings us into contact with the ways we resist the life immediately in front of us. Work makes those patterns visible.
Perhaps we rush because we want to be finished. Perhaps we hesitate because we are afraid of doing something wrong. Perhaps we want to be useful, but only in ways that allow us to feel competent. Perhaps we are already planning the next task while our hands are still occupied with this one.
These are possibilities to notice, not faults to condemn. And this is one reason practicing with sangha matters. Alone, we can often arrange things around our preferences. Together, we meet a pace, a need, or a way of doing things that is not entirely our own. The person beside us is not an interruption to our practice. Working together is an opportunity to discover where we are holding too tightly.
Loori describes two movements in work practice: “holding fast” and “letting go.” Holding fast
means giving ourselves fully to what we are doing. When we are clearing vines, we clear vines. We attend to the task rather than continually stepping away from it in our minds. But attention also requires letting go.
When it is time to move on, can we move on? Or do we carry the last task into the next one
along with our satisfaction, our frustration, or our judgment about how it should have gone?
Loori calls this carrying the debris of the previous activity with us.
In the garden, we can remove the vines from a path. But what are we carrying inwardly?
Can we put down the thought, “I should have done more”?
Can we release the need to have our contribution noticed?
Can we finish one thing without immediately turning it into a judgment about ourselves?
This does not mean that practice requires an empty mind or that distraction makes us
unsuccessful. Loori describes returning to work much as we return to the breath in zazen. We notice that attention has wandered. We acknowledge what is happening, let go, and return. There is no need to make a second task out of criticizing ourselves. Returning is the practice.
So, when I say that gardening feels clear, I don’t want to turn that clarity into something I must reproduce. The garden does not have to give me a particular experience. There is work to meet, whether my mind feels settled or not. And there is another person there, practicing too. We can support one another without needing to explain everything. Sometimes that support is a necessary question or instruction. Sometimes it is simply working alongside someone without filling the space with conversation. Loori is careful about this: silence does not mean refusing to speak when communication is needed. It means noticing when talk is only another way of stepping away from what is here.
Finally, work practice includes finishing. Not only completing the visible task, but cleaning up,
putting things away, and releasing the work. Loori calls this “leaving no trace.” We might also
hear an inward invitation in those words: to finish without carrying away a little monument to
ourselves.
We did the work. Now we can let it go. Perhaps that is something sangha helps us learn — not simply how to accomplish more together, but how to participate without making ourselves the center of everything. To give ourselves fully. To notice when we have wandered. To return. And when the work is done, to put it down.
The path is clear. What is needed now?
Thank you.
Rofu (露風)
Reference: John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp.
参考文献： John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp. 167–174.
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Holding Fast, Letting Go: What Work Reveals
Good morning.
Yesterday I returned home from Missouri. I didn’t get to see everyone I had hoped to see, but I completed my interviews and spent time sitting and gardening with Roshi Rosan and our sangha in person at the Missouri Zen Center.
Gardening is an activity I love. So, preparing the garden for fall by pulling up plants, trimming
trees, and clearing vines from the paths was joyful work.
When I sit, a clear mind doesn’t always come easily. But when I garden, there is nothing but
gardening. Everything is clear. I’ve been reflecting on that experience while reading John Daido Loori’s chapter on “Sacred Activity: Work Practice” in The Eight Gates of Zen.
He writes: “Work emerges as an active function of zazen.”
That phrase asks something more of us than simply finding work relaxing or satisfying. It asks: What happens to our sitting when we stand up? What becomes of our practice when there is something to do, and someone beside us doing it?
Last week, I spoke about cooking as an expression of care. Today, I want to consider another aspect of work: its ability to show us our habits. Loori describes the monastery not simply as a sanctuary, but as a furnace in which practice prepares us to meet everyday life.
A sanctuary offers refuge. A furnace transforms. We may come to practice hoping for quiet,
relief, or a little distance from the demands of our lives. There is nothing wrong with needing
that refuge. But practice also brings us into contact with the ways we resist the life immediately in front of us. Work makes those patterns visible.
Perhaps we rush because we want to be finished. Perhaps we hesitate because we are afraid of doing something wrong. Perhaps we want to be useful, but only in ways that allow us to feel competent. Perhaps we are already planning the next task while our hands are still occupied with this one.
These are possibilities to notice, not faults to condemn. And this is one reason practicing with sangha matters. Alone, we can often arrange things around our preferences. Together, we meet a pace, a need, or a way of doing things that is not entirely our own. The person beside us is not an interruption to our practice. Working together is an opportunity to discover where we are holding too tightly.
Loori describes two movements in work practice: “holding fast” and “letting go.” Holding fast
means giving ourselves fully to what we are doing. When we are clearing vines, we clear vines. We attend to the task rather than continually stepping away from it in our minds. But attention also requires letting go.
When it is time to move on, can we move on? Or do we carry the last task into the next one
along with our satisfaction, our frustration, or our judgment about how it should have gone?
Loori calls this carrying the debris of the previous activity with us.
In the garden, we can remove the vines from a path. But what are we carrying inwardly?
Can we put down the thought, “I should have done more”?
Can we release the need to have our contribution noticed?
Can we finish one thing without immediately turning it into a judgment about ourselves?
This does not mean that practice requires an empty mind or that distraction makes us
unsuccessful. Loori describes returning to work much as we return to the breath in zazen. We notice that attention has wandered. We acknowledge what is happening, let go, and return. There is no need to make a second task out of criticizing ourselves. Returning is the practice.
So, when I say that gardening feels clear, I don’t want to turn that clarity into something I must reproduce. The garden does not have to give me a particular experience. There is work to meet, whether my mind feels settled or not. And there is another person there, practicing too. We can support one another without needing to explain everything. Sometimes that support is a necessary question or instruction. Sometimes it is simply working alongside someone without filling the space with conversation. Loori is careful about this: silence does not mean refusing to speak when communication is needed. It means noticing when talk is only another way of stepping away from what is here.
Finally, work practice includes finishing. Not only completing the visible task, but cleaning up,
putting things away, and releasing the work. Loori calls this “leaving no trace.” We might also
hear an inward invitation in those words: to finish without carrying away a little monument to
ourselves.
We did the work. Now we can let it go. Perhaps that is something sangha helps us learn — not simply how to accomplish more together, but how to participate without making ourselves the center of everything. To give ourselves fully. To notice when we have wandered. To return. And when the work is done, to put it down.
The path is clear. What is needed now?
Thank you.
Rofu (露風)
Reference: John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp.
参考文献： John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp. 167–174.
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Holding Fast, Letting Go: What Work Reveals
Good morning.
Yesterday I returned home from Missouri. I didn’t get to see everyone I had hoped to see, but I completed my interviews and spent time sitting and gardening with Roshi Rosan and our sangha in person at the Missouri Zen Center.
Gardening is an activity I love. So, preparing the garden for fall by pulling up plants, trimming
trees, and clearing vines from the paths was joyful work.
When I sit, a clear mind doesn’t always come easily. But when I garden, there is nothing but
gardening. Everything is clear. I’ve been reflecting on that experience while reading John Daido Loori’s chapter on “Sacred Activity: Work Practice” in The Eight Gates of Zen.
He writes: “Work emerges as an active function of zazen.”
That phrase asks something more of us than simply finding work relaxing or satisfying. It asks: What happens to our sitting when we stand up? What becomes of our practice when there is something to do, and someone beside us doing it?
Last week, I spoke about cooking as an expression of care. Today, I want to consider another aspect of work: its ability to show us our habits. Loori describes the monastery not simply as a sanctuary, but as a furnace in which practice prepares us to meet everyday life.
A sanctuary offers refuge. A furnace transforms. We may come to practice hoping for quiet,
relief, or a little distance from the demands of our lives. There is nothing wrong with needing
that refuge. But practice also brings us into contact with the ways we resist the life immediately in front of us. Work makes those patterns visible.
Perhaps we rush because we want to be finished. Perhaps we hesitate because we are afraid of doing something wrong. Perhaps we want to be useful, but only in ways that allow us to feel competent. Perhaps we are already planning the next task while our hands are still occupied with this one.
These are possibilities to notice, not faults to condemn. And this is one reason practicing with sangha matters. Alone, we can often arrange things around our preferences. Together, we meet a pace, a need, or a way of doing things that is not entirely our own. The person beside us is not an interruption to our practice. Working together is an opportunity to discover where we are holding too tightly.
Loori describes two movements in work practice: “holding fast” and “letting go.” Holding fast
means giving ourselves fully to what we are doing. When we are clearing vines, we clear vines. We attend to the task rather than continually stepping away from it in our minds. But attention also requires letting go.
When it is time to move on, can we move on? Or do we carry the last task into the next one
along with our satisfaction, our frustration, or our judgment about how it should have gone?
Loori calls this carrying the debris of the previous activity with us.
In the garden, we can remove the vines from a path. But what are we carrying inwardly?
Can we put down the thought, “I should have done more”?
Can we release the need to have our contribution noticed?
Can we finish one thing without immediately turning it into a judgment about ourselves?
This does not mean that practice requires an empty mind or that distraction makes us
unsuccessful. Loori describes returning to work much as we return to the breath in zazen. We notice that attention has wandered. We acknowledge what is happening, let go, and return. There is no need to make a second task out of criticizing ourselves. Returning is the practice.
So, when I say that gardening feels clear, I don’t want to turn that clarity into something I must reproduce. The garden does not have to give me a particular experience. There is work to meet, whether my mind feels settled or not. And there is another person there, practicing too. We can support one another without needing to explain everything. Sometimes that support is a necessary question or instruction. Sometimes it is simply working alongside someone without filling the space with conversation. Loori is careful about this: silence does not mean refusing to speak when communication is needed. It means noticing when talk is only another way of stepping away from what is here.
Finally, work practice includes finishing. Not only completing the visible task, but cleaning up,
putting things away, and releasing the work. Loori calls this “leaving no trace.” We might also
hear an inward invitation in those words: to finish without carrying away a little monument to
ourselves.
We did the work. Now we can let it go. Perhaps that is something sangha helps us learn — not simply how to accomplish more together, but how to participate without making ourselves the center of everything. To give ourselves fully. To notice when we have wandered. To return. And when the work is done, to put it down.
The path is clear. What is needed now?
Thank you.
Rofu (露風)
Reference: John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp.
参考文献： John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp. 167–174.
Holding Fast, Letting Go: What Work Reveals
Good morning.
Yesterday I returned home from Missouri. I didn’t get to see everyone I had hoped to see, but I completed my interviews and spent time sitting and gardening with Roshi Rosan and our sangha in person at the Missouri Zen Center.
Gardening is an activity I love. So, preparing the garden for fall by pulling up plants, trimming
trees, and clearing vines from the paths was joyful work.
When I sit, a clear mind doesn’t always come easily. But when I garden, there is nothing but
gardening. Everything is clear. I’ve been reflecting on that experience while reading John Daido Loori’s chapter on “Sacred Activity: Work Practice” in The Eight Gates of Zen.
He writes: “Work emerges as an active function of zazen.”
That phrase asks something more of us than simply finding work relaxing or satisfying. It asks: What happens to our sitting when we stand up? What becomes of our practice when there is something to do, and someone beside us doing it?
Last week, I spoke about cooking as an expression of care. Today, I want to consider another aspect of work: its ability to show us our habits. Loori describes the monastery not simply as a sanctuary, but as a furnace in which practice prepares us to meet everyday life.
A sanctuary offers refuge. A furnace transforms. We may come to practice hoping for quiet,
relief, or a little distance from the demands of our lives. There is nothing wrong with needing
that refuge. But practice also brings us into contact with the ways we resist the life immediately in front of us. Work makes those patterns visible.
Perhaps we rush because we want to be finished. Perhaps we hesitate because we are afraid of doing something wrong. Perhaps we want to be useful, but only in ways that allow us to feel competent. Perhaps we are already planning the next task while our hands are still occupied with this one.
These are possibilities to notice, not faults to condemn. And this is one reason practicing with sangha matters. Alone, we can often arrange things around our preferences. Together, we meet a pace, a need, or a way of doing things that is not entirely our own. The person beside us is not an interruption to our practice. Working together is an opportunity to discover where we are holding too tightly.
Loori describes two movements in work practice: “holding fast” and “letting go.” Holding fast
means giving ourselves fully to what we are doing. When we are clearing vines, we clear vines. We attend to the task rather than continually stepping away from it in our minds. But attention also requires letting go.
When it is time to move on, can we move on? Or do we carry the last task into the next one
along with our satisfaction, our frustration, or our judgment about how it should have gone?
Loori calls this carrying the debris of the previous activity with us.
In the garden, we can remove the vines from a path. But what are we carrying inwardly?
Can we put down the thought, “I should have done more”?
Can we release the need to have our contribution noticed?
Can we finish one thing without immediately turning it into a judgment about ourselves?
This does not mean that practice requires an empty mind or that distraction makes us
unsuccessful. Loori describes returning to work much as we return to the breath in zazen. We notice that attention has wandered. We acknowledge what is happening, let go, and return. There is no need to make a second task out of criticizing ourselves. Returning is the practice.
So, when I say that gardening feels clear, I don’t want to turn that clarity into something I must reproduce. The garden does not have to give me a particular experience. There is work to meet, whether my mind feels settled or not. And there is another person there, practicing too. We can support one another without needing to explain everything. Sometimes that support is a necessary question or instruction. Sometimes it is simply working alongside someone without filling the space with conversation. Loori is careful about this: silence does not mean refusing to speak when communication is needed. It means noticing when talk is only another way of stepping away from what is here.
Finally, work practice includes finishing. Not only completing the visible task, but cleaning up,
putting things away, and releasing the work. Loori calls this “leaving no trace.” We might also
hear an inward invitation in those words: to finish without carrying away a little monument to
ourselves.
We did the work. Now we can let it go. Perhaps that is something sangha helps us learn — not simply how to accomplish more together, but how to participate without making ourselves the center of everything. To give ourselves fully. To notice when we have wandered. To return. And when the work is done, to put it down.
The path is clear. What is needed now?
Thank you.
Rofu (露風)
Reference: John Daido Loori, The Eight Gates of Zen, “Sacred Activity—Work Practice,” pp.
Pillay was born and raised in Durban, where she later attended the University of Natal, receiving her Bachelor of Arts in 1963 and her Bachelor of Law in 1965. After university, Pillay pursued a career as an attorney and served under criminal defence attorney N.T. Naicker, joining the legal defence against apartheid. In 1967, Pillay started her own law firm and became the first woman to do so in her home province of Natal. In 1981, Pillay attended Harvard University and earned her Master of Law. In 1988, she completed her thesis and graduated from Harvard Law School with a Doctorate of Jurisprudence.
Navanetham Naidoo was born to Narrainsamy Naidoo and Santhama Naidoo on 23 September 1941 in a poor neighbourhood of Durban, province of Natal, Union of South Africa, into a family of Indian Tamil origin.[3][4][5] Her grandparents came from India as indentured servants to work on South African sugar plantations in Natal in the 1890s.[3] Her parents had an arranged marriage during their early teens and had eight children, the fifth being Pillay.[6] Narrainsamy was a bus-driver by trade and took up other jobs such as fishing to supplement their income while Santhama was a homemaker.[6] The two raised their family with strong Hindu values, emphasizing equality between the men and women in the family.[6]
While most of Pillay’s counterparts during elementary school were married off, her parents insisted she and her two other sisters attend school like their brothers.[3] At the time, there were more children in South Africa than there were spots in schools.[6][3] Adamant on ensuring education for all her children, Pillay’s mother would wait in long admission lines, using the birth certificates of her older children to get her younger children into school.[6] With limited money for school supplies, Santhama Pillay would stitch together notebooks for her younger children, using blank pages from the used notebooks of her elder children.[3]
In school, Pillay experienced an environment completely different than her home life, learning a new religion in a new language.[6] Despite their personal beliefs, teachers were strictly prohibited from addressing politics, including apartheid, out of fear that the school administration would retaliate.[6]
Pillay had her first encounter with the law when she was five years old and testified in court after being robbed of 5 pounds.[6] Her mother had given her the money to give to her father as these were his wages for the month.[6] While the subject was convicted, the court did not return the money to her father.[6]
Pillay received many accolades for her writing during her early childhood. When she was 10 years old, Pillay wrote an in-class essay on how black individuals received heavier sentences than their white counterparts in South African courts using information she had overheard from her parents and teachers since she could not access radios or newspapers.[6] At age 14, Pillay submitted an essay on why South Africans should buy South African–made commerce to a competition held by the Durban Chamber of Commerce and later received a bronze medal for her work.[6] At 15, Pillay published an essay on the role of women in instilling values in children which earned her an award of books from the Jewish Women’s Union.[6]
Supported by donations from the local Indian community, she graduated from the University of Natal with a BA in 1963 and an LLB in 1965.[6] She was sponsored by the citizens of Clairwood, the Durban City Council, and a scholarship from the university.[6] During her years at the University of Natal, the campus was extremely politically active.[6] Most classes and graduations were segregated which infuriated many students on campus.[6] Under apartheid, Pillay was forced to share what limited resources they were given amongst all non-white students at the university.[6] She once had to share a required textbook in a non-white library with 20 of her other non-white classmates.[6] In 1959, South Africa passed the Separate Universities Act which forced previously de-segregated universities to re-segregate.[6] As a result, Pillay was forced to transfer to the nearest non-white university, University at Salisbury Island, after her first year of university.[6] While the University of Natal offered an LLB program, University at Salisbury Island did not.[6] She filed for an exemption with Minister of Justice, calling the office directly after receiving no response and was then able to return to Natal, where she could finish her degree.[6]
She later attended Harvard Law School under the foreign exchange Harvard–South Africa Scholarship Program,[7] earning an LLM in 1982 and a Doctor of Juridical Science degree after completing her thesis in 1988.[6][3] Pillay was the first South African to obtain a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School.[8]
Personal life
She met her husband Paranjothee “Gaby” Anthony Pillay in 1962 as the first lawyer she offered a contract of articles to.[6] The two married in January 1965 and went on to have two daughters.[9]
Legal career in South Africa
Pillay has spent much of her legal career advocating for the preservation of international human rights law, with a special focus on crimes regarding rape and sexual violence.[10] She was very involved in the anti-apartheid movement, defending political opponents of apartheid in their cases against the state for poor prison conditions and the wrongful use of torture.[11][6]
Shadow work
After graduating University of Natal, Pillay had the choice of becoming an advocate or an attorney.[6] Pillay chose to pursue a legal career as an attorney, which required two years of service as an attorney before becoming an admitted attorney.[6] For two years, she served under N.T. Naiker, a member of the African National Congress. Naiker was often under house arrest and had to rely on Pillay to testify for his clients in court.[6]
In 1967, Pillay became one of three women admitted as attorneys, and the first non-white[12] woman to open her own law practice in the province of Natal.[13] She says she had no other alternative: “No law firm would employ me because they said they could not have white employees taking instructions from a coloured person”.[14] As a non-white lawyer under the apartheid regime, she was not allowed to enter a judge’s chambers.[14]
Private practice
Navi Pillay’s Alma Mater Harvard Law
During her 28 years as a lawyer in South Africa, she defended anti-Apartheid activists[15] of the African National Congress, the Unity Movement, the Black Consciousness Movement, and Azapo.[6] She also helped expose the use of torture[15] and poor conditions of political detainees.[14] When her husband was detained in 1971 under the Terrorism Act, she successfully sued to prevent the police from using unlawful methods of interrogation against him.[16] In 1973, she won the right for political prisoners on Robben Island, including Nelson Mandela, to have access to lawyers in State v Kader Hassim and 9 others and State v Harry Gwala and 9 others.[6][17] While providing legal counsel, her clients recommended she consult judges with expertise in international law and humanitarian law on their cases.[6] Pillay then applied to and attended Harvard University in 1981 under the foreign exchange Harvard-South Africa Scholarship Program and earned her Master of Law.[6] The Harvard-South Africa Scholarship Program was a foreign exchange program created by anti-apartheid activists on Harvard’s campus.[3] They demanded that if the university were to continue to invest in companies that did business with South Africa under apartheid that they offer opportunities for South African students to study at Harvard.[3] After completing her thesis, she graduated from Harvard Law School with a Doctorate of Jurisprudence in 1988. She co-founded the Advice Desk for the Abused and ran a shelter for victims of domestic violence.[16] As a member of the Women’s National Coalition, she contributed to the inclusion in South Africa’s Constitution of an equality clause prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race, religion and sexual orientation.[18] In 1992, she co-founded the international women’s rights group Equality Now.[18]
High Court of South Africa
In 1995, the year after the African National Congress came to power, Pillay was nominated and confirmed to the High Court of South Africa by President Nelson Mandela and the Judicial Service Commission[19] under supervision of the bar association, becoming the first non-white woman to serve on the court.[6][13][19]
The Judicial Service Commission is a group of jurists hand picked by the President of South Africa to screen incoming candidates on the High Court of South Africa and compile the list of nominees.[20] Pillay’s connection with Nelson Mandela during their work against apartheid made her a familiar name to Mandela during his presidency, putting her on the short-list for the nomination to the court.[3] Shortly after her appointment, President Mandela called Pillay to personally congratulate her on her judgeship, stating “your appointment gives me great personal joy”.[6] She noted that “the first time I entered a judge’s chambers was when I entered my own.”[17]
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1995–2003)
In 1995, the Minister of Justice Abdullah Omar and President Mandela submitted Pillay’s name as a nominee for the U.N. Security Council and a judge on the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).[19] Between 1999 and 2003, Pillay served on the ICTR and was elected President Judge.[22] She served for eight years, including four years as president.[21] She was the only female judge for the first four years of the tribunal.[23] Her tenure on the ICTR is best remembered for her role in the landmark trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, which established that rape and sexual assault could constitute acts of genocide.[24][23][25][22] Pillay said in an interview, “From time immemorial, rape has been regarded as spoils of war. Now it will be considered a war crime. We want to send out a strong signal that rape is no longer a trophy of war.”[25]
Notable cases
Rape as a form of genocide
In the case of The Prosecutor v Jean-Paul Akayesu on 2 September 1998, the court indicted Akayesu for being individually responsible for death and harm of Tutsis during the Rwandan Genocide.[26] It was during the case that Pillay was able to set an international legal precedent which considered rape as a form of genocide and a crime against humanity.[27] The court argued that crimes against humanity are not defined by their discriminatory intent.[28] Rather, an act is considered a crime against humanity if it “part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population”.[28] In this case, Akayesu was mayor of the Taba commune where many Tutsi women took refuge and purposefully instructed the militia group to target and rape civilian women.[29][30]
The role of media in inciting violence
Pillay also served on the Prosecutor v Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, Hassan Ngeze trial regarding the role the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collins (RTLM) and the Kangura magazine in spreading hate propaganda against the Tutsis.[6] The criminal tribunal found that Ferdinand Nahimana was indicted for the direct and public incitement to commit genocide while working at the radio station RTLM.[31] Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza was also indicted for the direct and public incitement to commit genocide at the RTLM and for his work with the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic.[31] Hassan Ngeze was also charged for the incitement of genocide in relation to his work with Kangura magazine.[31] The case was significant for considering the role media plays in politics and public opinion, and its real life ramifications.[32]
International Criminal Court (2003–2008)
Pillay garnered international recognition for her work as a judge on the ICTR and caught the attention of the members of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice during the late 1990s.[27] Impressed by her work, women’s advocates wanted to ensure the protection of women’s rights during the establishment of the International Criminal Court.[33] The Women’s Caucus gained enough momentum to attend PrepCom and the Rome Diplomatic Conference where they codified women’s rights into the ICC statute, advocating that there be quota for the number of women judges on the bench and the use of “gender” instead of “sex” in the ICC provisions of the Rome Statue.[33][27] After the establishment of the ICC, Pillay became one of the first judges to ever serve on the court.[34]
She was elected to a six-year term that March, but resigned in July 2008, effective 31 August 2008, in order to take up her position with the UN.[36]
One of the first cases to appear in the International Criminal Court was The Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for enlisting children under 15 years old to the armed militias inciting violence between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups in the Ituri, north-eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[37] While Dyilo was convicted for his war crimes in 2012, Pillay served on the appeals chamber during the pre-trial phase of the case from 2006 to the end of her term in 2008.[38]
High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008–2014)
Navi Pillay Speaking as High Commissioner for Human Rights in the U.N.
On 24 July 2008, UN Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon nominated Pillay to succeed Louise Arbour as High Commissioner for Human Rights.[39][40][41][42] The United States reportedly resisted her appointment at first, because of her views on abortion and other issues, but eventually dropped its opposition.[15] At a special meeting on 28 July 2008, the UN General Assembly confirmed the nomination by consensus.[9] Her four-year term began on 1 September 2008.[9] Pillay says the High Commissioner is “the voice of the victim everywhere”.[14] In 2012, she was given a two-year second term.[9][7]
In 2009 Pillay called for international action to end caste discrimination and published the opinion piece “Tearing down the wall of caste”[43] and subsequently gave a poignant interview in The Nation where she called for adopting UN Principles and Guidelines on caste-based discrimination[44]. She followed up in 2013 with a strong statement on caste and gender at the UN Human Rights Council[45].
Pillay expressed concern about pressure being placed on private companies to enact a financial blockade against WikiLeaks in 2010. She said such action was a violation of WikiLeaks’ right to freedom of expression.[48] At a news conference in July 2014, she referred to Edward Snowden as a “human rights defender” and said, “I am raising right here some very important arguments that could be raised on his behalf so that these criminal proceedings are averted.”[49]
In a speech on 8 June 2012, Pillay blacklisted the provincial government of Quebec in Canada for human rights violations concerning the rights to peaceful protest and free expression for its student protesters, specifically in Canada.[50] The bill in question, Bill 78, required that protest groups over 50 must gain approval from authorities at least 8 hours before the planned start of the protest.[50] The reaction from human rights NGOs was mixed.[50] Quebec official sources criticized Pillay for comparing Quebec with areas known to have worse records.[50]
Pillay’s call in 2012 for the suspension of sanctions against the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe was criticized by civil society groups in the country, which accused the Zimbabwean government of manipulating Pillay into overlooking the human rights violations committed by the government.[51]
Civilians displaced during Sri Lankan Civil War.
Her 2013 criticism of the Sri Lankan government being an authoritarian state,[52] in alleging human rights violations and atrocities committed by them against Tamil civilians at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, led the government and its supporters to apportion her own Tamil descent as the only reason for her criticism, a claim she strongly denies.[53]
During the 2014 Gaza war, Pillay stated that both Israel and Hamas had likely violated international law.[54] Her statement that Israel had engaged in the “apparent targeting… of seven children playing on a Gaza beach”[55] during the 2014 Gaza war beach bombings was criticized in a Fox News op-ed by Anne Bayefsky as “incitement to hate”.[56] Pillay also criticized US funding of the Iron Dome program, noting that “no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling”.[57][58]Liel Leibovitz in an article for Tablet, described the statement as a “hilariously delicious absurdity”.[59] On 25 July 2014, the United States Congress published a letter addressed to Pillay by over 100 members in which the signatories asserted that the Human Rights Council “cannot be taken seriously as a human rights organisation” because of their investigation of Israel’s conduct during the war.[60][61]
In August 2014, she criticized the international community over its “paralysis” in dealing with the more than three-year old Syrian Civil War, which by 30 April 2014 had resulted in 191,369 deaths.[62]
International Court of Justice
The composition of the bench of the International Court of Justice varies from case to case, and will choose a judge ad hoc to serve on the bench if there are no judges of the nationality of one or both of the parties.[63] The party of Gambia designated her as judge ad hoc and she has been serving on the bench since 2019.[2]
Pillay has been serving as a judge ad hoc on the Rohingya genocide case for crimes of genocide since 2019, having been designated by the Gambia.[64] The case was brought by Gambia against Myanmar for violating the Genocide Convention against the ethnic group Rohingya.[65] Despite pushback from Myanmar, the court approved Gambia’s case as admissible in court and continues to hold hearings.[64] The case is notable in that it involves another country suing another for war crimes in another jurisdiction, which has created a lot of pushback in the international community regarding the ICJ’s jurisdiction.[65]
Commission of Inquiry on Occupied Palestinian Territory
Pillay was chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, created after the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, until November 2025.[2] In July 2022 Miloon Kothari, a member of the commission, alluded to a “Jewish lobby controlling social media” while speaking about attempts to discredit the commission. Pillay stated that Kothari’s comments had been taken out of context.[66][67] The US and Europe were vocal about their disapproval of the establishment of the commission because it had no formal end date, to which Pillay responded that “the [Israeli] occupation does not have an end date either and you tend to support that occupation”.[68]
In June 2024, the commission determined that war crimes have been committed both by Hamas and Israel in the wake of the 7 October attacks.[69][70] Pillay has denounced Israel as disproportionately targeting children, and has been hesitant to call Israel’s actions self-defence.[68] In response, critics such as the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs called her comments antisemitic.[71] The three members of the commission announced that they were planning to resign in July 2025.[72]
In an op-ed in The New York Times, Pillay stated that the world has an obligation to prevent genocide, including “halting the transfer of weapons and military support used in genocidal acts, ensuring unimpeded humanitarian assistance, stopping the mass displacement and destruction, and using all available diplomatic and legal means to stop the killing”.[73]
In 2026, she was awarded the Olof Palme Prize[80] and the Nobel Peace Prize[81] for her efforts to promote peace and international law.[82] Pillay dedicated her Nobel Prize to “all of the survivors of international crimes” and to those defending international criminal justice “whose compassion and courage continue to ensure that impunity will not be allowed to reign.”[83]
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