Pamela Rogers's Page

Places to Return to Ourselves by Thich Nhat Hanh

And resistance, at root, I think must mean more than resistance against war. It is a resistance against all kinds of things that are like war. Because living in modern society, one feels that he or she cannot easily retain integrity, wholeness. One is robbed permanently of humanness, the capacity of being oneself. When I drive through Paris, the noises and the traffic jams make me nervous.
Once I have gone through Paris I become less than myself. And there are so many things like that in modern life that make you lose yourself. So perhaps, first of all, resistance means opposition to being invaded, occupied, assaulted, and destroyed by the system.
The purpose of resistance, here, is to seek the healing of yourself in order to be able to see more clearly. I think that communities of resistance should be places where people can return to themselves more easily, where the conditions are such that they can heal themselves and recover their wholeness.