"Ten
Thousand Things" is a Buddhist expression representing the dynamic
interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in
the universe.
Nobel
Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire outside the Tokyo Global
Article 9 Conference (on YouTube): "AROUND THE WORLD THERE ARE BILLIONS
OF PEOPLE WHO SAY 'WE WANT PEACE.'"
Japanese-American translator Nancy Okamura sent this link of a YouTube
video (Thanks to poster Mackeee00) of the spontaneous "Teach-In"
with Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Cora Weiss with the thousands of people
outside the "Global Article 9 Conference for the Abolition of War,"
who were unable to join the 30,000 already inside of the conference hall:
"Saturday, we couldn't get into the main event hall in the afternoon,
but Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Cora Weiss graciously came
to give a mini speech outdoors where the people who could not get into
the main hall had gathered. It was a wonderful setting for their
talks. (There was another you-tube video, from a closer view,
but I could not find it again)."
The video gives some sense of the vast spontaneous grassroots support
of the ideals represented by the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause
– nuclear weapons nonproliferation. (Introduction and translation
in Japanese):
"Everyone, I am very happy to be here with
you all.
"The Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution – we have got all
together to protect this. It's important for the whole world today.
"Article 9 says very clearly, 'We want no war, no nuclear weapons.'
"Yes, we have hurt each other in the past. But we can reconcile and
we can solve our problems by talking to the other.
"I am not surprised that today everyone couldn't get into the conference
hall and that the place is overflowing with people, because around our
world, there are billions of people who are saying, 'We want peace!"
"There are people who will try to make us afraid of each other. They
will try to say we are different. We say, 'We are not afraid. We are the
human family. Yes, we have differences, but we are all human beings. We
want to act in a dignified, civilized way by refusing to kill each other...
"Forgiveness is so important. We have all hurt the Other. We have
all been hurt. But we must forgive one another.
"Here in Japan, you have hurt through your wars of aggression many
people, in Korea and China. Please remember to say you're sorry and ask
their forgiveness. Only when you forgive can you find genuine happiness
in yourself and can you find real peace."
Continued:
"By upholding your Article 9, and reaching
out your hand to your Korean, your Chinese, your Russian, your immediate
neighbors and friends, you will serving peace in Japan, and setting an
example to the world.
"You need to say to the American government, their occupation of
Iraq and Afghanistan, and their setting aside of the United Nations human
rights and international law is not acceptable to the human family.
"You need to say to our friends in the Israeli government, lead the
movement in the Middle East for a nuclear-free Middle East and end the
occupation of Palestine where the people are suffering so much."
"We
need our American friends – we need our Israeli friends –
to adopt the Charter for a world without violence and Article 9 of the
Japanese Constitution."
Also, the "Get Hiroshima Blog" has posted a video of Nobel Prize
Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire's keynote
speech on May 5 at the Hiroshima venue of the Global Article
9 Conference to End War.
