Caravan for Peace participants at Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., August 2012. Photo: www.caravan4peace.org.
Within the FPMT mandala, there are many practitioners witnessing first-hand the violence, suffering and chaos that result from war, poverty, crime, corruption and other destructive social forces. In Mexico, the trafficking of illegal drugs has wrecked havoc on Mexican society. Karla Ambrosio, FPMT’s national coordinator for Mexico, shares how the teachings of Buddha are offering peace, insight and direction to those impacted by this violence and how a movement has developed that calls for compassion and love instead of retaliation and hate.
“Rafa is the brother of Juan Carlos and their lovely mother is Doña Mary, who is looking for her four lost sons. Two years ago, Jesús and Raúl made a journey from Michoacán to Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, where they were kidnapped. A year later, Gustavo and Luis disappeared in Veracruz on the Atlantic Coast. The four brothers used to travel to maintain the family business. They are four of the 10,000 desaparecidos (missing people) and the 70,000 murdered when the war against drug trafficking began in Mexico in 2006.
“Doña Mary and her sons Rafa and Juan Carlos are members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, a citizens’ movement that was born in 2011 when a Mexican poet named Javier Sicilia raised up his voice after his son was murdered and said fearlessly: ‘No more blood! We are sick and tired!’”
From Mandala January-March 2013