June 24, 2015

Take a few minutes to watch this video! It comes to us from Gwynne along with comments from her blog. Thanks Gwynne!

Just recently, I heard a remarkable story that moved me to tears about Dan Stevenson who lives in Oakland’s East Lake neighborhood  which is fraught dumping, graffiti, drug dealing, prostitution, robberies, aggravated assault and burglaries.

Although he’s not Buddhist, he bought a small Buddha garden statue (at an Ace Hardware store!) and installed it on the median strip as an experiment to see if he could stop the graffiti, urination, dumping of mattresses and box-springs on his street.  He hoped for tranquility and peace thinking that the statue “might shift the energy in the neighborhood”.

As a Feng Shui consultant, my heart leapt to read this! And here’s what happened.  Two modern 21st century miracles!

The first miracle. Neighbors began leaving offerings at the base of the Buddha—lit candles, bouquets of flowers, oranges, coins, food. Vietnamese women began praying and Vina Vo, who survived the Viet Nam war by escaping on a small boat, adopted the Buddha. She and her family and friends provided a canopy for the deity, keep chanting playing on a recorder 24/7, and offer incense.  Every day there are morning prayers with chimes and bells.  The original Buddha is now joined by several Quan Ams.  On the week-ends, worshipers include “black folks, white folks, all folks” says a neighbor.

The second miracle. People stopped dumping garbage and tagging.  The drug dealers stopped coming. The prostitutes left. The news reported that since the worshippers started offering daily prayers in 2012, neighborhood crime is down by 82%. 82%! Police reported that robbery went from 14 down to 3; aggravated assaults from 5 to 0; burglaries from 8 to 4; both prostitution and narcotics from 3 to 0.

And even when the city tried to shut down the site a few years back, the neighborhood wouldn’t allow it.

https://www.facebook.com/CryptikMovement/videos/10153404610164485/?fref=nf