mindful rebuilding

Thich Nhat Hanh the Vietnamese Buddhist teacher has said that: “…The next Buddha may take the form of a community – a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the earth.”

Margaret Jefferies, chair of Project Lyttelton, speaks about this idea and wonders aloud if we simply consider this possibility, how would that change the way we go about being who we are? How would that show up in us as we move forward in putting the buildings back up in our community?
I am amazed and awed by this idea and it is one that for me the opportunity to move more towards understanding and less towards what I think I know already. As we move towards the future, the way we move forward in the present is perhaps the most important thing that we will do.
Perhaps this will be our way of being the Buddha. Who knows?
In reality, I don’t think knowing really matters. What does matter is having the faith that how I think about this guides me in how I interact and how I support others as our ideas emerge from the dust.

I have been passionately advocating for a process that builds our ownership of our own healing through our rebuilding - perhaps I need to listen more and support more and remember that my own understanding will be flawed?
How would loving kindness and mindfulness be in me? And what would that mean to my community? I have no answers to these questions. As usual they are just questions and thoughts that come to my mind and then I play them out as best as I can.
What I am clear about is that community is something that I think many of us have been looking for to answer some of our questions, our longings, and that this is an opportunity to find some answers. They may not be answers as we know them – they may simply be more questions.