A Drop in a Cloud of Witnesses: A BSC Alum’s Reflections on Mohsen Mahdawi
Mohsen Mahdawi attending a Vesak Celebration at Low Library in 2023. Image via LuGao and FGS IBPS New York.
The following was written by Anna Kalyani Sardar, a UTS alumna (‘24) and former BSC Co-Chair.
Everything is happening at a pace my heart is having trouble keeping up with. I recently shared this with an artist friend, Gillian, and she replied, “I really feel that too. Hard to find ways to slow down or synthesize. Or even feel.”
The last couple of days, I’ve been waking up, crying for hours and moving my body a lot more. I have periods of feeling What is there left to fear, really? It’s all happening. Accept – and then another part that’s almost dreaming. I was on the train at 125th and Broadway that Monday afternoon and felt like I could just jump. Not because I wanted to die, but because that’s what I would do if I knew I was dreaming. Jump. Wake up.
Perhaps writing can be an act of jumping. Of interrupting what is coldly and casually happening around us and to us. Declaring that, in fact, we are not separate. And we never have been.
I first met Mohsen Mahdawi volunteering. In 2023, he significantly supported organizing a Vesak celebration that hosted diverse groups of Buddhist communities across New York including my own sangha, Brooklyn Zen Center (BZC). I attended as a volunteer and representative of the Buddhist Student Collective (BSC) and a member of BZC.
We connected beforehand by Zoom and spoke for some time. I remember him sharing how much he loved his classes and though he wasn’t a morning person his favorite Buddhist course was taught by Michael Como, the Tōshū Fukami Associate Professor of Shinto Studies, which began at 8am. I remember his warmth and respect as we shared some about our backgrounds and what brought us to New York. I remember he attended a BSC community meeting on April 3, 2023, amidst all of his other responsibilities, and shared how much he’d like to partner together for future initiatives. He expressed wanting to bring the late Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama, renowned figures and proclaimers of peace, to the next Vesak event at Columbia in an attempt to build bridges and make vibrant an interreligious response to the world’s suffering. I remember bathing the Buddha next to him on April 29th and the reverence our bodies held. As Mohsen shared days before he was illegally taken to a detention center in Vermont where he continues to remain: “It’s the irony of destiny. I accept the outcome spiritually regardless of what it is going to be. If my story will become another story for the struggle to have justice and democracy in this country then let it be.”
We next met in the fall of 2023, when CUBA and BSC co-sponsored a half day sit with Joseph Goldstein at Union Theological Seminary on October 6th–the day after my grandmother died many thousand miles away, and the day before October 7th.
I woke up teary eyed that morning planning to get flowers for the Buddha altar. I went from task to task feeling miraculously present amidst the poignancy of ends. Of futility and beauty. I walked briskly from the train until I saw a beloved friend and classmate, Jeannine, sitting on Union’s stoop lovingly feeding a flock of pigeons. I stopped, bouquet tucked under my arm, turned my elephant body towards hers, and bowed in reverence. She paused, bowing back, suddenly sending a surge of dappled wings into the sky. We both smiled as I reluctantly returned to the rush of many arrangements ahead.
Mohsen was concerned about the tea and how to care for the space as volunteers arranged cushions, among them a previous BSC alum co-chair, Eric Manigian, tended to the altar. Jacob Clay, a CUBA board member, and the primary organizer of this retreat, organized a small lunch beforehand in the Stewart Room. We sat and ate together, discussing memories of childhood and our experiences of the Dhamma. During the half day sit Mohsen and I weaved in and out of the meditation space and had a few moments of connection. I remember his amusement when the largest jug I could find to transport water from the faucet to the water heater was an old plastic storage bin that I had just cleaned.
“It's all Michael and I could find,” I sighed.
“We’ll make it work,” he grinned. “How are you doing?”
I began to tear up from his kindness and sincerity. I paused before sharing that my grandmother, my aji, had died the day before in India. I began recalling her warm hands and smile. The fresh fried donuts she used to make, one of my favorite desserts. I could feel her disappearing.
“Can I show you a picture of her?”
“Of course.”
I paused trying to find photos I’d recently saved of her, wondering which one to choose. I opted for one from when she was younger, cooking over a ground hearth in India. She had lived a difficult and beautiful life and I didn’t want to leave the hard part out. I respected her wisdom that came through that difficulty. Her gentleness was hard won–like Mohsen’s. I showed him this photo first and he expressed an immediate understanding.
It is hard to imagine, for many, that the most expansive hearts of our species emerge from places of deep sorrow, from enduring incredible amounts of violence. The most genuine and gentle people I’ve met know the wide cloth of grief for their own life’s thread joins it. They know compassion to be the only thing in the world that can truly recover humanity amidst such circumstances. In this case, whether for a Palestinian Buddhist or a Dalit Christian. Mohsen, in his own words, shares this in an interview here and he embodies these virtues in his daily life.
The last time Mohsen and I spoke in person was on May 4, 2024. I received this text on May 3:
“Dear Anna, the Palestinian community is looking for a space to meet for healing. We have five healers (therapists and psychologists) coming to help us and we expect a total of fifteen people. Is there any spot in the neighborhood that you may be aware of which we can reserve from 6-9pm?”
I arranged a classroom with Michael, the Director of Housing at Union, near what used to be Tiffany’s cafe. Mohsen, my partner and I arranged cushions and meditation seats, eventually receiving a group of 20 or so, many who were Palestinian youth, at Union’s entrance. Once they were settled and set up I took a few steps to the small chapel nearby where a group of eight students, myself included, were participating in a Guided Reading course titled “The Fascist Emergency: Faith and Resistance.” The class was co-created by Alexandr Soran and Nobuko Hori, hosted by Professor Snyder, and largely covered what we are witnessing today and what we witnessed that spring.
We all bear sacred witness to each other, every day of our lives. Each warm hand that touches a frightened heart lets us know we’re not alone. Not abandoned by the fate of imaginations twisted up by cruelty. We are here, nothing is set, and each moment can be transformed by brave and sustained acts of compassion. One step in front of the other.
The first time I witnessed Mohsen, before we formally met and worked together, I attended an evening sit hosted by CUBA at Earl Hall with Tenku Ruff, then President of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association. She came to visit and offer a dharma talk on March 24, 2022. I remember Mohsen’s brief response and poignant question: “I appreciate your share and wonder why so many Buddhists who come to the practice often experienced traumatic childhoods?” They both smiled to each other across the room and then to themselves. I don’t remember her response, probably something to do with the first noble truth. The question is a valuable one to ask, and I continue to ask it as I experience gratitude for the practice every day of my life.
Whether the practice leads you to where Mohsen is now, wrongfully being detained in Vermont. Or caring for the land, writing a letter, feeding a child, caring for the ill, holding your own heart as it breaks. We are made of and live amidst these moments that test our very nature and character. Experiencing these failures of imagination as opportunities to remain upright and bold in the face of violent delusion is a gift if we respond together. It is the only way.
We are asking for your support of Mohsen Mahdawi.
His GoFundMe is here, covering his legal fees and material needs.
If you are a Union Theological Seminary Student — past or present, regardless if you identify as a member of the Buddhist Student Collective, we are asking you to consider signing this Character Attestation, which will be given to his legal team for reference. (Note, you will need a ‘@utsnyc.edu’ email to access this document.)