Going beyond ‘Reconciliation’: A Buddhist Approach to ‘Healing Wounded Minds

Abstract

‘Reconciliation’ is a new term that came in to the vocabularies of Sri Lankan local languages with different translations and adaptations after 2009 when the armed conflict between government forces and the LTTE came to its end with the defeat of the LTTE. However, not only the term ‘Reconciliation’ is new but the meaning and approaches of the reconciliation as well seems obscure to the mass of the society even after 9 years from the end of the armed conflict. One of the basic problems pertaining to this is the failure to find deep rooted local traditions, knowledge, and the approaches towards reconciliation and connect those practices with the present reconciliation efforts. In this paper Buddhist approach of Healing of the Mind of all the parties connected with the conflict is discussed without identifying them as ‘Oppressor’, ‘Oppressed’ or ‘By standers’. Particularly, it is highlighted here the need of understanding the so called oppressor, as well, as an ‘oppressed’ person in different levels and in different conditions to develop the healing model that include all the parties into a liberation model. This approach supports to see what happen in a conflict situation is a process of ‘wounding’ and then what need is ‘Healing’. It is argued here this paradigm shift helps to avoid further wounding that can happen even in the ‘reconciliation’ processes