A young woman goes searching. Her mission: to stop all evil; to do good; to do good for others. And, maybe, to find a family of comrades who share her intentions, who can show her “the way” to make “all wrongs right”.

Her path quickly lands her in an avalanche of extreme circumstances that pitch “good and evil” in high relief -- events that demand that she choose a path of resistance or retreat. Maybe the group will guide her in effective action. Inclusion requires alignment with a powerful revolutionary rhetoric she hopes will quell her nagging uncertainties and insecurities. Always the question that follows her is "Are you on the side of what is "right" or what is easy?"

Radical Descent: The Cultivation of an American Revolutionary is my memoir of this journey. In reading passages from the book, and in sharing some of my more recent immersion in Zen practice over the past two decades, I hope to invite our Salon into discussion of some of the questions that have shaped my adult life.

What constitutes “right” action in the face of evil and/or perceived threat?

Given that most or all of us humans want to be “members” of some tribe or family, and virtually all want to be loved, how do we steer clear of “social agreements” that advocate rejecting, hating, or in other ways doing harm to others?

If violence begins in the mind, what tools can guide us towards peace?

PRODUCER: Linda Coleman

Linda Coleman is the author of Radical Descent: The Cultivation of an American Revolutionary, published by Pushcart Press, September, 2014 and winner of the Pushcart Editor’s Choice Award. The story details her choice to turn from her privileged past to join a revolutionary guerilla cell in the 1970’s and follows her precipitous journey to a path of committed non-violence.

She has published other fiction and memoir and, as well, has edited three collections of women’s memoir writing from the Suffolk County Corrections where she led weekly memoir-writing workshops for ten years and worked with over 1500 women. She continues her work in jail as a mentor for young men. Coleman has also been a nurse and Nurse Practitioner for over thirty years and is a practicing Zen Monk, ordained in 2003, a student of the late Roshi Peter Muryo Matthiessen.

You can read more about Radical Descent on her website: www.lindacoleman.net