At Hell's Gate by Claude Anshin Thomas (2004, Hardcover)

The author, a Vietnam combat veteran, acknowledges the Buddhist insight that violence is rooted in suffering. He describes how he uses this insight in his life to respond to and comfort himself and others, including others some would view as the enemy. For example, he describes the post-World War II hanging of the Auschwitz camp commandant as equally as unacceptable as the commandant's treatment of the camp's Jews.

"Claude Anshin," as he calls himself, has walked thousands of miles on several continents in the cause of nonviolence since his ordination as a mendicant Zen monk. I took away from this book the insight that no one individual's or society's suffering is any more or less important than any other indiviudual's or society's. This has helped me deal with my own PTSD from this author's war and to respond compassionately to a family that won't include me, even 40 years later, because of my (noncombatant) experience in that war. I read the book several years ago and wasn't ready to acknowledge the truth of the author's work. I'm glad I gave it another reading.