Meditating in Silence as the Fire Draws Near

PHOENIX — Those living in the path of a huge wildfire typically express all sorts of emotions, but in one remote community in southeastern Arizona, the reaction has been muted.

The 39 Buddhists living at the Diamond Mound Retreat Center near Bowie, Ariz., are about six months into a three-year solitary retreat that includes a vow of silence. Ranging in age from their mid-20s to their late 60s, participants spend their days in intense meditation, living in basic huts that are separated from one another, in a spiritual exercise aimed at promoting world peace one person at a time.

Those administering the program are in regular contact with firefighters on the front lines of the Horseshoe 2 Fire, which has burned in excess of 200,000 acres in the Chiricahua Mountains since May 8, and say they are awaiting word from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department on whether an evacuation will be necessary.

“They can see the smoke coming over the hill,” said Scott Vacek, one of the caretakers on the property and also a practicing Buddhist. “It looks startlingly close. But we haven’t told them that we may be coming in to evacuate them. We didn’t see any upside to that, because their meditations will immediately be over. They wouldn’t be able to concentrate.”

The fire is now believed to be about four miles from the retreat, which sits on just over 1,000 acres and has been a learning center for Buddhist studies since 2003. “It’s scrub desert with some brush and juniper trees,” Mr. Vacek said. “It’s beautiful landscape with some tall peaks behind us.”

The people participating in the retreat live in 29 cabins, ranging from mud huts to basic wood-frame dwellings, powered by solar panels or propane. Mr. Vacek and a team of volunteers deliver supplies every Monday and make a conscious effort to steer clear of the participants. Mr. Vacek’s wife is the program’s nurse, and she treats participants using written notes and gestures.

Among those in the retreat are Christie McNally, who is the director and is one of the first women to be recognized as a lama in the Tibetan tradition; Lisette Garcia, a former college professor from New York who grew up in El Paso; Dvora and Ari Tzvieli, from Israel, who are seeking an end to the conflict in the Middle East; and Bill McMichael, a former American Airlines pilot.

The authorities say an evacuation is not yet necessary.

“We know they are there and how to get in touch with them, but there is no need for them to be evacuated at this time,” Alexis West, a spokeswoman for the interagency group fighting the fire, said Friday.

If an evacuation is eventually ordered, organizers say they will try to keep the retreat going by taking participants in silence in two vans to a nearby town and housing them in quiet surroundings until they can return. But if the fire ends up damaging the dwellings, there is a chance the exercise could end.

“It would be a terrible shame,” Mr. Vacek said. “These people have gone through an incredible amount of physical work and a huge amount of emotional work. It’s a life-changing experience, and it would be tragic if it ended.”

The Horseshoe 2 Fire is one of several huge fires burning across Arizona. The Wallow Fire, in the eastern part of the state, now covers more than 495,000 acres, making it the largest wildfire in the state’s history.

Another blaze, the Monument Fire, forced the evacuation of thousands of residents of Hereford, a community south of Sierra Vista, Ariz., on Thursday. First reported on June 12, it covers about 19,000 acres in the Coronado National Forest, spans the Mexican border and is growing quickly, officials said.

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Memo From France: Questions Raised About a Code of Silence

When, for example, Fran?ois Mitterrand was asked by a journalist during his presidency whether it was true that he had a daughter outside his marriage, he replied: “Yes, it’s true. And so what? It’s none of the public’s business.”

The French have been complicit in accepting this sort of secret-keeping: they do not enjoy ugly revelations that could tear apart the social fabric. What shocked them more than the existence of Mr. Mitterrand’s mistress and their daughter was the revelation after his death that the French state had financially supported them and even provided police protection.

Now, the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is once again challenging the assumption that the private lives of the rich, famous and powerful are off limits to public scrutiny. That the most serious accusation against Mr. Strauss-Kahn is attempted rape, and not just an indiscretion involving a consensual sexual relationship, only adds to a sense on the part of some people in France that the curtain of privacy needs to be lifted.

“We felt that we were superior to the Americans and the British by upholding the principle of protecting private life,” Pierre Haski, one of France’s leading political commentators and co-founder of the political Web site Rue89, said in an interview. “But we journalists haven’t done our job properly. We were used and abused in keeping secrets. We need to define our role in a more aggressive way — and say that not everything private is private.”

Mr. Haski said he had been wrong to withhold information in the past about French political figures that could have compromised their ability to carry out their duties.

“I knew that when Roland Dumas was foreign minister, he was romantically involved with the daughter of Syria’s defense minister,” he said. “I didn’t write it because it was a matter of his ‘private life.’ I was wrong. It had an impact on France’s foreign policy.”

He also chided himself and the French media for keeping secret that the Socialist politician Ségolène Royal and Fran?ois Hollande, her longtime partner, father of her four children and head of the Socialist Party, were no longer a couple while she was running for president in 2007.

The Strauss-Kahn scandal coincides with shifts in French public life in which the codes had already begun to crack and secrets were being revealed. The personality-driven nature of the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy has created a hunger for personality-driven, tell-all tales. Technology has made it easy to record and film private meetings and embarrassing public encounters on cellphones, contributing to a transparency that had never before existed.

But historically, the French have traded in rumors and secrets, and there are several reasons why they can be passed around in private circles but not put into public discussion.

First, the French have long been accustomed to unconfirmed stories about powerful figures and politicians. This dates from the era of the royal court — when information was power, yet had to be handled carefully. Salacious stories, whether true or not, made for good entertainment.

That makes the French tolerant of other people’s private behavior, especially sexual behavior. Private lives must not be invaded by outsiders. “To live happy, live hidden,” goes the saying by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, the 18th-century poet.

There was no public outcry or journalistic investigation, for example, when Mr. Sarkozy named Frédéric Mitterrand, the nephew of Fran?ois Mitterrand, as minister of culture, even though he had written a memoir describing in graphic detail how he had paid for sex with “boys” in Thailand.

Marine Le Pen, now the leader of the ultra-right National Front, later pushed the matter into public view and called for his resignation, but Mr. Sarkozy supported him and he has kept his job.

Second, politicians in France are not hounded out of office for sexual indiscretions (although violence against women is another matter). Traditionally, a political man who reveals his sexual prowess is proving his vigor: he is showing his constituents that he is fully and physically capable of running the country.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 17, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the year in which Cécilia Sarkozy became the first lady of France. She became the first lady in 2007, not 2005.