How - or why - should we keep from supporting those who would "nuke them back into the stone-age"? In short, that would make us horrifically ugly, barbarically cruel, primitive. It's critically important to recognize our own potential for evil. "Wiping out evil - out there" eg capital punishment for murderers, does nothing to eliminate our own capacity to cause others great suffering.
Those perps on the news are literally our relatives. How would we want our children treated if they were the perps on the news? It would be with superhuman understanding, respect, fairness, with rehabilitation instead of vengeance in mind.
The other humbling aspect for us to ponder AND act on is the part WE play in these global events. How does our appetite for ridiculously cheap clothes contribute to child labor & dangerous sweat shops in third world countries? How does our appetite for street drugs contribute to the drug-related massacres in Mexico, Columbia etc and on our own streets? Our appetite for oil, exotic produce from around the world, our inflated standard of living, - all come at a price - increased suffering for poor, powerless people around the world.
WE need to clean our own house! The more clearly we see ourselves, the more humble we become, the less unnecessary suffering we cause ourselves & others. Awareness, humility & kindness work for us, work for others - these just work!
We surely know by now that "the war to end all wars" - both of them, and all the other wars on drugs, terrorism, poverty, etc - are primitive useless garbage - enough - they don't work!
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| Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, May 4, 2014 |
May we go back to the original “inviting them in for tea”? The Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, has a lovely take on this. He describes our minds as having a “basement” and a “living room.” The mental basement contains the seeds of all of our psychological proclivities (joy, love, indifference, dislike, anger, etc). Which of those seeds grow into our mental living rooms and flourish there depends on which of the seeds we “water” by practicing/exercising them. So, our minds can be filled with cheerfulness and compassion or with frustration and disappointment according to our own choices. To me, this a core of mindfulness practice: don’t water the seeds of negative emotions, but do water the seeds of wholesome ones. Kind wishes,
ReplyDeleteDennis PP
Excellent points Dennis - thank you! There's a wonderful Native American version of this as well: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/08/381-each-moment-new-beginning.html
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