With palms together,
Good Morning All,
May all beings be at peace and be free from suffering. War is not a helpful activity. No joy should be felt in the killing of beings, regardless of the cause.
The Middle East is a place that challenges us all. Deep divisions of culture, time, and faith coexist in increasing conflict and tension. Victims of violence cry and feel angry. Everyone wants to hurt everyone, yet every one wants everyone else to stop. No one trusts anyone. A place where humanity should shine, a so-called jewel of western religion, birthplace of monotheism and three major religions, and what is there today?
Hell.
Still, it is too easy for us here in the USA to point fingers at one side or the other, and especially at peoples and cultures we do not understand. Aren't we naive to suggest that everyone should just stop all this fighting and learn to get along?
It is not so simple to practice serene reflection in the middle of bombs and rockets, or while people are blowing themselves up calling for the utter destruction of another country. Reason seems pale. Compassion is seriously challenged.
Violence and the threat of violence never curtails violence, just as the death penalty never curtails murder. This is so because violence at its root is not rational and, in its presence, incites additional irrationality in the form of fear. We must work hard to train ourselves to resist fear, to resist catastrophic thinking, and embrace our enemies as best we can by trying to understand them.
How do we accomplish this? We practice zazen. We look deeply within ourselves and embrace our true nature, a nature which we all share, a universal nature. We must each respect each other, agree each other has a right to exist and a place to do so. We must support each others differences as well as our similarities. It never does any good to only seek the similarities, while pretending the differences don't exist. Those differences then become splinter's in our fingers.
Our world is precious, as is each being that inhabits it. Practice this.
Be well.
Harvey So Daiho Hilbert, Ph.D. May All Beings Be Free From Suffering
On the web at:
Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business.
No comments:
Post a Comment