With palms together
Good Morning Everyone,
I have not yet looked at the morning news. I am curious about it. Who bombed who today? Who killed or stole or raped? They say dog bites man is not news, but man bites dog is. I wonder.
The stories that compose our diet of news are incredibly similar in that they strike out at the heart. Let me see...hostage killed in rescue attempt; gunman opening fire at an elementary school; teens and a man abducted, sodomized, tortured, and nearly killed for being gay.
Good grief. Seems to me I read these stories pretty much weekly. How can we be the way we are?
Yet, I still hold onto my breath and find some way to care about the perpetrators of these crimes. Somewhere, somehow, hate filled them.
People do not just get up in the morning and think it might be cool to shoot somebody or cut them or strangle them. They had to be taught it, dreamed about it, and felt it, for a very long time.
Just as my heart begins to hurt as I read these stories, so too must have theirs in response to something. Just as I envision punishing them, they needed to punish someone for the hurt they feel. This is human.
A buddha accepts these thoughts and feelings and wraps them in his love. If we hate such perpetrators, we are hating ourselves. And the world goes round and round. If we love these perpetrators, we love ourselves. And the world goes round and round. The only difference is whether is goes in love or hate.
Be well.
1 comment:
Thank you for this teaching, Roshi. It is so true, that you have to stop hating before you can heal. It seems you have to heal before you can wrap your enemies in love. I have learned to stop hating, how does one learn to love?
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