Michele Thorsen
What are the faults we see in someone who appears different to us? Someone from a different culture?
Right now, it’s especially important that we do the hard but rewarding work of examining our minds, our biases, our feelings — being so honest with ourself that we feel a little pain when we see the truth of our own faulty discriminations. It is not a pain that lasts: More like a needle holding a medicine that will cure our illness.
How are we identifying ourself as different from others?
“Pride in identity is an inflated sense of self-importance based simply on our identity, such as being proud of being an English person, proud of being white, proud of being a man, or proud of being a Tantric mediator,” wrote the Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in “How to Understand the Mind.”
Buddha said this mistaken way of identifying ourself, and by extension others who seem inherently different to us, is the root of all suffering. Thus, if we want to be free from suffering, we must do the honest work of looking at how we identify ourself and others, how we feel about ourself and others, and how ignorance is messing up this whole process of cognition.
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Right now, it is not hard to see how ignorance is really messing things up.
Our way of dividing people into those we like, those we don’t like, and all those we are indifferent towars makes no sense. Just as we want to be happy all the time, and to never experience suffering, this is equally true for everyone else. In this regard, we are all the same.
Although some people appear to be difficult, or even causing harm, they are trying to find happiness — just in the wrong ways. No one is an intrinsically evil person.
Just as Christians say everyone is made in the image of God, Buddhists say everyone has Buddha nature — the capacity for unlimited love, compassion, peace and joy. It’s just covered up by delusions — mistaken views, mental bad habits. We all have them, some more than others, based on a variety of causes. When we understand that we are all struggling to figure out how to be happy, we can cultivate a warm heart and feeling of love for everyone.
“Our sense that we are an island, an independent, self-sufficient individual, bears no relation to reality,” Gyatso wrote in “How to Transform Your Life.” “It is closer to the truth to picture ourself as a cell in the vast body of life, distinct yet intimately bound up with all living beings. We cannot exist without others, and they in turn are affected by everything we do.
The idea that it is possible to secure our own welfare while neglecting the welfare of others, or even at the expense of others, is completely unrealistic.”
Now’s the time to dig deeper, to push a little harder, to challenge ourselves. With the world going the way it appears to be going, we must do this. We can and must find a better way forward.
If you are interested in learning more, Kadampa Meditation Center Arizona offers online classes Sundays 10-11:15 a.m., and Tuesdays 7-8 p.m. Visit MeditationInTucson.org for details or email Info@MeditationInTucson.org.
