interdependence
in awareness, we love…
stand…
haters gonna hate, as it’s been said.
there will always be critics. don’t be ruffled, just do your thing. answer the call in your heart that speaks to the needs of those who are suffering, of those who seek justice, of those who are oppressed or discriminated against, of those who have been left outside and in the margins of society. love leaves no one out. stand with love.
~j
04.05.17
still answering the call…
49 years ago we lost Dr. King to an assassin’s bullet, but we did not lose the dream or the movement that still calls to our hearts this day – to stand up and speak out for the oppressed, the marginalized, the suffering with strength drawn from love and recognition of our interdependence, the call to love our neighbor as ourself and treat everyone with dignity.
~j
04.04.17
#MLK #MountainTop #TheLongArc
check yourself…
check yourself, before you wreck yourself…and others.
interdependence…
rethinking violence…
Sitting with this quote, recently: “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” (by Isaac Asimov) and I thought, “Should we expand our definition of violence?”
I think we often view violence through a rather restrictive lens of war and aggressive, physical assault. However, is it truly too far a reach to suggest that words or actions that cause harm, injury, or death are also a form of violence?
Isn’t it violent to legislate healthcare out of the reach of the elderly, the poor, the ill?
Isn’t it violent to deprive food from children and the elderly, by cutting the programs on which they depend?
Isn’t it violent to marginalize an “other” (fill in the blank) virtually placing a target stirring fear and hate?
The poor, the elderly, the ill, the undocumented, the marginalized (including Muslims and LGBTQ) are easy targets for leadership that is incompetent.
We harm or we benefit.
So, what do we do?
We bear witness. We speak up. We speak truth to power. We stand and we walk in solidarity with those who suffer, the marginalized and oppressed.
But perhaps, even more importantly…
We begin with ourselves, and our own hearts and minds. Am I willing to work for resolutions in my own life that best benefit the big picture, the long arc? Am I willing to call upon my most creative and innovation potential to benefit all those around me and not just myself? Am I willing to serve? Am I willing to be vulnerable? Am I willing to understand and embrace empathy? Am I willing to love?
~j
03.22.17
after winter, spring…
empathy, our greatest weapon…
What we are seeing is a grasping, blinding, lust for power and wealth, rather than a love for life.
We see it in how it affects human life, and all life really, including the life of this planet.
We are out of balance.
I think if we each take a step back, a step out of our identifications, a step away from our screens, and just sit for a moment. Just sit and breathe. Just sit as a simple human being with all that makes us so – one quality stands out, our capacity to have empathy.
That’s what is presently lacking: empathy. Without it, we lose our humanity. And I do believe we are dancing dangerously on the brink, led by a pied piper or team of pied pipers, toward increased suffering and loss. It is already happening.
There is a wonderful Rumi quote, “Sit, be still, and listen, because you’re drunk and we’re at the edge of the roof.” The drink of those currently in power is narcissism paired with a world view that in its exclusion of the “other” denies a basic universal truth, we are not separate.
A world view that says we are somehow separate from everyone else is a lie. Plain and simple. What is being fed to us is a lie. It goes against nature, life, and the better part of our humanity. It puts profit over the health and lives of others. It excludes and fears anything it deems different. It proposes a false security through walls, aggressive laws and violence.
Put yourself or a family member in the place of the person who suffers health issues while on a fixed or limited income. Put yourself or someone you love in the place of the undocumented person now being separated from their children or spouse, having to leave the home they’ve known for decades. Put yourself or a friend in the place of a person who is seen as evil based on their religion, because fanatics have committed atrocities under its name. Put yourself in the place of someone who is seen as an abomination, because of who they love, yet they continue to love. Put yourself in the place of someone who lost their job, who feels like they are drowning in life and unable to provide for their family.
This is called empathy. And it is our greatest weapon against the tyranny of authoritarianism. Empathy aligns us with each other, it aligns us with life. Empathy opens our heart and draws out our other great weapon – compassion. Compassion is a boundless and fierce power.
This current trial is beyond political or religious affiliation. It is a human challenge, calling all of us to respond together as one family, one community to defeat the lie of separateness, to pull the walls of this harmful ideology down.
~j
03.12.17
I am, because we are…
Interdependence is a cornerstone of Buddhism. The idea that “I” only exist, because of the dependent co-arising of the elements that make “me” exist. My human body has about 30 trillion human cells in it and about 40 trillion non-human microbes in it. I am more “not” human, than human! These cells and microbes aren’t “me.” However, I wouldn’t be “me” if they didn’t exist and make up this body that I have identified as “me.”
Likewise, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my parents, or their parents, or their parents’ parents, on back. I wouldn’t have my current employment if it wasn’t for the person who hired me, or if the person that hired them hadn’t hired them. My food that I generally do not take enough time to appreciate would not sit before me, if it weren’t for the grocery store, the farmers, or the sun and the rain. So, my health and welfare are in many ways contingent on elements and people outside myself, that I depend on.
Beyond these every day situational examples of interdependence, there are the very foundational elements of who we are – elements! As Neil deGrasse Tyson has been often quoted as saying, we are related to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the Universe atomically. We simply share more in common with who we are on a fundamental level, than not.
One doesn’t have to be a Buddhist or a scientist to see this as true. A Muslim, a Jew, or a Christian can draw the same conclusion based on their belief that all life has come forth from God (or Yahweh, or Allah). If my life has come forth from God and your life has come forth from God – then are we not basically the same at our core, the source of our lives coming from the Source of all life?
In this perspective it seems insane if not just ridiculous to fabricate more ways to divide us from others. But the fabrication of division, through manipulation, drawing upon peoples’ fears, anger, and ignorance is what we are currently resisting in the form of bans and walls.
We are resisting such ideology, because it is harmful. We are also resisting such ideology, because it is simply not true. It is not authentic to the reality of life. The reality that all of our lives are interdependent. The reality that I am, because we are.
~j
02.20.17
The Metta Garden 