A reminder from Thich Nhat Hanh ...

https://youtu.be/u24OR-FN78w?t=760 (12:40) ... "One day, a leader of the native American community came to me. We met in Vermont, and he invited me to join him in Europe and others to speak about the plight, the suffering of the native Americans, to draw the attention of the world to that suffering. I invited [him] to sit down and have a cup of tea with me, and very slowly I tried to tell him that the first step is not that. The first step is that he go home to his community and help his community to practice these kind of basic things; like the 5 mindfulness trainings: creating brotherhood, sisterhood, awakening ... to free our selves from wrong perceptions, from discrimination. Because, discrimination does not only exist in them. Discrimination does exist in each of us. We have both Hell and Paradise in us. They also [do]. So, if we are capable of touching paradise and transforming hell in us, we will be able to help them touch the paradise in them and transform hell in them. They are no longer our enemies. They are the people we want to help. But, we have to help our self first. It's not a problem of protesting. Because we can see them as victims of their wrong perceptions, of their own ignorance, and fear, and violence. And that is why, to me, it is very very crucial, it is very urgent to go home to ourselves, and to our community, and to begin the real practice. "

Race Riots

I'd like to think of myself as a pretty decent human being. I keep my lawn mowed, raise my kids, and go to work every day. I'm a good husband to one woman. I donate my time and my treasure to the organizations and people I believe in. I try to help people where I can. 

But, here's the deal: 

If you hit me, as much as I might try to turn the other cheek, I might hit you back. If you hit me repeatedly after I've told you you're hurting me, that likelihood goes up.

If you target my children, my friends, my family, the likelihood of me hitting back becomes greater still.

If you kill my children, well ... God knows what I might do.

If you hold my head under water long enough, I'm going to become violent trying to escape.

You would, too, and if you have any sense at all, you know it.

If you make someone sufficiently angry and hopeless, particularly if they're young and male, they're going to flip the table and burn the world down. This is well documented sociology. 

It's human nature. It's not good. It's not bad. It's not any other value judgement you'd like to place on it. It simply *IS*.

Kindness

I remember listening to the story of a woman who received a diagnosis of terminal cancer.

She was stunned. 

She spoke of the rage that welled up within her at the utter unfairness of it, and of a bottomless and permeating despair.

How could she live what remained of her life? How could she face the day? How could she put one foot in front of the other for what remained of her journey? 
The epiphany came, she related, in bringing to mind these words from the leader of her spiritual order:  In all circumstances, be kind.

That was her path forward. 

That's amazing to me.

In that moment, this brave, beautiful woman has cancer. She's going to die soon. Soon. What is she going to do?

She is going to strive at all times to remember the suffering of others, and to be kind.

She is going to be kind to the people who give her chemo.

She is going to be kind to people who are uncomfortable around her because her mortality frightens them. 

She is going to be kind to people who hurt her.

She is going to be kind to people who are hurting *with* her.

Most of all, she is going to be kind to those precious people who fail in their attempts to be strong for her, because they are already beginning to mourn her, even as she lingers.

Even in the depths of despair, through tears and pain, as this precious human life is taken from her in a way that is as unspeakably senseless as it is bewildering and cruel ...

She is going to remember the suffering of others.

She is going to make effort to reduce their suffering.

She is going to be kind. 

I was utterly blown away by this.

This saint is several years gone, now. But I believe, in the manner of her passing, she set an example for how you and I should live.

It's so easy to look at the outrages around us and to despair. 

It's so easy to become focused on our own suffering and to lash out. 

It's so easy to become frustrated or emotionally exhausted - "weary in well-doing." 

But, my prayer is, no matter what may happen, and as Almighty God gives me strength; may I in all things remember the suffering of others. 

May I always remember to be kind.

#myreligioniskindness