Some Good Reasons for Loving our Enemies
(Subtitled: Why I Love Pain and Suffering When I Cannot Avoid It!)
I was called for jury duty on the grand jury yesterday,
and was selected as an alternate, which means I only need to go in if someone gets
sick during the month of November.
I have been called for other jury service in the past, but did not know that when
you are called for “grand” jury duty, the term of the duty is the entire month.
The judge that gave a speech to us at the beginning was
very interesting. He gave an excellent
talk (actually, it was a sermon) on how fortunate
we are to live in this particular time and place.
The judge began by describing how many people are starving and dying of diseases
in other countries. He said that we
are very lucky to be living in
America
because in this country, we have good nutritional and medical health technologies
that are distributed to the masses.
In most countries, clean drinking water is not even available, and hospitals do
not exist to help those who are sick.
Each day, we take all of the technological advances, such as computers, MP3, luxury
cars, and so on for granted. However,
most countries do not have anything to even compare to them.
This is why thousands of people sell all that they have just to try to immigrate
to the
US
and why many others enter the country illegally each day.
The judge said the reason we have been able to develop
beyond most other countries is because we have a judicial system and a system of
government that supplies our society with a “sense
of order” that is lacking elsewhere.
In countries that are constantly being overthrown by anarchists, thieves, and robbers,
there is no order, and where there is no order, there is no way to fairly distribute
goods and services. Also, where there
is no order, it is difficult to develop new technologies.
The judge said our
Founding Fathers were wise enough to see that
order, diversity of opinion, and freedom are very important in supporting
the development of our country, even in its infancy.
As our country has grown, the constitution has stood the test of time. The
constitution has provided empirical proof that a having an underlying structure
of order and a free election system that allows
the people to correct the course of things, when needed, is essential to
the prosperity that we have all grown accustomed to.
Changing subjects, I have recently been reading a book
and listening to some interesting audio tapes by a Buddhist monk named Pema Chodron. I highly commend them to anyone that
may be interested in the emotional side of life.
One point that Pema makes is that the reason we often get
angry at other people is because they evoke some emotional response in us that is
unacceptable to us. For example, we
may be jealous of another person for having something that we do not.
Instead of accepting our jealous feelings, we often blame the other person
for having what we want. Pema believes
that we need to forgive and accept our inner feelings of jealousy before we can
begin to forgive or accept the other person.
She calls this process of forgiving or accepting ourselves, the process of “becoming
friends with ourselves.”
Pema says that everyone, no matter how course on the exterior,
has a “soft spot” in their heart. This
soft spot can be thought of as our “Achilles Heal,” as an “open wound,” or as a
“bruised heart.” She believes that
most people try to shut this soft spot out, or to deny its existence, but, the truth
of the matter is that we need to become more aware of it.
She says that if we can just make a pin prick in our hearts, that pin prick
can be widened through a series of exercises to allow us to become more compassionate
to others that are suffering.
One of the exercises that she recommends is to make a list
of four types of people. The first
type consists of those that we naturally feel love for.
They are the people that always evoke a feeling of love in our hearts. The second group consists of those friends
of ours that we can feel compassion for with very little effort.
The third group consists of “neutrals” – these are people that we feel neither
compassion nor hatred for. The fourth
group consists of those people that we simply do not like.
The exercise consists of thinking about the first group, and transferring
that compassion on to the second group, and then on to the third group, and finally
on to the fourth group. The goal is
to widen the pin prick in our hearts wider and wider in each step of the process
so that in the end we no longer just have a pin prick, but rather a gaping hole!
Pema’s belief is that cruelty and compassion both come
from the same source. She says that
people that have been hurt in the past try to cover up their “soft spot” with armor. That is to say, they try to erect defenses
whenever they feel vulnerable. These
defenses often cause us to lash out at others to protect our soft spot – this is
the “cruelty side” that results from the soft spot.
On the “compassion side,” the soft spot allows us to feel
empathy for others that are suffering.
If we tried to describe the taste of sugar to someone that had never tasted it,
we would have a very difficult time trying to get them to understand what we were
talking about because they have never had a “first-hand” experience of sugar. In the same way, we have a very difficult
time understanding the suffering of others if we have not had a first-hand experience
of it ourselves.
Pema has an analogy of what compassion is all about. She asks us to imagine ourselves living
in a room all by ourselves. In that
room, we have total control over the thermostat and the type of music that is played. We can adjust it so that it is totally
to our liking. However, the problem
with this room is that we are imprisoned in it.
As soon, as we invite others in or go out the door or window, other people
start monkeying with the thermostat and with the station that we like.
Most of us just want to invite only those that like the
temperature where we want it, or those that want to listen to “our” station, into
our room. However, by doing that, we
actually only imprison ourselves with people that are exactly like ourselves. The problem with this is that is it
is analogous to living in a country where everyone believes the same thing. That type of country is no where near
as good as one that is rich in diversity.
When there is diversity, it allows for the best ideas from both sides to be chosen,
rather than being limited to a small pool of ideas.
The ideal room would be one that is rich in diversity and that allows the
inhabitants to self-correct their own mistakes by choosing from the best that is
available.