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| Poetry and Writings Index Spiritual Stories 4 |
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| "Before the Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc burned
himself alive in 1963, he meditated for several weeks and then wrote very loving letters to his government, his church, and his fellow monks and nuns explaining why he had reached that decision. When you are motivated by love and the willingness to help others attain understanding, even self-immolation can be a compassionate act. When Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified, He was acting in the same way, motivated by the desire to wake people up, to restore understanding and compassion, and to save people. When you are motivated by anger or discrimination, even if you act in exactly the same way, you are doing the opposite. When you read Thich Quang Duc's letters, you know very clearly that he was not motivated by the wish to oppose or destroy but by the desire to communicate. When you are caught in a war in which the great powers have huge weapons and complete control of the mass media, you have to do something extraordinary to make yourself heard. Without access to radio, television, or the press, you have to create new ways to help the world understand the situation you are in. Self-immolation can be such a means. If you do it out of love, you act very much as Jesus did on the cross and as Gandhi did in India. Gandhi fasted, not with anger, but with compassion, not only toward his countrymen but also toward the British. These great men all knew that it is the truth that sets us free, and they did everything they could to make the truth known. Buddhist and Christian practice is the same ---to make the truth available---the truth about ourselves, the truth about our brothers and sisters, the truth about our situation. This is the work of writers, preachers, the media and also practitioners. Each day, we practice looking deeply into ourselves and into the situation of our brothers and sisters. It is the most serious work we can do. UNDERSTANDING TRANSFORMS If while we practice we are not aware that the world is suffering, that children are dying of hunger, the social injustice is going on everywhere, we are not practicing mindfulness. We are just trying to escape. But anger is not enough, Jesus told us to love our enemy. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This teaching helps us know how to look at the person we consider to be the cause of our suffering. If we practice looking deeply into his situation and the causes of how he came to be the way he is now, and if we visualize ourselves as being born in his condition, we may see that we could have become exactly like him. When we do that , compassion arises in us naturally, and we see that the other person is to be helped and not punished. In that moment, or anger transforms itself into the energy of compassion. Suddenly, the one we have been calling our enemy becomes our brother or sister. This is the true teaching of Jesus. Looking deeply is one of the most effective ways to transform our anger, prejudices, and discrimination. We practice as an individual , and we also practice as a group." excerpt from "Living Buddha, Living Christ " by Thich Nhat Hanh [Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet, best-selling author and peace activist for over 40 years and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr Martin Luther King.] |