Love & Kindness

Loving kindness - Metta, a traditional Buddhist concept, implies acting with compassion toward all sentient beings, with an awareness and appreciation of the natural world. Compassion literally means to suffer together. In simple terms to "Walk a mile in someones shoes" - before judging someone, you must understand his experiences, challenges, thought processes, etc.

 

I can't walk a mile in the shoes of the families & friends of the Israeli's killed & captured on the 7th of October. I can't walk a mile in the shoes of all the people killed, injured, disposessed & without all basic necessities in Gaza. I cannot envisage what it must be like to actually fight & suffer in a war. 

Hundreds & thousands of people in our world are suffering in ways I can see on my TV, read about in newspapers & listen to on the radio. Most of that suffering is actually man made. However hard I try I am unable to really imagine living in a constant state of fear & anxiety without anything that makes life comfortable & worthwhile. The desperation of trying to protect the very young & the very old is utterly beyond my capacity.

I have to try to comprehend in simple black & white terms. War never works & is morally totally unjustifiable. The arms trade fuels war for profit. Killing other people must kill something within the killer, making them less than the best human they could be. Destruction of infrastructure means waste of precious limited resources & our precious world. Once again generating profit for the rebuilders. Arguments & differences of opinion are normal. But violence never solved a problem. Violence always escalates. 

Each of us has the capacity for both sides of the coin - great good & great evil. Each of us has to make a personal choice about what we will do in the face of wrongdoing. Will we intercede & try to negotiate & help resolve? Will we stand by & do nothing because we don't want to get involved? Will we do our best?

Unless the balance scales tip in favour of love, kindness, generosity & personal involvement I don't see a future for the human race at the moment. "I'm alright Jack" just isn't going to solve the problems that face us. Neither is putting up walls & boundaries. They won't keep us safe  & they demean us.