To start with the human condition we look at personal and social suffering. Part of this is to look at and touch the suffering of people we consider 'other'. We must learn to see the reality that as long as anyone suffers on this planet, we are all suffering. It is necessary to confront systems of power and exclusion regardless of ideological or religious beliefs. Personally we can see for ourselves that we dislike suffering. We can see that suffering serves no purpose in and of itself. Suffering is often thought to build character, but that is a delusion. Suffering more often creates wasted lives. While suffering can bring reality sharply into focus and mobilize individuals and communities to do something about it, there is no inherent virtue in it. Socially we can look at which systems foster more suffering and which systems try to alleviate it.
Until we are willing to claim a loyalty to all human beings, it will be next to impossible to act upon any insights we gain from looking at and touching the vast ocean of suffering in our world. Becoming loyal to all people does not mean one has to necessarily give up being a member of a social or cultural group. It means that one can be farsighted. One can penetrate and dissolve the barriors between us all that cause suffering. One is willing to give up one's beliefs about superiority, inferiority or equality. One can stop comparing, stop judging. In this space one then finds that compassion and energy to change things becomes easier to do. Not that it is an easy task...but it becomes easier than one thinks.
We may find that it is necessary to evolve again to become homo sapiens and abolish the idea of homo economicus. To be homo sapiens means that we are people who know, who are conscious. We have feelings and perceptions that have evolved in sensitivity with our environment. To be homo economicus means that we simply live for that abstraction known as 'the economy'. When the Buddha started the Enlightment Movement over 2500 years ago, he hit upon insights that had been cherished and dreamed about through out the previous millenia of human existence. These same insights provide an uncompromising, and at many times uncomfortable, look at who we are and the type of beings we think we are. These insights are available to us here and now wherever one cherishes free thought and solutions to suffering.
My own voracious quest for knowledge, for knowing got me into trouble when I looked at the history of the Americas. The amount of suffering that has happened and continues to happen is almost overwhelming. It is easy to become depressed while looking at it. Many times I didn't want to know any more. Everything I had believed about this hemisphere and the foundation of today's nation states within it was wrong. I found that I had been ignorant of even the basic realities of dispossession and power relations. Entire indigenous societies had been decimated or enslaved by conquerors who must have appeared to be straight from the pits of hell to those they were conquering.
It is often said by those who have some inkling of what has happened that it is normal history and that it has happened all over the world. People use this explanation as a sort of excuse even though it is true. So the questions are: Are we really limited to causing each other to suffer? Do we really need to live in a world where the people who have power can coerce their will upon anyone else, no matter the consequences? We may find that while certain ideas and approaches may help us understand the questions and answer a resounding 'no' to them, we should not replace this new found openness to possibilities with only more beliefs.
If one believes that human beings have an inherent nature to inflict suffering on each other, then one must ask the oneself why we have systems of morality and laws that reflect otherwise. If we are really a cold and competitive species, then why do we even bother caring for loved ones? Look at this question for yourself. You may find that compassion is actually natural for human beings. Then it becomes necessary to ask "What has gone/is going wrong here?" But I warn you, reflecting on this may call into question everything you believe about how society should be organized and about individuals' places in societies.
I don't propose we replace our diversity of culture, religion, and economies with a bland collectiveness. We are black, white, latin, european, christian, jewish, muslim, buddhist, pagan, atheist, asian, african, palestinian, arabic, american, ghanaian, agnostic, secularist, hindu, chinese, and all others. We are diverse and we have the right to be. But we must give up those beliefs and ways of life that cause more suffering and develop, within each of our traditions ways to increase awareness and happiness, or without our traditions if need be. Trying to pretend that there are no differences is only delusion. There are very real differences. (These differences are apparent to most people unless they believe in modern global economic theories.) But we can focus on our commonalities without being blind to the differences. We may even learn to cherish our differences. Our most potent point of commonality is that each one of us wants to be happy and we want to reduce our own suffering as much as possible. This starting point can help us to understand one another.
This sounds very simple compared to all the theoretical and ideological distractions we are normally used to, but that's the point of reflection. Observation, resolve and action.
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
(This version on December 25th, 2005, from an old journal entry)
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