Christian Buddhist Perspectives, Toward a Compassionate New World
Volume 9, Issue 2, February, 2010

Editorial is a feature of H’ART of Zen, updated monthly with links to current events in Buddhist living, and essays on applying Buddhist and New World perceptions to daily life.    Your comments and discussion points are welcomed.

EDITORIAL

The visual field, what we see is what we give. . . .

Of course, we have all noticed how rotten our mood is on a surly, gray day.  We reflect what we see in our environment and pass it on.  It is the rare person who can show us sunshine on a day like that and cheerfully bounce right through it without so much as a momentary frown. These people tend to annoy us even further when we encounter them.  We may even suspect that there is something sinister lurking behind that sunflower mask, but if the person is relentless, and smiles right on by, we find, we smile back.  We can’t help it.

We reflect back what is seen on another’s face.  If we approach someone with a smile, happy to see them, open for a conversation, and they show us a frown, offer a snarl and critical remark, we are saints who do not fire back in kind.

Buddhists understand this and offer the concept of detachment (drawing back far enough that we can see what is truly eating the other person so we can calmly respond in a way that will reassure them).  Jesus simply remarked that we should accept the slap and another if the perp is inclined to fling it (I suppose as many times as necessary for the person to get it out of his or her system and move on to some other complaint). Most of us, on our better days, have tried both methods, and sometimes one or the other may work to calm the spirits closest to us in that moment on that day.

Neither way, however, seems to calm the anger that is rampant in the larger world, and is manifest in the continuous bombings (Iraq, Afghanistan), shootings (Mexico, US), and incessant bickering (worldwide, faction to faction) that is revealed to us day after day.  (No, the celebs collection of funds to send to Haiti does not offset the rage of those who are starving while the US bankers hand themselves billions they don’t need and didn’t earn and have no inherent right to despite what they ‘think’.)

 We all want so much for the world of mankind to calm down and get along.  President Obama’s message of Unity was what got him elected, not his brown color, not his handsome face, not his attractive family, not the ideal of some such or other thing we all resented now being over. Unity is what people longed for, yet once he was elected, here came the so-called “opposition” party to knock it all down.  (How can an American be opposed to American Unity? Terrorists are opposed to American Unity. Get it?) The Good ol’ American Opposition Party (anyone not in The Good ol’ American Party of Control at that moment)  threw up their Ugly Faces:  the Mean Looks, the Stubborn Brat Tactics, the Road Blocks, the same Gang Mentality that keeps America’s cities ducking bullets in the slums, keeps Mexicans unable to build their own country because they are dodging Drug Gang bullets, keeps Afghanistan from stepping out of the 12th Century into the 21st, keeps Iraq yearning for a dictator like Saddam who will scare them into submission, keeps the Dalai Lama from stepping foot in his native land, keeps the roiling, nasty world of man roiling and nasty and rolling on.

I have come to believe that as much as mortals yearn for Unity, controversy and combat are much more attractive to them, and that, given a choice, the world of man will likely opt for competition over cooperation every time. 

On a personal basis, however, we can help relieve some of the angst that surrounds us by setting aside the anger we find in ourselves.

When someone attacks us, we need only reply,

My face is a mirror or a blessing,

depending on who’s looking.

H’Art of Zen

Om Mani Padme Hum

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