All have suffered, suffering is the shadow cast by mortal life.
Everyone responds to that suffering differently, and has their own unique perspectives and challenges which leads to divisions and camps.
That is reason enough for me to want to be kind, and as understanding as is possible to all. I am on the side of peace, and compassion. That includes all.
@process @stueytheround Thich Nhat Hanh told a story of a brother Monk that was angry because of the American Soldiers and the way they mistreated the Vietnamese People during the Vietnam war.
Now he had every right to be upset. But Hanh challenged him saying, if you were raised the way they were, and grew up in New York, you would feel the same as they do.
We must remember the Americans are suffering too. They'd have to be, to behave that way.
That has stuck with me so much.
I was horribly bullied when I was growing up. I've been beaten down, spit on, mentally abused, even had knives pulled on me. School was a daily gauntlet of being picked on for most of my tenure there.
It's easy to feel righteous anger. It's natural to want to fight back, but that story, others like it, and my journey to this point, well beyond those tumultuous years has shown me that there is something beyond that that is worth striving for.
@process @stueytheround I'd fight back, get in trouble, get in school suspended, and I'd be right back there the next week and it would all start over again.
It was a cycle that repeated. Suffering compounded on suffering. They dished it out, I took it so long, then I gave some back.
It solved nothing.
Learning how to let go of that anger, learning to reach beyond it, was a titanic struggle, but responding to fire with fire only ensures there will be more fire.
@process @stueytheround I started to learn this imperfectly when I was a Junior in High School, and it has taken me my lifetime to refine it. Christianity first, then Buddhism, the Writings of Camus, and King all have led me down this path.
I cannot compare my experience to living in a war zone, the shocking and horrible violence that people perpetuate on others, but I also know that what is true in small ways must be also true in big ways.