the speaking tree - What It Means To `Love Thy Neighbour'
Homayun Taba
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What does `Love thy neighbour as thyself ' really mean? Neighbour here is not only the person next door. Nor is this about opening your arms and hugging everyone you see. Among the many meanings of love one implies ahimsa or harmlessness towards `jaan' and `maal', the life and property of others.Love also implies acceptance. In this ense, seeing any differences religious, cultural, ethnic or national i am still able to see in you a unique entity like myself, sharing basic human needs for ecurity , and survival.
This phrase is equally echoed in krinwantu viswam aryam', let us make his world a noble place to live in. Nobility s wrongly attributed to pedigree, it needs ather to be seen as supreme humanness.How can i, through my attitude, percep ion and words honour others who tand next to me, no matter their colour, eligion and gender? It prompts us to actively and creatively realise the possi bilities of the world for others. Otherwise the pseudo-independence of a separate self asserts itself at each juncture.
Sharon Salzberg finds it wondrous, radical, full of opportunity to really commit to making this a better world, because “... we genuinely find ourselves in one another. Who is a stranger? Who is the `other' when you hear their hopes and dreams, see their lives unfold?“ All these may seem too ideal to engage in, till one witnesses the current spread of the opposite. A 95-year-old Jewish survivor, helped by Christian families during the war, who is these days helping targeted Christian families relocate out of Syria even suggested that th awful though the killings Nazis did in a mechanical or industri spea al way and scale were, Islamic tr State today is perhaps as heinous, openly enjoying and relishing the brutalities it inflicts. Jaan and maal are threatened and attacked, and a vicious disrespect for differences displayed; another way of saying `anyone not with us is against us'.
This way, the divide between us and the other grows ever wider. There can be no transformational breakthrough in consciousness no matter which tradition one belongs to and how many sacrifices and rituals one observes or undertakes.Once the crystallisation of otherness takes hold, it becomes notoriously diffi cult to see through and to get out of.
The poison lies in seeing oneself divinely-born and others illegitimately arrived; us `the chosen ones' heading towards paradise and others hell-bound; us worthy of being touched others untouchables.
Let's go back to the neighbour.
Visualise a chain, if each ring feels connected to the next, then the first will also be bonded with the tenth; how neighbourliness extends. And that is how neighbourliness extends. And the result is a very strong chain.
In a conversation with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo she told us how during their visit to Jerusalem an Arab guard asked their Israeli friends what they were. “They explained,“ she said “that we were Buddhist nuns.“ “Buddhists? Is that a new religion?“ They explained that actually it had been around for about 2,500 years. The guard replied, “So ... Buddhists... Who are they against?“ Real spirituality is to see less of the divisions and more of the similarities; to understand the contextual soil that nourishes a multitude of plants in this case each and every individual. The point is not to ignore differences but to not allow them to determine one's perception of what it means to be truly human. The message is to rise above narrow confines and tap into the already existing spaciousness. Have mystics said anything other than this? Shouldn't this be universally felt and heard?
This phrase is equally echoed in krinwantu viswam aryam', let us make his world a noble place to live in. Nobility s wrongly attributed to pedigree, it needs ather to be seen as supreme humanness.How can i, through my attitude, percep ion and words honour others who tand next to me, no matter their colour, eligion and gender? It prompts us to actively and creatively realise the possi bilities of the world for others. Otherwise the pseudo-independence of a separate self asserts itself at each juncture.
Sharon Salzberg finds it wondrous, radical, full of opportunity to really commit to making this a better world, because “... we genuinely find ourselves in one another. Who is a stranger? Who is the `other' when you hear their hopes and dreams, see their lives unfold?“ All these may seem too ideal to engage in, till one witnesses the current spread of the opposite. A 95-year-old Jewish survivor, helped by Christian families during the war, who is these days helping targeted Christian families relocate out of Syria even suggested that th awful though the killings Nazis did in a mechanical or industri spea al way and scale were, Islamic tr State today is perhaps as heinous, openly enjoying and relishing the brutalities it inflicts. Jaan and maal are threatened and attacked, and a vicious disrespect for differences displayed; another way of saying `anyone not with us is against us'.
This way, the divide between us and the other grows ever wider. There can be no transformational breakthrough in consciousness no matter which tradition one belongs to and how many sacrifices and rituals one observes or undertakes.Once the crystallisation of otherness takes hold, it becomes notoriously diffi cult to see through and to get out of.
The poison lies in seeing oneself divinely-born and others illegitimately arrived; us `the chosen ones' heading towards paradise and others hell-bound; us worthy of being touched others untouchables.
Let's go back to the neighbour.
Visualise a chain, if each ring feels connected to the next, then the first will also be bonded with the tenth; how neighbourliness extends. And that is how neighbourliness extends. And the result is a very strong chain.
In a conversation with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo she told us how during their visit to Jerusalem an Arab guard asked their Israeli friends what they were. “They explained,“ she said “that we were Buddhist nuns.“ “Buddhists? Is that a new religion?“ They explained that actually it had been around for about 2,500 years. The guard replied, “So ... Buddhists... Who are they against?“ Real spirituality is to see less of the divisions and more of the similarities; to understand the contextual soil that nourishes a multitude of plants in this case each and every individual. The point is not to ignore differences but to not allow them to determine one's perception of what it means to be truly human. The message is to rise above narrow confines and tap into the already existing spaciousness. Have mystics said anything other than this? Shouldn't this be universally felt and heard?
