Originally recorded: 2020/02/26
With all the things that are happening in the world, so much is happening in the world. Can we look at it from this perspective of what the Buddha has to teach? How do we open to suffering? It’s easy in some way to shut down and not ask this question….
How can we open to this, to not shut down? Instead of locking ourselves away in reaction and fear, can we bring wisdom and compassion to it? How do we open our hearts to the suffering that’s there. The biggest tool is mindfulness. To recognize when we’re shutting down. What’s making us push away? What’s taking us to reactivity? Why do such things happen? What does the Buddha have to say about why such things happen?…
So I’d like to explore the tendency we have as human beings to create a sense of “other.” We create an identity around views and beliefs. We create an identity around a view that someone is "other. We create a sense of self and other. Different, or other than, us. It's very natural to do this, but when we see the extremes of othering, which we do a lot of, we see a lot of those extremes, this is where suffering is caused.