Honouring the stranger

 Do you see others as someone to convert? Or as a complete stranger? As a fellow human being? As someone who is lost if they do not see things as you do?

How?

Thomas Merton:-

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

the beginning of love

No matter who, the stranger should be honoured.

Which is quite profound. But you can take it or leave it and pass on contented.

I've always loved the story of the Buddha, descending into the deepest of hells, carrying a lamp. By the light of the lamp those in hell, before thinking themselves alone in the darkness, exclaim:- "Ah! There are others here besides myself!"

Maybe something we all need to learn. Truly see, truly know before we can become a true human being. There are others here besides ourselves.

How do you see the world?

As the Titanic and your religion as a lifeboat? Do you live for the "life to come"? Is your faith a betrayal of this world for some imagined "other"?

How much do you really, truly know about any faith/religion but you own? Are you happy to be ignorant? Do you think your God rewards it?

I've long thought that such books as the Bible were much like a Rorschach test. We tend to see ourselves. Therefore, as many are simply full of some particular theology of salvation, they see that. The cement of themselves begins to set. Congeals. But sadly, truth and Reality is ever new, a constant advance into novelty.

Now, I think all Reality is much the same. What we see is what we get. We are as we understand, as the 13th century zen master Dogen said.

Dogen also wrote:-

On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moments gap; continuous practice is the circle of the way

For Dogen, as Kosho Uchiyama Roshi has explained, "the Way is not simply one direction from starting point to goal; rather, the Way is like a circle. We arouse the enlightened mind moment by moment, we practice moment by moment, we become fully aware moment by moment, and we are in nirvana moment by moment. And we continue to do it ceaselessly. Our practice is perfect in each moment and yet we have a direction toward Buddha."

That's it.