Q: Is there any cause for optimism?
A: Well, personally, yeah. Everybody's got a life to lead and they've got a bodhisattva tendency, everybody wants to do good, so I just think on a personal level, yeah. On a larger scale, there doesn't seem to be any hope unless compassion becomes a more widespread important teaching on how to live. Compassion to self and others.
–Allen Ginsberg, from "Spontaneous Intelligence: An Interview with Allen Ginsberg," Tricycle, Fall 1995
I was listening to the audio book of Ian McEwan's Saturday last night as I was falling asleep and the main character and his 18 year old son were talking -- I think it was supposed to be around 2003, so they were talking about 9/11 and the post-911 world. The son said something very similar. Something like, if you look at the whole world and all of the problems globally, we're doomed. But when we focus in tightly on our own lives and worlds, things aren't too bad. There's something to all of that. I have a contented sleeping dog next to me and I know you. I think that's pretty good.
ReplyDeleteFine... and lead your life... with joy...
ReplyDeleteYes. Compassion and love are highly underrated and thoroughly underused. In the REAL sense of the words.
ReplyDeleteThank-you for giving us this today.
compassion compassion compassion.
ReplyDeletefor ourselves and others.
yes.
Richard Rohr has just published a book that speaks to this. I haven't read it yet, but I saw a brief clip of him explaining the contemplative, or "non-dualistic" way of being in the world, and this quote makes me think of what he said. Here is a link to the clip, if you are interested. http://thenakednowbook.com/MoreAbout_NakedNow.html
ReplyDelete(I love him!)
How about teaching in school something like this:
ReplyDelete"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."~His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
Just imagine what our world would be like if we would be kind always...imagine all the people...
"compassion to self" ..... that really stands out .... I hadn't thought of that. I think of it for you .... not for me. Rambling again here :)
ReplyDeleteLisa - Saturday is an amazing book. I think it's McEwan's finest. The others don't do much for me. I'll have to go back and look that passage up.
ReplyDeleteKaren -- thanks for the link. I will look at it!