But I Deserve It!

Our grandparents and great-grandparents knew the value of the goods they used and the food they ate. Very often they produced one or the other or even both. So they knew the foolhardiness of waste and superfluous production. They knew the value of money because without hard physical work, they wouldn’t have any. They knew to conserve what they had and to put away for the lean years and emergencies. And they knew that to help their children and grandchildren, they themselves needed to make sacrifices; and this they did out of love.

But it’s tough to grow a country and have a powerful military if people are too focused on living conservatively and producing only what is needed. With the growth of the media—newspapers and magazines, radio, television, the Internet—politicians and businesspeople found a way to entice people to consume more. If you want to remain in power or you want to rapidly increase your company’s bottom line, you must convince citizen consumers that prosperity is about to be theirs. And although they themselves do not yet have enough prosperity, they are within reach of it and if they just keep consuming more, they will get there.

But the problem was that if honorable people who had always lived conservatively and close to the land saw the destruction of that land or of natural resources and the utter neglect of human rights, they might ask difficult questions. They would ask what kind of a world they were leaving for their children, what would happen to moral values, how could growth go on forever, were the farmers and workers receiving fair wages? And so it became necessary for consumers to be increasingly removed from the reality of what the true costs of their consumption was.

Consequently, mining was done in regions where people did not have the political power or financial security to ask difficult questions. Forests were cut down and cleared away for the farms, which were in turn sold and concreted over for suburban housing. Animals were born, raised, and killed in closed buildings where those who were to eat them never saw the suffering or filthy conditions the animals were subjected to. Garbage was removed and buried where citizens couldn’t see it. Potable water was made readily and inexpensively available so people wouldn’t think to ask if the seemingly endless stream would always be available. Or if everyone had enough.

Television, with its mesmerizing plethora of flashing images, became a primary tool in refocusing consumer’s attention. Viewers, now addicted to that screen, avidly watched “reality television,” which bore absolutely no resemblance to the reality of over two-thirds of the world's population who were living near those mines, factory farms, and garbage dumps.

How much of a hold does television have on us?

Nielsen Media Research reported that during the 2005-2006 television year, the average American watched television four hours and thirty-five minutes a day. That equates to 20,000 commercials a year! Anyone who has been in a room with a television turned on knows how difficult it is to not look at it. The best hope for abstaining in such a room is to face away from the screen. This of course becomes increasingly difficult as the screens are becoming as large as some walls in those rooms.

And so we have our world today, a world in which materialism has become the new “Holy Grail,” a world where people are more removed from the reality of what it takes to support their material cravings than ever before. A world in which people have become so focused on gratifying themselves, they have largely stopped asking about the costs to those they share the planet with and the planet itself, and even their own children. A world in which people are at great risk of blithely sailing through life, clueless about the havoc they are creating.

Even good people, caring people, get caught up in the living of life without thinking, without accepting the responsibility to learn how their choices impact others. Even good people can tell themselves that it's okay to indulge themselves, okay to take more than they need, okay to not think of the consequences of their decisions. Even good people can fall into the trap of telling themselves that it's okay because they deserve it.

To which a question arises—what about the others who also "deserve it"?

Personal Responsibility

Perhaps one of the most memorable statements I heard during the summit was:

"People have a responsibility to act on their own and not wait for instructions on what to do."

Maybe it was due to the context that occurred to me, but I was particularly struck when I heard this. While it is doubtless comforting to leave everything up to someone else, especially someone who is wise and we rightly respect, we still remain responsible for our own actions. And it is our responsibility to do what is right.

As long as we are part of this world, it is our responsibility to be informed about it. It is our responsibility to investigate and ask questions, and then apply the moral principles we have learned to decide whether or not to do something or how to do it. This is why we study and examine those moral principles, to be able to use basic truths--for example, do not harm--in new situations. But if we remain uninformed, we will not even realize the harm we are doing. So we cannot wait for someone to provide us with instructions for every situation we encounter. We need to educate ourselves and accept our responsibilities.

The Interfaith Summit

I’d like to share with you some of my favorite comments that came out of the interfaith summit.

 Unity not uniformity

Interfaith dialogue could be the movement

from tolerance to understanding to respect to love.

Before we are a faith,

we are a people.

I was expecting to meet Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Instead, I met people.

“When you pray, first move your feet.”

As people of faith, we need to engage with the world.

Religions are a means to an end,

not the end in themselves.

In meditation, as we move within,

boundaries will drop away and we will find ourselves without and one with everything.

Be relentless in the pursuit of compassion.

Gossiping

• From the perspective of practice, the major problem of criticizing others is not “whether he is in fact wrong and I am right,” but the fact that our ears and eyes are already making judgments and our minds are closed to everything but our own perceptions. Further, we are creating negative karma through the incipience of our ideas and depriving ourselves of merits. Therefore, our six sensual organs are like six thieves, and the purpose of practice is to prevent them from wildly pursuing the sense objects so that we can close the door to vexation. We should train our ears not to crave for pleasant melodies; eyes, agreeable surroundings; nose, fragrance; mouth, tasty food; and train our minds to be free of discrimination. Then we can concentrate on reciting the Buddha’s name and the sutras, performing prostration, sitting meditation, and other practices that will liberate us from the cycle of birth and death. If we keep up these practices, how could we have the time and the mood to pursue external distractions, or to comment on how others behave?
• If you criticize others and your mind is disturbed or vexed by it, you would have no one but yourself to blame. Do not be judgmental of what others do: be tolerant. Then, not only will you enjoy peace of mind but will avoid creating negative karma through your words. This is the first and utmost important principle in practice. Remember: “Act according to (rather than against) circumstances, forbear everything, then enjoy peace of mind.” This is the best antidote for a troubled mind.
• Don’t say that there are good people and evil ones. All judgments are but distinctions made by our minds. To those who really know how to practice, all sentient beings are helpful mentors.

~ Analects of Master Kuang-ch'in

Eyes of a Buddha-to-be

There is no difference between me and you and they. We are all part of one another: we each have a Buddha-nature waiting to awaken. Every person—every being—we will encounter today is a future Buddha. A Buddha-to-be caught just as we are in our lack of awareness.

Unaware, they suffer just as we suffer. They too get hooked by their habits and carelessly react from those habits, not from wisdom. Deluded, they suffer just as we suffer. They too take wrong ideas for the truth and view the truth as falsehood. They too act out of ignorance and make many mistakes, not realizing the harm they are doing.

Today, all those we encounter will undergo trials. Take their disappointment and difficulties in as your own. And view them clearly and non-judgmentally through your eyes—the eyes of a Buddha-to-be.