I find the notion that “there, but by the grace of God, go I,” really says the truth about each one of us. None of us has anything to say about whether or not we are white, black, brown or yellow skin-pigmented. We have nothing to do with what part of the world we are living in, or what level of affluence or poverty we are born into. We are who and where we are in life, without having any say in the matter.
Another notion that I find to be profoundly important is the universal spiritual admonition that we ‘treat one another as we would want to be treated.’ This means that regardless of who and where we are in life, our task as human beings is to treat the other person as we would want to be treated. If we were to do that, all of our interpersonal, transcultural and international issues would have an opportunity to be left in the dust, or to be, at least, lessened.
A crime against humanity
To be sure, there have been historically unforgivable ways that people have treated one another. In the United States, we have given birth to systemic racism. From our beginnings, for more than 400 years, we have treated black-skinned people as slaves, and as inferior and subservient to white people.
The enslavement of one person over another is taking a human being and making an object out of that person. For one person or a group of people to dehumanize another person or group of people is a crime against humanity. There is no way we can behave in this way towards others and survive as a society.
In other ways, the United States has had a history of behaving deplorably towards others. Our treatment of Native Americans was a mixture of taking their lands, slaughtering them and placing them in ‘reservations’ to control and ‘maintain’ them.
So often, these ‘reservations’ were deplorable places that were prison-like in their impact on those who were forced to inhabit these often barren, inhospitable places. The American government routinely broke their promises to the Indigenous people who were initially forced to live in these reservations.
Our treatment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War was another example of the American way of treating other human beings inhumanely, by forcing them from their homes into internment camps. Many lost their homes and businesses. The United States government did this with a total disregard for Japanese-American citizens’ lives and rights, and total disrespect for their culture and ways of life.
A life of anxiety and pain
Today, we are experiencing a pandemic during which many people are not able to work, and are on the verge of being evicted from their homes, due to having no income. Members of our American family have had only one of a promised two ‘bail-out’ packages that were to assist people with paying for food, rent and basic needs.
During the recent Thanksgiving holiday, more than 21 million Americans were and are going hungry and are on the verge of losing their homes, due to the Senate going on holiday leave without passing a second bail-out package. The Senate’s reason for doing this was their political consideration that providing a ‘relief’ bill, now, would make it look as if the economy was not doing well, and that would be a bad reflection on the present administration.
Here, appearances determined the keeping of a promise of essential income for fellow citizens. This is another unconscionable way of objectifying people and treating fellow citizens as merely a demographic or political pawn.
Anyone who feels objectified is deeply wounded and emotionally damaged. Theirs is a life of anxiety and pain. Their life experiences create within them storylines that are lies about not being good enough or loveable or important.
All of us attempt to make sense of our experiences with other people and our life experiences. All of us need to feel a sense of attachment to others, and to ourselves, we need to feel human. Without that sense of being, we experience living in a void of darkness, loneliness, hopelessness and anger. When we categorize people, they cease to be human beings and become objects.
We are all the same
To these examples of human beings treating other human beings as merely objects, the Dalai Lama offers a response and a profoundly important teaching. He says:
Whether one is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or nonbeliever, man or woman, black, white or brown, we are all the same. Physically, emotionally and mentally we are all equal. We all share basic needs of food, shelter, safety and love. We all aspire to happiness and we all shun suffering. Each of us has hopes, worries, fears and dreams. Each of us want the best for our family and loved ones. We all experience pain when we suffer loss and joy when we achieve what we seek. On this fundamental level, religion, ethnicity, culture and language makes no difference.
He goes on to say:
Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Even tiny insects survive by co-operating with each other. Our own survival is so dependent on the help of others that a need for love lays at the very core of our existence. This is why we need to cultivate a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others.
Rather than reacting and protecting ourselves from one another, we need to respond by treating our fellow human beings with compassion. In essence, our need is to treat others as we would like to be treated. By doing this, issues like racism, unequal levels of medical care, unequal treatment before the law, and working together to preserve the viability of our very planet are possible.
As the Dalai Lama has stated, “Our own survival is so dependent on the help of others that a need for love lays at the very core of our existence.” May we grow in our awareness, in our compassion and in our loving-kindness towards one another.
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image 1 image by aga2rk from Pixabay 2 By Russell Lee via Wikipedia Public Domain 3 Photo by form PxHere
