Good day, everyone!
I received an email last night from a friend who wrote to say that she had lost a friend to politics. One looks at life from a liberal point of view, the other from a conservative viewpoint, and the difference tore their friendship apart. She asked me what I saw about that and about how such things can happen. Below you will find a portion of my response to her, and also a video I made on the subject. Be well!
In peace,
David
My response:
I’m really sorry you lost your friend, my friend. It’s really sad, indeed. And so unnecessary! The trouble I think is that we have such a deep tendency to identify with something smaller than our authentic nature and the love, clarity, and compassion that is a part of our authentic nature. Everywhere people are identifying themselves with party or some limited point of view as if that’s who they really are, and it isn’t–and then act from that identity in ways that destroy what is truly important, which is the love that we could feel for each other and might live from towards each other. This is a good example. To me what practice asks is that we let go of identity and be who we truly are instead; to drop all the biases (on both sides), all the conditioned beliefs about how things are, about right and wrong, and so on, and see what is truly happening and what needs to be done. This is the way we might heal our troubled world, I think, but few people are capable of it, or even know that the choice exists. When you look at the consequences of this blindness in our society and all the suffering that arises from it then we go from sad to tragic. Again, I’m really sorry for your loss.
And here’s the video…
Be safe and well!