If You Only Knew
The Buddha said:
If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given, nor would the stain of selfishness overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, their last mouthful, they would not eat without having shared, if there were someone to receive their gift.
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(photo by Amanda Gilligan, from Polaroid Notes published by Chronicle Books)
Hatred Never Ends Through Hatred
I feel so much sadness…and despair…over the Michael Brown case, and all the causes and conditions that led to it and that seem to be leading to more of the same.
So I offer these lines from the Dhammapada, which the monk Maha Gosananda chanted — and led his people to chant — as they walked back through the killing fields of Cambodia to reclaim their land at the end of the Vietnam War:
Hatred never ends through hatred. By non-hatred alone does it end. This is an ancient truth.