A Buddhist practice to help us connect with others is,
during meditation, to chant “Just like me…”
Brian
Miller, Reducing Secondary Traumatic Stress
_______________________
the strategists know
those foul propogandists whose job is it
to secure our alliance to one country, one leader, one
party, one ideology
that the best way to do that is to create separation
all they have to do
is create an abyss between us in the other
make us focus on differences
make those differences terminal
all the have to do
is convince us that “those people” are our enemy
and are not like us
while we are good and noble
while our values are appropriate
and our priorities and goals sacrosanct
they are evil and deplorable
with values that will destroy life as we know it
and priorities and goals that
are despicable and disgusting
common good, indeed!
Capitalism, indeed!
our ideology is logical, ethical, and even blessed
their ideology violates everything that is good
it is only a small step from there to the idea
that we are superior
not only superior, but indeed different, at a profound
level
we are those created in God’s image
endowed with original blessing and saturated with the
Sacred
they?
they are creatures, caricatures
dehumanized monsters
beings without faces
objects who don’t count, don’t matter
and thus do not have to treated with respect
they can be used an abused
manipulated and expended on our behalf
women, who are turned into soulless “vessels”
minorities who are nothing more than cheap labor
soldiers who are damaged in many ways, for the sake of
profit
the list goes on
and on
and soon these people are so vague
that we can not only hate them, not only use them,
lie to them, manipulate them, send them to their deaths
but we can literally kill them
As Sam Keen suggests in this book Faces of the Enemy
In the beginning
we created the enemy
Before the weapon comes the image
We think others to death
Then invent the [weapon] with which to actually kill them
And so it is
As we walk through this world
Dealing with people we love
And people who disgust us
We breath
Breath in and out
Breathing in hate, breathing out love
And muttering under our breath
That person is “just like me”
We are brother and sister
We are part of the human family
We are children of God
That person just wants to feel safe, just like me
That person wants to be valued, just like me
That person wants comfort, just like me
That person is greedy, (sadly) just like me
Fearful, angry, reactive, threatened… just like me
I am a child of God
They are a child of God
They have a face I can see. Eyes I can look into
A soul to which I can connect
Issues for which I can have compassion
They are just like me
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