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One of my favourite teachers is the Dalai Lama. His simple way of stating the profound is one of his many gifts to all of us. His notion that \u201cmy religion is kindness\u201d comes to mind.<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s world, we have one powerful group of people that believes their mission in life is to acquire and achieve all the monetary and political power they can. They express concern only for their own needs and welfare. Currently, these people are determined to cut their taxes so that they can achieve even more wealth.<\/p>\n
Then we have those who live from day-to-day, from paycheck to paycheck. The powerful want to offset the taxes they\u2019re saving by increasing the taxes of such middle- and lower-class citizens so the life of those who have the least is made even more difficult. <\/p>\n
With this, there is a total disregard for the needs and feelings of those who are already having a difficult time making ends meet, providing food for their families, procuring medical care for the ill and finding places to live. The pure and simple fact is that such dichotomies, rather than strengthening society, weaken and will eventually destroy society.<\/p>\n
The Dalai Lama has addressed what society needs to do to to survive in today\u2019s world. He has written, \u201cInterdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Our own survival is so dependent on the help of others that a need for love lies at the very core of our existence. Therefore, we need to cultivate a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also writes, \u201cCompassion and love are not a luxury; they are essential to our existence. Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community. If we are to survive, human beings must develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. We must learn to work not for just our own self, family, or nation, but for the benefit of all humankind.\u201d <\/p>\n
What causes me concern is that if our society is left to the lack of awareness and ignorance of the greedy, we\u2019ll unconsciously destroy ourselves. We\u2019ll destroy our earth, our drinking water, the air we breathe, our food supply, our ability to provide medical care to all, and the education we need to learn things that enhance society instead of destroying it. <\/p>\n
Buddhism teaches that the cause of all suffering is ignorance, which means not knowing what we don\u2019t know or believing in thoughts that are at odds with what was, what is or what will be. Having money and power alone doesn\u2019t offset ignorance; in fact, it may encourage it.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve entered an era of greed and ignorance, along with a disregard of the needs and feelings of others. This is a road that leads to disaster. We need to bring awareness and compassion into our daily lives, and if we can do that, our world and its societies will have the chance to survive and grow. On the other hand, if we don\u2019t grow, we\u2019ll become extinct and exist no longer. <\/p>\n
\u00abRELATED READ\u00bb<\/strong> POWER REIMAGINED: A journey of nonviolence, ecology and collective healing\u00bb<\/strong><\/p>\n image: Surprising_SnapShots<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of my favourite teachers is the Dalai Lama. His simple way of stating the profound is one of his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shop-cili.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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