Treat Them Well

In her book Being with Dying, Joan Halifax talks about a miner who died in a catastrophe and wrote a note to his family before he died. Hi name was Martin Toler. His last words were “Tell all I will see them on the other side. I love you.” Joan goes on to say, “Toler’s last words honor the noblest of our human connections, that life is sacred and relationship holy. Through the darkness, he reached out not only to his family but to the rest of us in his community through his abiding and compassionate words. For as the Buddha told his cousin Ananada, the whole of the holy life is good friends. Our relationships—and our love—are ultimately what give depth and meaning to our lives.”

I love the old story of the Rabi that stops overnight at a monastery that had fallen on hard times. When he leaves the next morning, he says to the monks, “one of you is Jesus.” The monks look at one another and no one knows which one it is. From then on they start to treat each other as they would treat Jesus. Eventually there is a revival of the monastery and people from all around come to just experience being with the monks. I believe if we really could treat each person we come into contact with with the same reverence we would treat the Buddha, Jesus or even that we treat the Sakyong in Shambhala, it would not one revive all of our relationships but would create a ripple that would certainly change at least our slice of the world.