Tuesday Haiku - July 13, 2010

oft walked canyon rim
tears for mom mingled with rain
what eroded you?

Radical Wishing

All people want to be happy. This is one of the common threads that bind us together. Yet many of us unwittingly predicate our own happiness on the unhappiness of others.

How do we seek the unhappiness of others? Win/lose thinking is the culprit. "For me to be happy, I need to win, and you need to lose," is the pervasive belief that places us on a treadmill to nowhere. We see it in sports, the "who's hot, who's not" celebrity gossip filling our media, competition at work, our economic and political systems, and even the competition among religions for adherents.

What if we realized that this mode of living was a guarantee that we will be involved in never-ending conflict, with occasionally satisfying "victories" but no lasting happiness? Imagine how it would change the world if instead we learned to hold our own views without believing we had discovered the only way to live. Imagine what could happen if we recognized that the people with whom we disagree are also seeking happiness. Imagine if we began to seek ways for others to have their happiness without sacrificing our own. Admittedly, this will require some creativity, but getting out of the win/lose mindset and giving it a shot seems worthwhile at this critical juncture for our world.

The ramifications could be enormous. The need for conflict and war would evaporate. Happiness would cease to be something we were in endless (but fruitless) pursuit of and become something real that we all reflect in the world.

Imagine if we could recite the Buddhist prayer known as the Four Immeasurables, and really mean it for all beings, understanding that if they find their true happiness, we will find ours as well.

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings never be parted from freedom's true joy.
May all beings dwell in equanimity, free from attachment and aversion.