Words pointing…
For a long time, when driving by a cemetery, I have had the distinct and unshakable sense that those dwelling under the tombstones are watching and waiting and maybe chuckling a little, laughing at the living and their frantic and petty preoccupations. Sometimes, I can’t help but laugh, too.
This idea of the connectedness of the living and the dead runs deep in the human heart, and is confirmed in the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, which is just the Church expounding on the teaching of the Lord that “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” (Luke 20:38).
When one tugs on a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
The Buddha’s philosophy says that when you realize that there is a part of you that’s connected to all that exists, you will be loving, you will be compassionate, and you will actually follow what Christ says on the Sermon on the Mount.
Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.
Have you heard my favorite story that came from the Seattle Special Olympics? Well, for the 100-yard dash there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at the starting line and at the sound of the gun, they took off. But not long afterward one little boy stumbled and fell and hurt his knee and began to cry. The other eight children heard him crying; they slowed down, turned around and ran back to him. Every one of them ran back to him. One little girl with Down Syndrome bent down and kissed the boy and said, “This’ll make it better.” And the little boy got up and he and the rest of the runners linked their arms together and joyfully walked to the finish line. They all finished the race at the same time. And when they did, everyone in that stadium stood up and clapped and whistled and cheered for a long, long, time. People who were there are still telling the story with great delight. And you know why. Because deep down, we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win too. Even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate “other.” You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is.