"Do not
avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering.
Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of
the world. Find a way to be with those who are suffering by all
means, including personal contact and visits, images, sounds. By
such means awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering
in the world". (Precept #4 Buddha’s 14 precepts for Inner
Peace)
I sat and thought about those words tonight. Especially here in
New York it is commonplace to turn a blind eye to those that are
suffering. And as you do, you feel a little twinge in your gut,
because your soul knows its wrong. But people are less willing to
help sometimes because there are so many con artists here in the city.
They dress up as homeless, put your kindness in their pocket, and
then at the end of the day return to their home in the suburbs.
Yet, there is suffering all around us, in every town and city.
Like a quiet storm in the distance we can feel the moisture in
the air, and hear the crackle of the thunder. Still, if it is not raining directly on us, we just don't really
seem to pay attention.
For my part,
I do feel the need to help people, sometimes more than others.
Last month I was walking home from the movie theater and noticed a
few people sleeping in an alcove of a building. It was bitter cold
that night. By the time I arrived home I had all but forgot about
it. In that instant however, my humanity began to tug at my heart,
and I just couldn’t turn away. So I gathered a few sweatshirts,
returned to the spot and handed them out. I did the same last week
except it was a large bag of clothes: I felt like Santa Clause. It
contained blue jeans, sweatshirts, turtlenecks etc. I gave the bag
to a couple sleeping in a doorway. They said thank you, and said
anything they could not use they would pass on. A pattern was
starting to emerge. However, the elder gentleman gave me a laugh.
He watched as I showed him some turtleneck and flannel shirts.
As I went through them he asked "do you have anything in a
dark color," as thought this was a Macy's sale? I was taken back with a smile, and assured him there
were dark shirts also, and he liked my idea to wear the light shirts
under the dark ones.
A friend of mine, recovering from drug and alcohol abuse, has been
clean & sober for over a year. Today I got a call, as I do
almost every day. "I had such a great day at my group
meeting. There were these two girls who were messed up more than
me. One girl said that after the last meeting she almost gave in
to her drug desires. But that it was my efforts to talk to her
last week that helped her resist the urge." My friend carried that
girls’ burden that day, if just for a few moments, by caring and
taking an interest. And a few minutes was all it took to make a
difference in someone else's life.
Why should it be so hard for us to help each
other? Deep down we feel it, if we don't turn it off and turn
away. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not we are all
connected. And if one suffers, the "whole" suffers. It
is hard to drown out the sounds of crying.
The beautiful thing about kindness is that you can give it freely
with no expectation of anything in return. And when you do that,
you actually get something in return -- the giving IS the
reward. Try it and you will be surprised at how you feel.
But the trick is, not to expect anything.
Those in
need don’t always require only clothing, sometimes just a little
respect and dignity. Across from my apartment there was a fellow sitting on the sidewalk with
his "stuff," and you knew he was homeless. As I walked
by on my way to get a coffee, he was yelling
at everyone who walked by. On my way back I stopped and quietly
asked him "why are you yelling at these people?" He
responded with such anger, and told me that they were all to
blame. He couldn’t get a job, the immigrants were taking all the
jobs. In mid sentence I pulled out a bagel with cream cheese and a
cup of coffee that I bought for him while I was getting my own. He
sat there stunned, nothing to say. In one instant he became a
person. He was always a person, but I think in the midst of his
screams he might have forgotten. Maybe he was screaming less
about the job, and more to the fact that nobody would acknowledge
he was even there. He
was a person, down on his luck perhaps, but a person all the same.
Still, everybody just continued to walk by, turning a deaf ear to
his cries. A simple thing like a bagel and coffee, made a
desperate man smile. For just a moment, he was reminded, that he
was a person.
As you go
through your days, notice the people around you, connect with
them. Our life is short and it is not what we have that matters,
but how we live our lives. Sometimes its what we
"didn't" do that matters. If you don't know what to say,
try this, "I don't know what to say – but, what can I do to
help". Sometimes that alone does the trick.
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