We all talk about peace and harmony as if it were something rare and precious. And indeed, human history, current events ands personal experience teach us that peace and harmony are really difficult to achieve. Everyday, at home, in the work place, in our local communities and in the world at large, for the most part what we can see is conflict and violence both psychological and physical. But why should peace and harmony among people be such an illusive and seemingly distant ideal?
It seems to me that peace and harmony should be natural and common pleace if only we could remember a few basic facts. First of all, we ought to remember that we are all of one - so very alike. We all want to have the same things; and we all want to avoid the same things. We all want to be safe, to have the essential requisites for a good life, to be happy, and to be respected. We all want to avoid danger to ourselves, deprivation, misery and abuse. In this, we are all just the same, no matter if we are Chinese, European, African, Arab or whatever.
We have all heard the phrase, "put yourself in the other fellow's shoes". As a matter of fact, this simple mental exercise by itself can go a very long way towards preventing misunderstanding and conflict. If you are a parent having problems with a child, put yourself in the child's place for a moment. If you are a child having problems with a parent, put yourself in your parent's place for a moment and try to see things from his or her point of view. This goes for any and all relationships between spouses, bosses and employees, friends and acquaintances and so forth.
The real irony about all this is that in fact we have all been in the other fellow's shoes at one time or other. The only problem is that we are so caught up in ourselves, our own problems and grievances, that we just can't be bothered to turn the tables on ourselves, so to speak, even if that can prevent a quarrel or even a violent conflict. Every parent was once a child, and most children will some day be parents. Every husband or wife has been neglected, abused, deceived before. Every boss was once an employee and most employees hope one day to be bosses.
Many may already be somebody else's boss. None of us, parents, children, husbands, wives, bosses or employees, friends or acquaintances wants to be disappointed, denied, abused or cheated. Why is this so difficult to remember?
It's so easy to remember, because we are so forgetful, or to put it in Buddhist terms, because we are so blinded by ignorance that we just don't remember. According to the teachings of the Buddha, we have all been in everyone else's shoes at one time or another throughout countless lives. The child who feels repressed today was sometime a repressive parent. The parent who refuses to listen to his child, was once a repressed child. The spouse who is neglected or abused by his or her parent today sometimes neglect or abuse their spouse, and the boss who is abusive today was once an abused employee. As they say, "what goes around comes around".
Nothing happens by chance or without a reason. Our problem is we are too selfish and ignorant even to bother to try to see the other guy's point of view, to consider his or her problem - we are too obsessed with our own point of view, our own complaint, our self. But actually, none of us can be happy or even survive in the long run unless we begin to think about other people's problems. We all depend too much on other ever to be able to forget about them and their problems and just to be happy by ourselves.
We are all part of one big organism. If we were to break our leg, we couldn't afford to think, oh well, that's my leg; that's got nothing to do with me. In the same way, if something in our family, our work place, our community, our world, is broken, we had better do our best do our best to fix it, and the first step in fixing it is to understand the problem.
"Put yourself in the other person's shoes - try to see things from his or her point of view" and then maybe that oh-so-illusive and distant peace and harmony may come a little bit closer.
~ Article by Peter Della Santina