Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, Mr. Rogers. I see him as on the continum of my Buddhist teacher, whom I've just finished listening to online. Every other week he livestreams a dharma talk. This one was a thinly disguised pep talk in response to the the division and seeming chaos in the world right now, and maybe to the the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 yesterday. The media gives us example after example of evil, hatred, anger, greed and selfishness. Whereas, and I believe this, there are countless acts of goodness throughout the world every day. For Buddhists, emptiness means that things and events have no intrinsic good or bad value. There is form, but no valuing without our minds labeling it. Who we are is more complex than our minds' thoughts, or our feelings that arise. And he reminds us that if we observe the pause between our thoughts or feelings, we can make a choice. Reading the descriptions of people's memories of 9/11, there were countless acts of compassion and goodness. People saved each other's lives, and others sacrificed their lives to help others. Yes there is evil in the images of the planes hitting the towers, but we can choose to focus on the overwhelming response of people around the world to our distress. My older son was getting married in ten days, and so many people rallied around him and his bride and got on planes and supported their love and new life together. They made a choice. Goodness is real. As real as the evil, and all of us contain both. We are human. But we so often choose love and compassion. It is just that those stories live privately, not publicly. I'm glad that yesterday most news sources chose the positive for once.