communitas et caritas

I had the great honor to hear His Holiness the Dalai Lama speak at the University of San Diego yesterday.  He is charming and funny--and so wise.  At the core of his message, he says that each of us should get to know our own mind, and choose to feel compassion and respect for others, instead of anger, hatred, and fear.  By choosing these positive things, our actions bring about happiness in ourselves, and peace in our world. He said that anger and hatred are things that we can choose not to feel, because they come from within, while things that harm us from the outside are not things we can choose.  That seems like a good reminder.  Yet, he also said that it doesn't mean he doesn't get angry--that we are all human.  But we can cultivate a peaceful mind, and that will make us happier than any material possession would. He was asked about the most difficult situations in our present world, and he named several (Syria above all).  He says he...

(image from www.slu.edu) Last night, I was privileged to hear Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate, speak.  He was fantastic.  He had the audience captivated by his gentleness and his stories of human life. The part of Wiesel's message that spoke most clearly to me was his sense of human ethics:  we are all part of the same human family, and we are, not one of us, alone.  Only God is alone, he says.  We know who we are by seeing through the eyes of another looking at us, and thus as we are looking at them.  We must value and care for others because they are human , and in their humanity they are just like us. For one who lived through the profoundly horrific experience of the Holocaust, his message is remarkably life-giving and beautiful.  Perhaps it's because of his suffering that he has such wisdom to share with the world. I've been thinking about suffering a lot lately, too.  If given the option of an easy life in...