Favian Straughan, Rev. Master

Perhaps we could be forgiven for assuming that a defining characteristic of the human race is its ability to generate conflict around notions of group identity. The other day, I read about experiments using everything from ethnic, political, religious and gender typing to the flip of a coin to divide people into groups, promoting loyalty to that group and a willingness to view others as outsiders and therefore potentially hostile. I have found for myself how easily I slip into an us-or-them mentality when I am watching the news, for example, sure in the knowledge of who the good and the bad are and, of course, of the camp to which I belong.

Buddhism asks us to question the belief that our primary identity is a separate, permanent self, and points to the resulting suffering engendered by that view when situations and encounters in life are viewed as a series of threats and obstacles to be wrestled with and overcome. Buddhism suggests that there is another way of being, which involves a profounder human experience in which the sense of separation dissolves for a while, to be replaced by a deep empathy, rooted in the universals of shared joys, hopes and griefs. Others are in actuality our kith and kin by any definition that goes deeper than a surface look. The more that we let go and open up to that compassionate response, the more the connectedness of life becomes our authentic experience. It is as though we have discovered a capacity to expand the circle of our identity beyond self, family, clan and nation to a sense of our oneness with life itself, and we find that this is where our loyalty and allegiance finally lie.

To approach this way of being must take courage, because it no doubt goes against strong conditioned tendencies to keep that circle small, tight and well defended. First, we need to wake up to the inner patterns that tend towards that response. That is a risky business, because we are not now simply relying on old categories of thought and feeling to tell us what the reality of this moment is presenting us with. But if we persist in being open and present, risking vulnerability, we have an opportunity truly to meet the situation, and then, through our deep connection, to make wise and compassionate responses.

We may find ourselves despairing of our human condition at times, when we witness the news stories of the conflict and pain we inflict upon one another. But getting off the bus today, an elderly woman slipped and fell. Two people immediately picked her up, while others gathered her shopping together. There is nothing extraordinary there, yet we are charged with the possibility that, if the human race is to survive at all, it is upon that very instinct for empathy and caring action that our hope rests.