TREAT EACH HUMAN FRIEND BY THINKING THAT:
by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
He is our friend who was born to be old, become ill, and die, together with us.
She is our friend swimming around in the changing cycles with us.
He is under the power of defilements like us, hence he sometimes errs.
She also has lust, hatred, and delusion, no less than we.
He therefore errs sometimes, like us.
She neither knows why he was born nor knows nibbana, just the same as us.
He is stupid in some things like we used to be.
She does some things accordingly to her own likes, the same as we used to do.
He also wants to be good, as well as we who want even more to be good - outstanding - famous.
She often takes much and much more from others whenever she has a chance, just like us.
He has the right to be madly good, drunkenly good, deludedly good, and drowning in good, just like us.
She is an ordinary woman attached to many things, just like us.
He does not have the duty to suffer or die for us.
She is our friend of the same nation and religion.
He does things impetuously and abruptly just as we do.
She has the duty to be responsible for her own family, not for ours.
He has the right to his own tastes and preferences.
She has the right to choose anything (even a religion) for her own satisfaction.
He has the right to share equally with us the public property.
She has the right to be neurotic or mad as well as we.
He has the right to ask for help and sympathy from us.
She has the right to be forgiven by us according to the circumstances.
He has the right to be socialist or libertarian in accordance with his own disposition.
She has the right to be selfish before thinking of others.
He has the human right, equal to us, to be in this world.
If we think in these ways, no conflicts will occur.
**Changed only to alternate he/she
beautiful kelly, simply beautiful… a new mantra for me:-)peace.mechie