Dear Members,

Please forgive me for not using a scriptural quote to start off this Dharma message. Good old fashioned wisdom is not the sole property of either the Buddhist tradition or the Jodo Shinshu tradition; quite often it can be found in simple sayings and everyday "common-sense".

The quote above is a case-in-point. I found it in the Red Deer edition of the Coffee News when I was going up to Edmonton on Easter week-end for their Hanamatsuri celebration. If we change the words "bad" and "good" to the less charged concepts of "negative and "positive"; as in "There are so many negative qualities to be found in those that we consider to be the best of us and so many positive qualities to be found in those that we consider to be the worst of us ... " the quote takes on a more Buddhistic feel to it, but the meaning remains the same. Exactly who do I think I am that I feel that I can sit in judgement of another?

I have found, in the scant, limited 35 years that I have spent on this Earth, that the only time I really feel the need to put someone else down, or speak badly about another person, is when I am trapped in my little ego-world. Then, because I have allowed myself to be cut off from the teachings and Amida Buddha's unlimited Wisdom and Compassion, I find I often need to belittle other people in order to prop-up my childish, self-centred view of who I am at that time. Then other people's flaws seem to be humongous; whereas mine are justified, or at least somewhat able to be rationalized. Ask my wife, Kiyomi, how bad it is. I can only imagine how unbearable it is to live with me at these times.

It is all too easy to fall into the habit of using other people as our own personal "whipping boys", when our egos are raging. Frankly, it feels good and it lets us out of our own responsibilities in any given situation. But the very fact that it is the easiest thing to do should be a clear indication that it is probably a useless thing to do.

When Sakyamuni Buddha was asked how the monastic sangha could get along better, he answered; "Do not hide the vegetables on your plate under the rice." Please notice that the advice was directed at observing one's own, personal act; rather than directing one's attention towards the acts of others. He did not tell them to make a rule that everyone should only be allowed to take their share of the meal. He did not suggest that someone should be assigned to police the monks so that they were not able to take more than their share of the meal. He did not say that the monks should shun any monk who was suspected of being greedy. Rather, he counseled that each monk should observe his own, personal behaviour and modify that which he could control.

Let's face it, it is fun to sit and listen to slanderous stories about other people. It requires no effort on our part to feel better about ourselves while we are accentuating the flaws that we so obviously see in others. It is far harder though to see our own flaws and, subsequently, modify those behaviours.

The fact that this is the harder thing to do is our sure indication that this is by far the more positive thing to do. I cannot control others. No amount of complaining about them is going to change them. The only thing that I can do is desperately try to manifest the more noble side; the more idealistic side of human nature for my own benefit and for the benefit of those other who I am blessed to have karmic ties with.

We are all beings of love and light; constantly bathed in an all-encompassing grasp of Wisdom and Compassion. Let us not seek to lessen ourselves by ignoring that reality and creating a back- biting, childish, ego-based world to live in. We are certainly better than that. Namuamidabutsu.

In Gassho,