Discriminatory seeds and habits
have been planted within each of us.
We need to remind ourselves of this before acting.

We discriminate all the time. Hearing or seeing something or someone, we instantly identify what we perceive with its accepted name or term.

If we see a person, the familiar vocabulary imbedded in our store consciousness springs forward: male, female, tall, short. In a flash, we move from recognition to assessing: attractive, talks too much, etc.

Pigeonholing by skin color (followed by the identifier of “like me” or “not like me”), religion (followed by “same as mine” or “not mine”), education level, sexual orientation, na- tionality.

If, in our cultivation, we haven’t found much success in stopping our biased discriminat- ing, we need to at least catch such thoughts before they lead to regrettable action. Discriminating thoughts can be dangerous. Both to others and ourselves. So as soon as we detect them, we need to halt. While still at the perception stage, we need to act appropriately, without discrimination.