I resolve not to engage in sexual misconductor in any sensory indulgence. Instead, I will . . .

Fear: The Stranger at Thanksgiving

In our distant past, when humans lived in tight-knit family groups that existed by hunting, foraging, and ranging about in a relatively small area, strangers were viewed as unknown and frightening. Someone who could suddenly appear from behind a tree with a spear at the ready, steal what little you had, and then kill you, your mate, and your children.

 

Over time, this fear of the unknown caused humans to become hardwired to distrust strangers. Then anyone looking dissimilar would evoke suspicions, gradually becoming the norm. As time passed, people learned who they could safely associate with, and this allowed the formation of larger groups. The hunters and gatherers began to farm, thereby necessitating settlements. Gradually, they formed communities, established social norms, founded religions, and developed cultures. Survival instincts based on appearances were refined into wariness of those who didn't think or act like them. People who did not conform to accepted customs and norms could find themselves ostracized. Or worse.

Today we have access to the entire world, and strangers are everywhere. We may find all this thought-provoking or a simple fact of life. But for too many others, it is threatening. Logical, when their beliefs and life experiences seem so dissimilar. But disappointing because when opportunities arise to get to know those who are different, a good number don't take advantage of these opportunities. With no shared experience, it is not surprising that people can begin to believe rumors and innuendo about strangers. They may even find that ancient fear rising, the one that whispers in their ear that a stranger "might steal what little they have and even kill them, their spouse, and their children.”

 

Instead of questioning their fear, people succumb to its many manifestations. For example, they may have grown up with the expectation that their life would be more comfortable than their parents’ and that their social and employment status would progressively improve. But when reality is not that at all, it’s easy for doubt and fear, and anger, to set in.

Feeling threatened by others' religious beliefs or lack thereof, gender identity or sexual orientation, race or education level, age or social status, some people reject those ideas and characteristics that seem contrary to their own.

 

They become even more convinced that their views and beliefs are correct and worthwhile. Retreating into their own bubble, their world becomes smaller as they block out anything unfamiliar or not reinforced by their increasingly-biased sources of information: algorithm-driven social media, ratings-fueled news programs, and similar-thinking acquaintances. Seeing themselves as victims, they reject anyone or any idea they find threatening. In time, rejection turns to vilification, vilification to hatred, hatred to rage.

Such fears are amplified by the times we live in.

 

Ideological polarization is pulling people further and further apart. The spectrum of political, economic, and social issues used to have more gray areas between the extremes of black and white. Today, open-mindedness in those gray areas is diminishing. Uncompromising people holding one set of opinions glare at those holding the opposing set, and both shake their respective heads in disbelief and anger.

 

Technology is changing at a breathtaking pace. Smartphones are becoming increasingly complex, leaving those less technologically savvy frustrated and lamenting how easy it used to be to make a call or send a text. Facial recognition is popping up in more and more places, though we hear it's hardly foolproof, and we don't know who is using it or how they are applying it. Artificial intelligence is developing at an alarming rate, even as the ethical issues surrounding its use and the ways in which it will change our lives become murkier.

So much is changing so fast. Not just from generation to generation but from year to year. And we do not like when change brings so much uncertainty and risk. We don’t know where we fit during times of significant change, who we can trust, or what we can believe. It's unsettling. And frightening. 

Fear is a powerful motivator. One that can save our lives when we see a car careening down an icy street toward us. Or destroy lives when it compels someone to get behind the wheel and drive into a group of bike riders.

 

Fear can save us.

It can also destroy us.

Left unexamined and unchecked, fear confines us to our very own prison of rage and hatred. Thus imprisoned, we find it impossible to see or care about the suffering of others and to understand why they acted as they did. Blaming them for offenses, small or egregious, real or imagined, toward us, we are incapable of feeling civility, kindness, or simple patience, much less empathy or friendship. Neither do we see any need for such virtues. Blaming others, we see no need for forgiveness. We confer on ourselves the right to seek vengeance. After all, if I fear the “other,” isn’t it only logical that I am justified in that rising fear?

When we feel such anxiety and suspicions surging, we need to face them and ask ourselves what is happening. Are we somehow in genuine danger? Or is our fear just based on what we are telling ourselves? If our fear is due to the latter, why do we choose it? Because fear is a choice.

Where does it come from?

 

And why do we choose it?

The Buddha warned us of four poisons: greed, anger, ignorance, and arrogance. 

The first poison, which is greed, arises when we do not get what we want and expect. We may have dreamed of a better job, more money, or recognition from our peers. Our disappointment can grow if we don't understand that these things only come to us if we first create their causes, and, second, if these causes meet the necessary conditions.

 

The second poison, which is anger, arises when we do not get what we want. If we do not know or understand that what we have and experience is due to cause and effect, to karma, our disappointment at not having what we desire can become resentment. Left unchecked, resentment can intensify into anger and rage.

 

Because of the third poison, which is ignorance, we fail to understand that both what we have and what we do not have is due to our previous thoughts and behavior. For example, in order to have wealth, we must first have given it, whether it be our time, energy, or financial resources. There's no point in blaming someone else because they got the promotion and generous raise that we wanted. The real cause is not that their race, religion, age, or gender identity was preferable to ours. Nor even that their actions and ideas were better. It's that we didn't create the necessary causes. Or, if we did, the conditions for them to come to fruition haven’t occurred yet.

 

Because of ignorance, we either don't know all this or we have been told but can’t yet accept what we’ve been taught about causality. And so we mistake truths for falsities and falsities for truths. With our misconceptions and misunderstandings, we each become more and more convinced that I am right. Which makes you wrong.

And that's where the fourth poison, which is arrogance, comes in. The more entrenched our ignorance becomes, the more arrogant we become. As our arrogance increases, our sphere of existence—people, social media, news media—begins to shrink. We only consider views similar to ours and those who hold such views as worthy of our time. Those who don't think as we do are clearly wrong, so we avoid interacting with them.

What about those of another religion? Wrong!

Those who are LGB? Transgender? Disgraceful!

Those with a different skin color? Inferior!

Quite simply, it is the belief that I'm right and good, and you're wrong and bad because you're not like me.

Such tragic misconceptions. How do people get to this point?

Not only do they not get what they want, but the thought that they never will causes fear to creep in. They cling to their beliefs and belittle those who hold different ones. They defend their cultural and religious mores, and demean those of others. They denounce all those they label as different. Believing they're becoming irrelevant, feeling they're losing control of their lives, fearing they'll be left behind, they lash out. 

This is how our fear will destroy us. 

But fear and giving in to it is a choice. A choice we can reject.

In November 2016, seventeen-year-old Jamal received a text one day while at school telling him when and where Thanksgiving dinner would be that year. The text concluded by adding that Amanda and Justin were of course also invited. Jamal, not recognizing the number or knowing an Amanda and a Justin, asked who had texted him. The answer was that it was his Grandma.

Confused but even more curious, Jamal asked for a picture. So Grandma took a selfie and texted it to him. 

Grandma was white.

 

Jamal was black. 

He shot back a cheeky comment that she wasn’t his grandma, and being a practical, if cheeky, teenager, asked whether he could still come for dinner. Grandma quickly replied "Of course you can. That's what grandmas do . . . feed everyone.”

 

A few days later, Jamal drove from Tempe, Arizona to Grandma's house in Mesa for a pre-Thanksgiving visit. He found her to be a sweet lady named Wanda. Some days later, he returned to her home to join her family for Thanksgiving. And he has continued to do so now for eight years. Wanda and Jamal talk about how their friendship, which has grown beyond the yearly shared Thanksgiving dinner, has enriched their lives. And that they are the one who benefitted the most from having gotten to know each other. 

All things considered, those initial texts could have had a very different outcome. Many people would have reacted with suspicion and fear. Thanksgiving, the most widely celebrated occasion for family gatherings in the United States, spent with a stranger mistakenly invited and who was of another race? From that generation? Not our culture? Maybe a different religion or political affiliation?

 

So many ways for the situation to end badly. So many ways for the poison of ignorance to take over.

 

But it wasn’t allowed to.

 

When faced with the possibility of giving in to ignorance and fear, Jamal, Wanda, and their families chose to say "No, thank you.” They chose humor (Jamal's cheekiness!) and warm-heartedness (Wanda's enthusiasm for welcoming a stranger at Thanksgiving).

We don't know what first crossed Wanda's mind when she saw Jamal's selfie. But given her prompt response, "Of course you can," when Jamal asked if he could still get a plate, surely any fleeting hesitation was immediately swept aside.

  

By choosing to reject fear, greed was also rejected. As usual, Wanda had wanted to invite family members. When a mistake due to a recently changed phone number resulted in Jamal being invited, she let go of her wish to have only family at the annual Thanksgiving dinner and welcomed a stranger. 

Anger was also rejected. When a mistake is made, there's no point in getting angry at ourselves. A more productive response would be to determine how best to remedy our mistake, figure out how not to repeat it, and then move on. Neither does it make sense to take our frustration out on others. We made the mistake, not them. Taking out our frustration on others just creates an enmity or worsens an existing one. 

What we can do is accept that reality has once again intervened—things are not going as planned. We then can proceed as Wanda did by determining how best to do so. She did that in an instant by happily availing herself of an opportunity to meet someone she wouldn’t otherwise get to know. Then she and Jamal decided to meet prior to Thanksgiving to become acquainted before the entire family was present.  

What about ignorance and arrogance?

They were soundly rejected! Neither Jamal nor Wanda were caught up in polarizing attitudes towards race or age. Neither was Wanda affronted by Jamal’s cheekiness in asking if he could still come for dinner. She took his request in the good-natured youthful manner it was offered and reacted with friendliness, not anger. Or fear.

How much wiser would it be for us too—instead of feeling anger towards those who harm, offend, or just bother us—to understand that such reactions coupled with fear will doom us to lives of rage, anxiety, and retaliation, not understanding and the healing power of forgiveness. 

“Why is the Pure Land divided into four lands?”

One day, a student asked the Buddha what his land was like.

The Buddha touched the ground, and the student instantly saw the Buddha’s pure land, a land so very different from what the student had seen just moments ago. Most reasonable, since the Buddha observed everything with a perfectly enlightened mind, and the student with a mind not yet perfectly unenlightened. And so, due to their respective states of mind, they perceived the world in different ways.

Frankly, in our world, we too all live in different lands. Ignorant people might live in a land that we could call “Ceaseless Craving” or “Recurring Anger.” But one who is awakening might live in a land we could call “Gracious Compassion.”

In the Western Pure Land, beings are also in different lands. As their meditative concentration advances, ignorance gradually drops away, awakening increases, and, in time, they advance from the Land Where Sages and Ordinary Beings Dwell Together all the way to the Land of Eternally Quiescent Light.