Smash wrong ideas and inter-be

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; Only love can do that. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Letting go is the first principle of losing desire. Letting go of ideas, of the ego, of the “I”. I am not, we inter-are; it is inter-being, not me having a self (Thich Nhat Hanh: 1987). The “I” is useful for practical things in our day-to-day life, therefore, it has a certain value. Yet, it creates an artificial demarcation between humans, animals, plants, and minerals. There is no you and me, there is only inter-being. No his and her, but an inter-being.

Father and son inter-are. Mother and child inter-are. Teacher and student inter-are.

Waging war against other people for belonging to specific ethnical or religious groups or states shows proof of being blind towards this deep insight of inter-being. We separate ourselves from others as we have no understanding for the connection among everything.

In the context of the current migration movement we can see thousands of people coming from the Middle East and Africa to Europe, causing the harshest identity crisis and most unpredictable challenge in the history of the European Union. In this context, there are many voices heard saying ‘the world belongs to everybody, we should be allowed to move wherever we want to’. With this claim, inter alia, Europe is blamed for building fences while it is jointly responsible for both wars in the Middle East and Africa and environmental damages that create climate refugees (though not acknowledged as such officially by the UN). The East European states are afraid of that huge amount of people crossing their borders and West European countries’ right-winged parties are increasingly growing stronger. The question coming up is now: does the world truly belong to everyone and should or could everyone be allowed to move wherever he or she wishes to?

In fact, this desire is an illusion, it is a total ignorance of political, social, and economical realities. This, I want to say especially with having in mind that there is not one true reality but innumerous realities and with having in mind that the world and our realities are created by us – actively. Certainly, the world has resources that we as humans do not share equally, neither in terms of material nor of justice. Our ancestors have established ownership structure and territorial borders which we are keeping alive. What they have done so impactful is to institutionalize what were are continuing. Wanting an equal share of the world’s peace and resources is understandable. Most people want peace and harmony and looking into someone else’s eyes makes it even harder to be unfair and rude. Yet, our relationships while making war are abstract, anonymous, and impersonal. In like no other situation we have to believe in the idea of the I, enabling keeping up demarcation.

This holds true especially when war is made because of religious or ideological notions. To this regard it is not only about material resources but wrong ideas that cause wrong perceptions: when you believe in God I then I have to kill you because you do not believe in God II. This again is a total ignorance of inter-being, meaning it does not matter whether you believe in your God and I believe in mine. As religions, however, need believers to stop asking for truth at a certain point for being able to be believed, it is hardly possible to ever solve this problem of demarcation. Particularly in case of a religion being mixed up with politics. Though, for the Islam it is genuinely beneficial if applied to politics and not established in a secular state. Yet, continuing this mentality will ever nourish intolerance against other people, either other ethnical groups, religious communities, even atheists, and others. It will always end up in conflicts and war crime. Separation through identifying oneself with something written in a book seems to be primitive, but it is reality. As much as it is insensate to ignore logics in physics, it is insensate to ignore the fact that billions of people worldwide believe in religiously determined ideas. Something Mohammed said must be correct; something Jesus had done must be right. Many Muslims that are defending themselves, praying ISIS is not reflecting the ‘real’ Islam are to be found in dozens. They feel misinterpreted and claim knowing it better, what they probably do as one can read the Koran also in a peaceful manner; leaving it at an issue of interpretation. But fact is, as long as one believes in being good only because of a book or his or her image of God, an appropriate way of living together cannot be found.

What rather needs to be established is a so-called secular ethic as suggested by the Dalai Lama (2011). He clearly states that there are several religions in the world but we have to learn to be good for being good, not for someone or something else. Irrespective of the religion we belong to and also irrespective of being an atheist, the most adequate way of getting along with each other is to unlearn what society, family, friends, etc. have taught us and to understand the inter-being of humans among each other and humans among other entities, such as plants, other species, and anything else existing. As long as we are entertaining a wrong idea, we will never be able to get rid of desires. You can have the idea of happiness but when you are never happy then you should smash that idea. Throw away the idea you have been carrying for so long.

Lifting this on a higher social and political level: a collective idea in form of an ideology needs to be thrown away in order to let go and to find a peaceful and ego-less living together. When we suffer, the reason might be that we are having notions we cannot let go. But when we see the impermanence of these ideas, we will under-

stand how important it is to throw them away and let go of desires. Letting go of that collective idea carried by a society if felt wrong.

In the context of the migration flow that we are experiencing at the moment, this means letting go of our idea of claiming property and territory.

This is highly problematic as migrating people are coming with a fundamentally different cultural background. Many Europeans consider the Islam to be difficult as it does not fit the European values. Discussing this issue requires a high amount of sensitivity: The fears of many Europeans are partly legitimate as people from the Middle East and African countries do have another understanding of women’s and men’s roles, of family structures, of politics, of the state, etc. Especially many East European countries do not want to integrate and accept any foreign people and cultures. One should not necessarily blame them for this attitude as historically seen many of them stood under the dictatorship of the Soviet Union for decades. This experience has shaped the people and their politics they aspire implementing today. Their anti-attitude demonstrates their fears of the unknown. Unlike West European states, their infrastructure and economic landscape are not well established; they are suffering from high unemployment rates and emigration. Having new people in the country is perceived as a threat to their already stressed societies. This might explain why right-winged parties are increasingly getting stronger in East Europe. It is not arrogance or a lacking sympathy but rather fear that is ruling their politics. Yet, also in West Europe people are not happy with the current situation; again finding themselves in a clashing situation with a foreign culture and religion. Naming a banal example, in Sweden people are not in favor of separated opening hours in swimming pools for men and women justified through religious beliefs. In fact, it is important to not necessarily accept such beliefs, but to refuse them emphatically. It took so long for women to achieve a higher societal status, to raise their voices and making these voices heard. Now, accepting conservative religious structures is not only not required for a good living together, it should not even be respected. Communicating such sensitive issues is, however, highly challenging and requires open mindedness from both sides. Settled people in Europe should not be exclusive, but inclusive, meaning to be open for others. This attitude does not automatically mean accepting and tolerating everything that is coming from elsewhere. On the other hand, migrants do not have any reason to press their beliefs on non-believers. If one is religious, it is not necessary to show this to his or her environment. It is not necessary to pull specific ideas of others in the center of interaction. Lowering expectations and eliminating ideas of how others have to be is the only way to truly see others. This will not be possible by pigeonholing men and women and all the attributes someone has. As there is no one better than the other, nobody is in a position of judging others for their characteristics.

Our inter-being can be experienced through fading out our differences in order to see in which way we are linked to each other.

At the end of the day both sides must find a way of letting go of the desire to change the other person. Only then it is possible to see oneself in the ‘other self ’ and recognize inter-being.

| Dona Barirani

Literatur:

Dalai Lama: Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, 2011.

King Jr., Martin Luther: Strength To Love, 1963 (2010).

Nhat Hanh, Thich: Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, 1987.