If I’m honest with myself, I can see that whatever I’m judging in another person is always reflected in me, in one way or another.

We can’t stand on facts no matter how hard we try. Often, our knowledge even becomes a barrier, blocking us off from reality. Many of us can be so distracted by our rigid concepts of right and wrong, for example, that we fail to see the suffering in front of us, and lose touch with our natural compassion. We miss the forest for the trees—arguing over the legality of immigration while children cry in freezing cells.

Here I am, patting myself on the back for my compassion as I sit in my apartment and secretly hope that my neighbor face the threat of eviction because I’m irritated by his behavior.

Today, we are all the Buddha. Suffering is standing in front of us, in the guise of the children of those who have come seeking a better life among us, and those among us who would turn them away and tear their families asunder. That suffering is not just at the border, it’s right here, right now, with all of us, knocking on the doors of our hearts.

The story of the Buddha can help us appreciate the truth at the core of both parties.

My experience walking through thoughts of suicide.

The common thread in all human rights abuses, in all human cruelty, is believing that the person you are harming is somehow different and separate from you.

What if we as a society asked our police officers to shift their role? Police officers are sometimes called peace officers; what if we really took that seriously? What if instead of a focus on crime and punishment, the role of the police was to promote peace in whatever situation they are in?

Twitter is a wonderful place to practice the dharma—the art of accepting what is and loving in the midst of it. It’s a constant parade of suffering and people at their worst, and the trick is to make room for the suffering and love them anyway—or even because of it.

We know that you don’t treat a disease by killing the sick person, but by giving them the support they need to get better.

We may not all be rounded up and forced to leave our homes, but such inhumanity will seep into the fabric of our society to the detriment of all. Many of our neighbors are now living in terror of being cast out of the home they have known for years or decades. Is this really want the kind of country we want to live in?

It’s not easy to look over at North Korea and say: we can hurt you, you can hurt us, and we both have to live with it. That takes a great deal of humility—one virtue America is not well acquainted with. But if our leaders can find the humility to admit our shared vulnerability, that death stands with us as well as with them, perhaps we can see that they are us, and we can have peace.

Addiction recovery offers a tremendous opportunity for emotional, mental and spiritual growth. Spiritual recovery groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Refuge Recovery can put you on a path to a deeper understanding of yourself and the universe. MAT gets in the way of that.

I increasingly find myself exploring the question: what is mine? The answer seems to be nothing.

I want to ask anyone who subscribes to a white nationalist perspective: what do you think would happen if you got what you want?

Why can the crumbling of the crumbling of a white-dominated America feel so threatening to white folks? I think a big part of it is that it’s making us face an initially frightening truth: that no one is in control. 

if we can see the humanity in the people behind the Confederacy, perhaps we can see ourselves more clearly and with greater humility. 

If we embrace both sides of ourselves, we don’t have to be scared of either.
 

He’s also our brother, whether we like it or not. 

We’re attracted to guns because they give us a sense of power over death, but death is coming for all of us anyway. Really, it’s with us now, because death and life are inseparable and intertwined: part of the same whole. Everyone understands this, but most of us try to hide from it.

The people who sought refuge under DACA—the Dreamers—have grown up among us as our neighbors, our friends, our brothers and sisters. They may soon be torn from our midst. Do we stand by them or do we look away?

Is there not a point where nonviolence becomes ineffective, even counterproductive—a tool of oppression, not liberation? This question is as relevant today as it was in 1968. The answer depends on what you see as liberation, and how far you’re willing to go in order to achieve it.

Diversity makes us stronger because it makes us uncomfortable. In other words, all of the ugliness and hatred surfacing in America today is a sign that the experience of living in our multicultural, multiethnic society is having the best possible effect: shaking up our foundations and shattering our assumptions about who we really are. 

If we are to find a way through the hate, we don’t have the luxury of being comfortable.