Last week I had the privilege of attending two events where His Holiness the Dalai Lama was speaking. In my opinion, this was truly a once in a lifetime event. I feel like I probably had the “cat that ate the canary” grin on my face the entire time. I was like a sponge absorbing everything I could.
One of the key points the Dalai Lama shared with us was that our enemy is our greatest teacher. Some people may be thinking, “Well, I don’t have any enemies so this message is not for me.”
Understanding that the message His Holiness was sharing was much more than a message for countries at war with each other, I researched the definition of “enemy”. One definition I found was from Merriam-Webster – Enemy – One that is antagonistic to another; especially one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent. Another definition I found was – Enemy – A person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent.
After thinking about these two definitions, I would like to suggest here that enemy doesn’t just mean a country which may be fighting a war. Enemy could also mean someone you don’t get along with. Maybe you disagree strongly with this person and/or disagree with their behavior.
With that said, how in the world can an enemy, someone we don’t like, we strongly disagree with and don’t even want to be around, be our greatest teacher? To understand this, there are a couple more points we should discuss.
We are all alike in the sense we are human beings living in physical bodies. We are spiritual and we have an intellect. We all seek happiness, compassion and love. These things are easy with our friends. There is no stretch to find compassion, happiness and love when interacting with our friends, right? We like to talk with them. We like to be around them. We laugh and cry with them. It is easy to love them.
Now let’s take a look at someone we dislike; someone who could fall under the category of “enemy”. Is it easy to sit with them and have a discussion? Do we like being around them? They may make us want to cry but is it easy to laugh with them? Is it easy to love them? The answer to all of these questions is, more than likely, a big fat NO.
Here is where the lesson begins. We must remember our enemy is just like us. They are made of flesh and blood. They are spiritual beings with an intellect. They are also seeking happiness, compassion and love, just like us. We must engage in dialogue in order to create greater understanding. In order to do this we must have tolerance for people who are different from ourselves. Tolerance for people with an opinion different from our own. Tolerance for people who believe differently from us. Through this tolerance we learn compassion and love for those we do not fully understand.
It is in our nature to ridicule what we don’t understand. Instead of ridicule, we should seek to understand. This means to take a step back and look at a situation or circumstance from the other person’s perspective.
With these steps of tolerance, compassion and love toward our enemy, we grow in our own awareness of this marvelous Universe we all share. Without this “enemy” we would not fully learn true tolerance, true compassion and true love.
I wonder what would happen if each person made it a point to look upon their enemy as their teacher and sought to learn the lessons.
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