I sometimes wonder what we are doing to this beautiful planet ?
We are here for such a short time. We can feel the warmth of the sun, taste fruit, share food, walk among trees, look into another person’s eyes and know that we are alive. Consciousness gives us the extraordinary chance to experience all of this.
"Yet we draw lines across the Earth and, again and again, human beings suffer and die when those lines are fought over."
I understand that borders can mean home, safety, history and belonging. What troubles me is the belief that taking more land could be worth the loss of human lives.
It is difficult to grasp just how small our world is. Earth is about 12,756 kilometres across. That sounds enormous when we travel from one place to another. But when Voyager 1 looked back at Earth from billions of kilometres away, our whole planet appeared as little more than a point of light.
Now consider the stars. Our Sun is just one of an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. If you counted one star every second, without stopping, counting even 100 billion would take you more than 3,000 years. And the Milky Way is only one galaxy among an immense number of others.
On this tiny world, we divide ourselves further. We call a piece of land ours and another piece theirs. Sometimes we become so attached to those words that we forget the people living on the other side also wake up, love their families, fear death and hope for peace.
None of us will be here forever. What do we truly gain if our brief years are spent trying to possess more, while others lose the only years they have?
"And there is another question I cannot shake. Across centuries, we have had saints, gurus and spiritual teachers. Millions of people meditate, pray and speak of peace. If the combined presence of so much spiritual practice is meant to bring compassion into the world, why do we still see leaders choose war? Why does the suffering of other human beings so often fail to change their minds?"
Perhaps meditation cannot make that choice for someone else. Perhaps its value has to be seen in what we do: whether we recognise another person’s humanity, resist cruelty and refuse to treat a life as less valuable because it lies across a border.
The measure of spiritual practice may be more than how peaceful we feel with our eyes closed. It may also be how we treat people when we open them.
I do not know how to end wars. But I cannot stop asking why, on the one planet we all share, we find it so difficult to share the gift of being alive.
-Ash
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