Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Time to overcome slavery and extreme poverty

Passover freed the Hebrew slaves, who then wandered in the wilderness for forty years. They relied on manna from heaven to supply them with what they needed until God led them to the promised land. The older generations that were entrenched in the power games had to die off before the Children of Israel could move forward.

We are moving now into the Buddhism segment of the calendar. Gautama Buddha taught the principles of how to overcome slavery and extreme poverty.

Gautama was born into a very wealthy family, and when he was young, was not even allowed to be exposed to anything less than vast abundance. But, he could not reconcile in his own life how other people lived. As an avatar, he chose to go down into extreme poverty and to demonstrate how to overcome it, and then allowed others to follow his example.

The misunderstanding in Buddhism is that begging is acceptable for those who are in poverty. It is not. When you beg, you give nothing back in return. At the bottom of the abyss, you are in such need that no one with limited resources can help you out of it. You must make the effort yourself.

Opposite to Buddhism is Confucianism, which is based on functioning from your capacity. The idea is to base your support on making win-win agreements, and functioning from your own capacity to get what you need.

At first, begging is acceptable, but then you must start to figure out what you have, and to build on that to rise out of the abyss. What you have may only be time to share with those who have no time.

Everyone, even those in extreme poverty, have talents and gifts, and they are easy to share with others. This is where to start your long journey out of the abyss.