just be it It’s about the work involved in establishing a dedicated practice to feelings of a bigger belonging through practices aimed at increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness

Patience, Collaboration, Skillful Means, Humility, Expanded Circles of Belonging

Published on 14/03/16
by randy

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History and our great spiritual leaders all ask us to develop the above skills in our journey through this life. Gravity works us throughout the day. We’re forever bombarded with the illusion of our separateness. Yet, our very survival depends upon our capacity to experience ourselves as one another. The Golden Rule stresses this. Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara stressed this as the most important lesson learned through his experience with the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. The lack of patience fed by the illusion of our separateness results in reactionary behavior that more often than not leaves us in a worse situation. In the early ’60’s Kruschev was determined to humble America’ pride. It wasn’t military strength that caused him to alter course. He loosened his desire to hurt/compete with the United States when President Kennedy gave his American University speech addressing our joined humanity:

“For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal. It is our hope— and the purpose of allied policies—to convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation choose its own future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the choices of others. The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.”

It’s this call to humanity, understanding and collaboration, delivered with skillful means that moved us away from WWIII.* When we’re militarily reactive, bent on pushing what we ‘think is right’ from our smaller circle of belonging, we risk our very existence. Our real heroes are the ones who can muster the strength and courage to get inside the shoes of the perceived enemy with a sense of compassion and understanding. We seldom see them on the news. They aren’t receiving medals of honor. It’s a much more subtle skill that when exposed touches us all. It creates a loosening of our frozen minds, opens our hearts, and ultimately makes us safer. The polarized, didactic mind views these skills as soft. History shows us they are the most effective at moving us to a safer planet.

*Kennedy’s speech was made in its wholeness available in Soviet press so that the people in the Soviet Union could read it without hindrance. Additionally, the speech could be heard in the Soviet Union without censorship because jamming measures against the western broadcast agencies such as Voice of America didn’t take place upon rebroadcast of Kennedy’s speech. Khrushchev was deeply moved and impressed by Kennedy’s speech, telling Undersecretary of State Averell Harriman that it was “the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt.”
After 12 days of negotiations and less than two months after the president’s speech the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was completed. The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States (represented by Dean Rusk), named the “Original Parties”, at Moscow on August 5, 1963. US ratification occurred by the U.S. Senate on September 24, 1963 by a vote of 80-19 and the treaty was signed into law by Kennedy on October 7, 1963. The treaty went into effect on October 10, 1963.

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