However you feel about the outcome, the presidential election has underscored the polarization that currently exists in our country. As long as each side mistrusts and fears the other, we cannot truly have peace and work together to make this a better society.
What does the Dharma offer to help heal this divide? How can our practice support us individually and collectively to open our hearts with compassion and bridge the gulf with those who seem so different from us? How can we create better understanding and cut through "othering" so that each of us can contribute to greater healing rather than more divisiveness?
A Dharma talk given to the Sierra Insight Sangha on the sutta of the Royal Bull Elephant, Anguttara Nikaya 4.114, on listening, unwholesome mind states, patience, and intention.
When we start the spiritual journey we see that our mind is filled with unskillful habits of thought, colored by attachment, aversion and confusion. The Buddha described the process of purification that enables us to purify and transform first our outward conduct, then our thoughts and finally our subtle spiritual aspirations. This purification process leads ultimately to full awakening. The talk includes the Buddha's teaching of how this process works through the simile of the "Refinement of Mind."
