Where to Now?

The objective of education is to expand our thinking and courage to experience the world. Specifically, the world of differences. For when we experience differences, at a non-superficial level, it is impossible not to change--or transform as a person. Whether it is a personal relationship or the experience of others from different cultures.

Acceptance is the intellectual realization that what others choose for themselves is more likely to be appropriate than what we think is best for someone. It is really moving into a space of dealing with one's own ethnocentric ideas. For example, the more I worked with facilitating those estranged from New Orleans, the more I began to realize that many of them had the desire to return. Having visited there since the hurricane and flooding, my own opinion was that what was there was gone. However, I eventually learned that my opinion was irrelevent. And I came to accept the fact that my role was to support the choices that others decided for themselves.

So, what's the relationship between acceptance and living without fear? Fear that is based upon a transformation in our own beliefs is an illusion; and always was an illusion, whether we realized it or not! Moving to the acceptance that our beliefs serve us best and may or may not be best for someone else is a major step in humility. It is learning to make a distinction between a real physically threatening fear and one that ethnocentrically based. So the next time you feel threatened by an idea that does not "fit" your reality, try the following suggestions:

1) Have there been times in your life you behaved exactly like the idea you might be angered by? remember, beneath one's anger is fear.

2) Is your fear a true threat to your survival or a diametrically different way of viewing reality?

3) If you had that person's background and experiences of being taught, would you probably be equally like he or she is?

4) If you accepted their values as being equally valid as yours, what kind of loss would you experience?

As Lao Zhu is quoted to have said, "To gain a little everyday is knowledge. To lose a little everyday is wisdom."

Thanks to those of you who have visited our bookstore and made purchases. I hope many others will do the same.