我们可以培养出一代又一代的孩子，让他们有能力践行所有伟大圣贤教导我们的道理：爱你的敌人。
在一次每周例行的当地聚会上，女主人哈尔希达告诉我们，她家最近老是被人扔鸡蛋。这让我们非常震惊，因为她家是我见过的最善良、最慷慨的家庭之一。
哈尔希达透露，就在上周五，她和丈夫听到窗户传来砰砰的巨响。虽然她当时很害怕是枪声，但哈尔希达还是冒险去查看。“我偷偷往里看了一眼，看到一堆鸡蛋、橘子之类的东西正朝我们窗户飞过来。”
哈尔希达鼓起勇气，决定直面她的“敌人”。她坚信“所有陌生人都是我的家人”，于是走出去，看到了“三个可爱的孩子”。
哈尔希达没有责骂他们，而是试图和他们沟通：“嘿，孩子们，谢谢你们的橘子。我可以拿走一些吗？这样就不会浪费了。” 但孩子们却开始跑开。哈尔希达追了上去，说道：“等等！等等！别害怕。我不会做什么。我只是想和你们聊聊。而且我可以用你们的橘子。” 袭击者们头也不回地跑开了。
回想起来，哈尔希达感受到了一种“母爱般的联结”。她解释说：“与其说是宽恕，不如说是一种自然而然流露出的慈悲。”
“与其说是宽恕，不如说是一种自然而然流露出的同情。”
宗教中最普遍却也最常被忽视的教义之一或许就是“爱你的敌人”。耶稣基督在十字架上说“愿神赦免他们，因为他们不知道自己所做的是什么”，这显然就是这一教义的典范。藏传佛教对“难相处的人”的慈悲之举，也与耶稣的教导遥相呼应。
我发现很难将敌人视为人，更别提爱他们了，所以我每天都努力提醒自己，我们每个人都拥有不同层次的神性。我希望我的儿子们更容易学会爱他们的敌人，所以我很早就开始教导他们这一点。
哈尔希达的故事揭示了一些深刻的智慧，告诉我们如何以及为什么要教导我们的孩子去爱他们的敌人。
当哈尔希达跑到外面去面对潜在的“危险敌人”时，结果发现那只是一群十岁和十一岁的孩子。把所有的敌人都看作孩子会很有帮助，因为他们曾经是孩子，在某些方面他们现在仍然是孩子（这就是为什么他们常常表现得像个孩子）。把孩子看作本质上善良的人，或者他们的行为是“不知所措”的，要容易得多。
人们更容易将儿童视为本质上善良的，或者认为他们的行为是“不知所措”的。
人们并非有意选择恶意、报复或仇恨。他们的人生经历——往往发生在很小的时候——迫使他们用愤怒、攻击性和蔑视来保护自己。在我与囚犯的接触中，我注意到大多数犯下滔天罪行的囚犯在童年或青年时期都遭受过严重的创伤。看到我的敌人曾经是孩子，让我想起那句谚语：“所有的攻击都是求救信号。”
教儿子们把敌人看作孩子很容易，因为他们的大多数“敌人”都是孩子。所以，当7岁的杰特告诉我他不再和某人做朋友，因为对方对他不好时，我会问他自己有没有对别人不好过。
教我的儿子们把敌人看作孩子很容易，因为他们的大多数“敌人”都是孩子。
然后我问他，如果所有被他欺负过的人都决定不再和他做朋友，他会作何感想。希望这能让杰特明白，他的敌人其实和他一样——都是在努力在这个世界上闯出一片天地的孩子。
我相信，如果孩子们从小就能明白这个道理，那么他们就能更容易地将不同种族、宗教或国籍的人视为与自己一样的人。如果他们开始以这种方式看待世界，那么当有人真正伤害他们或他们的家人时，他们或许就能原谅敌人。
宽恕可以带来理解。理解可以播下爱的种子。我们可以培养整整一代孩子，让他们有能力践行所有伟大圣贤教导我们的真理：爱你的敌人。
我们可以培养出一代又一代的孩子，让他们有能力践行所有伟大圣贤教导我们的道理：爱你的敌人。
我知道我提出的计划中有很多“如果”，但请想想另一种选择。我们难道要继续教孩子们用鸡蛋砸那些与我们不同的人或我们不合的人的房子吗？当这些孩子玩腻了扔鸡蛋，想要更恶毒的东西时，又该怎么办呢？
我正与哈尔希达、耶稣和达赖喇嘛携手，努力与所有进入我领域的人一起，融入“无拘无束的慈悲之流”。或许，当我的孩子们看到我每天只带着慈悲之心出发时，他们也会用拥抱、鲜花和爱去面对挑战。“你或许会说我是个梦想家，但我并非孤身一人……”
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Thank you for sharing. The path of love is its own reward and represents true freedom. ♡
To" love your enemy" although failing every day,I feel hope,I do not won,t to give up,there is no other way,this is the truth that sets us free.
Understanding,acceptance,application of it sets us free, with the help of all the Great Souls,Mahatmas, I am starting to see this princpale operating in the whole macro and micro universe .As the most important subject for humane race to learn it demands more attention,yes this is most important mission on this earth.without that, who are we and were we are going?
That is a great story on forgiveness and compassion and loving others even when they haven't been kind to you. looking at it from another's perspective as Harshida did is very inspiring and I'm so grateful to have read this brilliant article! Thank you Kozo Hattori for the article, it has opened my mind up now to live my life more compassionately and loving!
Wonderful share, thank you! and indeed, love and compassion and educating each other through conversation go a long way in creating change. Thank you for your heart!
Compassion and forgiveness are wonderful traits, and they are a step in the right direction, yet they will not be enough to change the world for the better. Compassion, forgiveness, and mercy must be linked to justice, or we tread around on the same old wheel, the wheel of suffering and death forged by ignorance and arrogance, that never leads us out of violence and injustice. We are 2, 015 years since Christ died on the cross in his attempt to bring the truth of abundant life to earth, and injustice and a growing lack of compassion and mercy still looms and grows like the ballooning elephant in the room worldwide. Injustice, violence, and a lack of mercy is still entrenched: toward women throughout the world (not just in third world countries, but perpetrated on our daughters and granddaughters on college campuses under Our very noses, and also enshrined in various so-called holy books, Epistles, or prophecies, or written into the internal framework and operations of so-called religions [vs. what are established theocracies]), toward the entire black and brown race of people and all people of color, homosexuals, transgender people, and anyone literally or apparently defenseless like children, the elderly or infirm, those with cognitive or physical limitations, shy folks, or just the gentle. Included in the group of defenseless are all those left to their own resources in concrete and asphalt communities abandoned of money and jobs and any trace of the natural world, and without any educational means to overcome the extreme poverty thrust upon them; the only recourse left to them is in the pursuit of drugs and crime (a boon for-profit prisons), or selling their own bodies and their precious lives to whomever including corporate interests and agendas. And, that is just injustice among the human populations. We also have mounting injustice, violence, and a lack of compassion toward wild animals, farm animals, birds, fish, insects, plants, crops, seeds, trees, forests including ancient forests, soils, rivers, lakes, aquifers, waters, oceans, the air that all life breathes, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere. Why? Violence and degradation grows and grows toward love and life itself, and we ... what?
Die ourselves one-by-one on endless crosses while we watch others also die on crosses?
And forgive?
Was this the sum of Christ's message?
"I have come so that they may have life, and have it more abundantly."
[Hide Full Comment]Christ did not come to earth to just die and forgive; he came with a message of life,
of full and abundant life to be lived right here on earth, just like the one willed on heaven.
The truth of life and love, which Christ said would set us free, is still unknown and/ or unacknowledged.
We are still enslaved prisoners of everything that is not the truth.
And yet, the corruptions continue, the corruptions of life and love.
Corruptions only happen with manipulation, lies, and deceptions.
What is it that we continue to manipulate, lie, and deceive ourselves about,
and allow ourselves to be deceived with?
What is the truth that will set us free?