دار بيبليون
Notes from a lecture by Lwiis Saliba on Zoom July 31, 2024
‘Against Hate’ – Message of Peace,
Today’s general theme is “Against Hate”, it is the message of the Buddha. It is similar to that of Christ. Suffering can help erase hatred. We will go into detail. Avoid resentment. Christ says “Do not curse”; the Buddha too, the Prophet of Islam too. The Dalai Lama also agrees with this.
We begin with a quote from the Dalai Lama who said, speaking of the Chinese, “My friend the enemy”. Let us also quote Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), who is recounted by the authors of this book. He loved his jailers when he was in prison.
I can tell a personal testimony. In 1989, there were many hostage-takings by Muslims in Beirut, and vice versa, especially when the war was at its height. I received a visit from Robert Kfouri, my guru and trainer in meditation and Sanskrit, it was rare. He explained his story to me, how he had just been kidnapped in Beirut, “If you are in a similar situation, do not give in to hatred because it is a weakness”. If I was able to be saved from this difficult situation, when they were about to kill me, it is because I did not hate them. 10 days later, I was kidnapped myself. They put me on the wall, I was masked, I did not know what they were going to do to me. The message of Christ came back to me: “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body, because they cannot kill the soul”. This completely relaxed me during those 21 days when I was kidnapped. It was not only about not hating them, but about loving them, so you become the master of the situation. With this attitude of love, I became the master of the situation, I saw that I could save myself, and I did it in a sort of miraculous way, because I could have been killed too.
If you give love, you become the master of the situation, on the contrary, if you give hatred, you become its slave.
I remember very well another anecdote with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. There was a meeting with him and 4 to 5,000 people in Paris in the 90s. I was there. As soon as he came back, I felt his vibration of love. However, at the beginning and at the end, Tibetans shouted against the Chinese, and he silenced them. He refused to “curse” the Chinese, as one should not curse, according to the Prophet of Islam and others.
I had two darshans with the Dalai Lama. In Paris, I was far away, but I observed carefully. The Chinese had done everything to block this visit. Jacques Chirac had been the first to request, as mayor of Paris, a visit from the Dalai Lama, but there, as President of the Republic, he refused to welcome him under pressure from the Chinese. The Dalai Lama was asked on television how he experienced this refusal. He simply replied: “He has his reasons, which I must not judge.”
A Tibetan master gave this image: “Even if the bandits savagely cut me limb from limb, I will not curse them, my mind will remain full of love for them, without any resentment towards them.” Hadith of the prophet: “If you curse someone, it may be that the curse turns around after circling around him like a bird wondering where to go, and finally comes back to you” This kind of teaching is too quickly forgotten by the members of these religions too often caught up in the fire of passions.
Maurice Percheron (1891-1963) wrote a book a long time ago on “The Buddha and Buddhism”. He showed well how Buddhism managed to calm the ferocity of the Mongols and Tibetans, by converting the descendants of Genghis Khan, which was no small feat. We only have to compare the fierce and even savage warriors of Genghis Khan with their current descendants the Tibetans of the Dalai Lama!!
The greatest person to whom we must give forgiveness is ourselves. And the Greatest Beneficiary of our forgiveness of others is generally ourselves.
Hatred is like rust that eats away even iron. It is the great enemy of our own mind.
The Buddhist Sage Shantideva taught: “The origin of all joy in this world is the quest for the happiness of others, and the origin of all suffering is the quest for our own happiness”
A final golden rule of conduct and art of living taught by many Buddhist Sages: “Resentment consists of taking poison oneself and waiting for the other to die”.
We really do not know to what extent resentment can harm the one who feels it!!
Jacques Vigne Meditation
Tenzin Palmo states: “International relations too often based on revenge, it is the behavior/of a five-year-old child” (To be recited in 5×5).
(Beware /of/ anger, /om/ Especially those/ that seem just/ified/om).
Feel an area of the body tensed by desire