Today in May 1938, the world around us suffers from the anxiety which the unemployment of millions brings with it. In Germany we begin to be anxious because we have not enough workmen.
Whenever we feel that we are definitely right, so much so that we refuse to open up to anything or anybody else, right there we are wrong. It becomes wrong view. When suffering arises, where does it arise from? The cause is wrong view, the fruit of that being suffering. If it was right view it wouldn't cause suffering.
To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival.
It is my fundamental belief that all human beings share the same basic aspirations: that we all want hapiness and that we all share suffering. Asians, just like Americans, Europeans, and the rest of the world, share a desire to live life to its fullest, to better ourselves and the lives of our loved ones.
It is not just a person's physical constitution, their intellegence, their education, or even their social conditioning that enables them to withstand hardship. Much more significant is their inner development. And while some may be able to survive through sheer willpower, the ones who suffer the least are those who have a high degree of patience and courage in the face of adversity.
No matter what part of the world we come from, we are all basically the same human beings. We all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering. We have the same basic human needs and concerns. All of us human beings want freedom and the right to determine our own destiny as individuals and as peoples. That is human nature.
A very weighty argument is this namely, that neither does the light which descends from thence, chiefly upon the world , mix itself with anything, nor admit of dirtiness or pollution, but remains entirely, and in all things that are, free from defilement, admixture, and suffering.