Ordained Buddhist monk and psychiatrist Tony Fernando believes the ancient Eastern practice is rich in real-world lessons for a happier life. To read more about Tony Fernando, go here. In this extract from his book Life Hacks From the Buddha, hack 47 - treat everyone you meet as a friend - is outlined.
In Buddhism, we are encouraged to self-reflect and examine our own conditioning, biases and prejudices. We learn to acknowledge that we have built-in conditioned biases and prejudices, as they are part of being human. Our various biological and psychological conditionings are not bad or evil, they are just part of an evolved human brain. This conditioned set of biases and prejudices are influenced by genetics, childhood experiences, education, relationships, advertising, social media and also religious and political propaganda.
One such form of conditioning is our clique mentality. We classify people as belonging or not belonging to our clan.
Since this mentality often determines who we are kind or compassionate to, broadening the boundaries to expand who we see as part of our circle is an effective way to increase compassion.
When I was a boy in Manila, society was composed mainly of Filipinos and some Filipino-Chinese as a minority. When I misbehaved, my grandmother warned me that the dark men with bushy beards – a very small group of foreign traders living in my neighbourhood – would pick me up, put me inside a sack and sell me at the market. I feared these foreign, tall, dark men in long robes throughout my childhood. My conditioning was a classic example of people outside the in-group stereotyped as outcasts and even as bogeymen.
Later, in high school, I became friends with the children of these traders, and they were not that different from us, except for their spicy food.
One way to expand our circle is to get to know people from other circles as friends. Becoming friends with people who seem different is a sure-fire way to break prejudices. Suddenly, the scary person who looked different becomes a person you know, can talk to and share food with. To befriend them is to realise that they are not different from us. Those scary, tall, dark men in long robes were no different from my father or older male relatives.
However, we cannot befriend everyone who is different from us. There just isn’t enough time to get to know eight billion other people! Fortunately, apart from befriending people from other in-groups, we have the innate capacity to reshape our wiring.
In Buddhist kindness and compassion training, instead of noticing how different other people are, we train ourselves to look at what is similar between us and the other.
Our brain is neuroplastic and we can learn new ways of thinking. We can reclassify people in our head. We can train our minds to view everyone as exactly like us – as someone in our clan.
The Dalai Lama demonstrates this perfectly when he says, I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness. This is the practice of compassion.
There are many anecdotes of the Dalai Lama’s spontaneous kindness. When he tours the world giving lectures to thousands of people, he makes sure that he gets to meet the people behind the scenes – the cleaning staff, kitchen hands and support crew.
People say that when he talks to strangers he has met for the first time, he gives his full attention to them as if there is no one else who matters.
Of course, he is the Dalai Lama, and he has the capacity to do this. But can we train our minds to be as kind and compassionate as his?
The solution is simple and has been practised for 2600 years, yet it is rarely talked about or even taught in schools. It works so well that if taught to our younger generations, the possibility of global conflict and warfare would diminish.
In Buddhist kindness and compassion training, instead of noticing how different other people are, we train ourselves to look at what is similar between us and the other. The other can be the foreign family who moved in across the street, the homeless person begging outside the supermarket, the person at work who has a paralysed face, or the people in Yemen suffering from the effects of war and poverty. The other can be your annoying relative or your child who constantly disobeys you.
To increase kindness and compassion, try to see others as exactly like you. It is easy to notice how different they are. Instead, focus on your similarities.
How can we be similar to other people who we don’t even associate with or like? By recognising that regardless of our ethnicity, allegiances, religion, socio-economic status or political persuasion, all of us just want the same things.
We all want to be happy, to be loved, to be safe, to have food, drink and shelter. None of us want stress, anxiety or suffering. We all experience sadness, isolation, loss and death.
You can read Fernando’s interview with Nikki Bezzant here.
