Epilogue

I wrote this book for my students, during the COVID-19 lockdown. I was living at a Buddhist center upstate, teaching remotely. When I was finished with the manuscript draft, I showed it to Lodro, a monk who lives at the center. He was touched by the book, and offered to write a conclusion. It seemed to suit the purpose of the book quite beautifully, so I’ve included it below:

These stories of great men and women who faced adversity show us how it is in the mind that we find our solace. Our mind always has the space and capacity for compassion; this is the ultimate freedom. We are not bound by what others say to us, what they do to us, or where they send us.

So, when we are confronted with obstacles and challenges, we can recognize that this compassion, this caring, is already part of our life. If we look at the examples above, those who have experienced various adversities all responded with some recognition of shared humanity, and acted from values that uplifted this shared humanity. Even beset by injustice, this caring was still there. All of us carry this compassion with us.

Now we can give this many names. A recognition of common humanity doesn’t take one form or one name. This recognition is always responsive to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Simply reviewing the chapters of this book, we can see that there are many ways to derive meaning from life, and many ways to confront challenges. Yet, if we look at what is common, we will start to understand for ourselves that freedom is found not in having some sense of outer control, but the choice of what attitude we will take when encountering our challenges. From this we realize that no matter our circumstances, there is always freedom. In this freedom, we find our sense of caring for something larger than our ideas about ourselves, and we also find our strength.

What we see from these assembled examples is that this is not necessarily a religious position. The Dalai Lama uses the word secular, not in a way that is absent of religion, but in a manner that encompasses a commonality, one might say a common humanity. Compassion is not just within the purview of religion; it is the greatest human inheritance.

Viktor Frankl spoke of the great power that came from having a space between the challenge, and our reaction. This stopping and sitting with uncertainty, takes us past our conceptions and into the larger view. In this ground, we find our sense of connection to others and our world, and it is here that we find the strength to discover what is meaningful in a way that is unique to us, but also grounds us in our bond with our fellow human beings.

—Ven Kyle Lodro Parker