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Just a note: I’ve shifted the “rules” for post­ing com­ments on this blog. You will now see your com­ment appear directly, with­out a delay for approval. I really want to hear from all of you, so click on the post title, above, and leave a comment!

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Dar­bella just attended “Me to We” Toronto — a gath­er­ing of 16,000 7-12^th graders com­mit­ted to

“…free chil­dren from poverty and exploita­tion, and to empower young peo­ple to take action to improve the lives of their peers in devel­op­ing countries.”

More on this in a moment.

One of the speak­ers was Elie Weisel —

(Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel KBE (born Sep­tem­ber 30, 1928)[1] is a writer, pro­fes­sor, polit­i­cal activist, Nobel Lau­re­ate and Holo­caust sur­vivor. He is the author of 57 books, the best known of which is Night, a mem­oir that describes his expe­ri­ences dur­ing the Holo­caust and his impris­on­ment in sev­eral con­cen­tra­tion camps. His diverse range of other writ­ings offer pow­er­ful and poetic con­tri­bu­tions to lit­er­a­ture, the­ol­ogy, and his own artic­u­la­tion of Jew­ish spir­i­tu­al­ity today.
{Link to Wikipedia arti­cle} )

Dar remem­bered one of the lines in Wiesel’s speech this way:

“The oppo­site of love is not hate.
The oppo­site of love is indifference.”

The chief form of indif­fer­ence is talk with­out action.

Many are the peo­ple that think decry­ing evil, or injus­tice, or going on at length about how tough their life is, is equiv­a­lent to actu­ally doing some­thing.

In Bud­dhism, one key con­cept is “no dual­ity.” This means, sim­ply, not engag­ing in process that cre­ates divisions—in other words, to resist the urge to place things into cat­e­gories like good and bad, right and wrong.

Now, it may seem that this is con­don­ing “bad” things. It’s not.

It’s about rec­og­niz­ing our ten­dency to point our fin­gers at things, and label it “bad, bad, bad.” And then to assume that such labelling has changed any­thing at all.

This applies to every­thing from geno­cide to dys­func­tional rela­tion­ships. Call­ing a thing “bad” changes noth­ing about the thing. Get­ting up and doing some­thing to change the con­di­tion does change the thing.

Tak­ing a thing to death is the height of indif­fer­ence. Stand­ing up and shift­ing the thing is both coura­geous and loving.

“Me to We” just fin­ished a week ago, and was held in Van­cou­ver and Toronto. In addi­tion to Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, Paul Mar­tin (for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Canada,) and Robert Kennedy Jr. and other lumi­nar­ies were in attendance.

The mes­sage to the kids was this: go back to your schools and do some­thing to make a dif­fer­ence, locally and inter­na­tion­ally. The kids are empow­ered to gen­er­ate change.

Here’s the point:

Many peo­ple end­lessly whine about how pow­er­less they are to change the way they com­mu­ni­cate with loved-ones, to change the way they make a liv­ing, to change their stare of mind, let alone to change the world. They blame oth­ers for their dilemma, and stay stuck and indifferent.

“Me to We” is a part of Free the Chil­dren, an orga­ni­za­tion that has a ster­ling rep­u­ta­tion for doing what it says it will do — help­ing to end the exploita­tion of chil­dren, and improv­ing their liv­ing conditions.

Now, here’s the kicker.

This orga­ni­za­tion was formed in 1997…
by a 12-year-old Cana­dian boy!

To quote from their site:

One day while search­ing for the funny pages in the news­pa­per, a morn­ing rit­ual, 12-year-old Craig Kiel­burger was stopped by a head­line that read, “Bat­tled Child Labor, Boy, 12, Mur­dered.” Iqbal Masih, a Pak­istani boy, had escaped child labour at age nine to become a leader in the move­ment against bonded labour and child slav­ery. He was even­tu­ally shot and killed for speak­ing out.

Craig brought the arti­cle into his Grade 7 class to ask if any­one would help him con­tinue Iqbal’s fight. Eleven hands shot up, and Free The Chil­dren was born. Since that day, Craig and his friends haven’t stopped. He has trav­elled the world, learn­ing from thou­sands of for­got­ten and voice­less peo­ple, and giv­ing inspi­ra­tional speeches to world lead­ers and youth.

The cure for indif­fer­ence is not more words. It’s action.

Be the change the world, your rela­tion­ships, and your self needs to see.

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

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• is indif­fer­ence a bad thing
• bat­tled child labour boy 12 mur­dered orig­i­nal article
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• the path to indifference

Related posts:

1. Sound Con­duct

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Tagged with: blaming • Buddhism • Communication • indifference • me to we

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