Says the 14th Dalai Lama: “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
This is the February quote in the Face of Tibet 2007 calendar – and I’ve liked it so much, it’s still up on March 29. I’m writing it down for all of us so I don’t forget – and so the March page can show itself for 2 days before we go to April.
Similar to the medical profession’s Hippocratic oath “First Do No Harm”, is it not? And a good reminder in this hurry scurry world, where we often feel we don’t have enough time to pay attention to the results of our actions.
Getting on the bus at breakneck speed, we might cause harm – or becoming impatient at a big truck on a residential street, as I did just a while ago. Nothing happened – but my awareness a moment later of my impatience pointed out that it could have – and my gain of 2 seconds was not even worth the feelings of impatience at myself – a very small harm to me, to be sure…but nonetheless, it broke my own personal harm-ony.
Tenzing Gyatso’s deceptively simple thoughts always resonate so very deeply with me. Thank You, Tibet.