Deep Hope by Diane Eshin Rizzetto

Author:Diane Eshin Rizzetto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2019-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

I Take Up the Way of Supporting Life

Quite often, this precept is taken as a vow to not take life. While this is certainly an integral part of it, it is even more an affirmation to support life. It takes a lot more courage and often sacrifice to put into action our aspirations to support life than to kill it. Understood in this way, taking up the way of supporting life is not an injunction to never kill but rather a directive to become more aware of the unquestionable life force in all things and how we intentionally or unintentionally ignore or interrupt it.

Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who directed the Manhattan Project, which produced the first nuclear bombs, is said to have been walking in the woods one day with a friend, in the years after the war had ended. He came across a land turtle and, thinking it would make a nice surprise for his grandson back at the house, picked it up to carry it home. But just a few meters along the path, he stopped abruptly, turned back, and placed the turtle on the ground precisely where he had picked it up. He remarked to his friend, “I have interfered with life enough for one man’s lifetime.”

What strikes me about Oppenheimer’s insight is not only what seems to be a recognition of his part in the creation of the first nuclear bomb and weapon of mass destruction, but also the subtler, often unrecognized way in which our most ordinary, sometimes well-intentioned actions, such as bringing a land turtle as a gift to a grandchild, can be an action that does not support life. While we all, at times, will likely face larger questions of taking life, such as whether or not to take up arms in war, euthanasia (be it for another human or a family pet), abortion, death penalty, etc., the subtler ways in which this precept interweaves into our daily living are less obvious and require cultivating keen awareness of life itself. Over time, what we come to realize is that to live means to take life and to take life means to live. Every time we drink water to hydrate our body, we kill millions of microorganisms. Every time we take a refreshing walk across the sweet green grass in the park, we kill innumerable tiny creatures. We cannot escape taking life so that we can survive, and, at the same time, we can support life in whatever way we can.

If we aspire to live in ways that support life, then first we must open the door when the killer in us knocks. Working with this precept openly can eventually reveal some aspects of ourselves we would rather keep hidden. Recently, several people shared with me the agony of caring for aging parents with dementia. Worn down by endless calls and emergencies, hardly being able to keep up with life’s ordinary challenges of work and family, these people opened their hearts to themselves by

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