"Harmony and beauty within our lives and within our communities often fail due to our insistence on the duality of self and others. The ultimate solution for generating peace and accord in our relationships and in our world, therefore, lies in seeing that we all are one. Never-Disparaging Bodhisattva was always respectful to everyone he met, for he knew that we are all capable of becoming a Buddha one day. He did not maintain a dual, and therefore erroneous, perception that distinguished between people he deemed worthy of being treated with esteem and people he deemed unworthy. Through recognizing the interconnectedness of all beings, the perceived distance between all beings will shrink and an affirming environment will grow. If we all practice a modicum of this kind of regard for others, the world will be a much better place.
When we maintain the duality of self and others, we develop disproportionate levels of love and hatred, attraction and repulsion for other people, which throws our relationships out of balance; the capacity for affinity becomes dormant. We judge everyone around us, putting people into categories such as good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable, worthy and unworthy. We want to spend time with those whom we love and accept, and we avoid socializing with those whom we dislike. Clinging to the notion of self and others causes these discriminating mindsets, and they disrupt the harmony and balance within a community. If we replace this spirit of separateness with compassion, much of the friction in human relations will disappear. If we realize that we are all one, then there will be no impulse to jealousy and no room for conflict. There will be no inclination to like or dislike people; everyone will be regarded with the eyes of compassion. Through the eyes of oneness, we are never tempted to say that one group, or one person, is more important or valuable than the other. The Diamond Sutra teaches that there is no boundary or chasm that separates self and others, and that we should seek to let go of this mental construct. Dissolving our dualistic worldview creates an environment in which natural affinity arises. When we practice viewing ourselves and others through a lens of oneness, we will no longer engage in meaningless mind games that prevent us from forming positive connections with all beings."
