To feel a sameness of body with an other is supposed to be a jumping off point for greater compassions. It’s called 同體大悲, the great misericordia of similar bodies. We are to look at other humans, presumably more or less like us, and then begin to ask about the sufferings and hopes of other mammals. And from there, lil bugs and such.
I take from that there are two parts to it, a dialectic. Kinship, however fictive, is pointless until it is strong enough to embrace the wider universe in compassion. It must needs invite a breathing between sets, between inner and outer.
But what are our mortal limits? More than flesh per se, but the embodied social? And that is usually what is meant by politics. The older I get, the more I look at it, the less I truly understand it.
One thing is underscored for me again and again. Anger flattens us. The great evil in hate is that it crushes our souls out. If that language doesn’t suit you: the inner world is who we truly are. We live most in the interstices, when we sleep or muse or imagine. Life is what happens when we were making other plans; other plans are politics. I can’t say that means we don’t need politics. Bodies make politics. But... we will get no where until we lift our heads skyward again to greater things. And as sure as there are stars above to reach for, and an Earth in need of healing, we must.
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