The Thought Manifests As The Word

The following e-mail was originally posted on February 26, 2018

 Harold,

Thank you for these posts.  They appear to me to be getting at the "heart" of the matter.  I seem to recall that we must love our enemies as much as we love ourselves.  Sometimes, it seems to me that we forget to do that.  I suppose that is why I wanted to develop a calendar of Holidays and Holy Days that incorporates the holidays and holy days of those we tend to despise and who we tend not to even know.  By making it a daily habit of considering the beliefs of others, perhaps, we can begin to more fully understand the foundation of our own beliefs.

A few years ago, Meryl Streep starred in a movie entitled "The Iron Lady", a biopic about the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  In that movie Streep quotes Thatcher as saying:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become your character.
And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
What we think, we become.
My father always said that.

I have found that the essence of this saying goes back quite a long ways and can be found in the sayings of the Buddha and Lao Tse.  These days I prefer the version set forth by K. Sri Dhammananda.  His version reads:  

The thought manifests as the word,
The word manifests as the deed,
The deed develops into habit,
And the habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its way with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins

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