Saturday 21 August 2010

Human Rights and Personal Freedom

Although this is mostly an illusion people hold very strongly to this. In reality ordinary life people are abused and mistreated by their employers on a daily basis and accept it because they need the money to get the basic things of life. The freedom comes at the end of the day when they aren't working. This is why I say its an illusion.
However people are very passionate about this topic. This is because of the history of oppression and slavery in our countries. Therefore I will post some links showing the power of worldly peoples feelings on these topics. This is the culture we are introducing Dharma to. It is very different from Tibetan culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights - America was created by many oppressed people leaving their countries for a new life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery - the root of intense anti oppression and control ethics
http://www.survivalinternational.org/ - tribes losing freedom
http://www.amnesty.org/ - we can see the intensity people feel about the topic of human rights and freedom here
International Non Governmental Organisations Commitment to Accountability - a declaration of ethics that worldly organisations commit to (see charter). This is the standard worldly people expect at a minimum

We need to understand this ethic and the way to make our communities work within this powerful culture. My opinion is that if you ask people what they want rather than trying to get them to do what you want its very close to exchanging self with others. In this way people might volunteer for a work area they enjoy rather end up doing something they don't like for example. People chose to come to Dharma & join in so we don't need to control them. Because they are making the right choices without our input. All they need is our support and gratitude. They are going in the right direction so why do we want to grab the steering wheel off them? Or take over organising their personal schedule? The reason why Shantideva and Geshe Ben Gungyal were able to accomplish such great things is because they were given the freedom to choose what they do with their time.

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