42
" They had been talking about his friend Z. when she announced, " If I hadn't met you, I'd certainly have fallen in love with him." Even then, her words had left Tomas in a strange state of melancholy, and now he realized it was only a matter of chance that Tereza loved him and not his friend Z. Apart from her consummated love for Tomas, there were, in the realm of possibility, an infinite number of unconsummated loves for other men. We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same; we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the " Es muss sein!" to our own great love.Tomas often thought of Tereza's remark about his friend Z. and came to the conclusion that the love story of his life exemplified not " Es muss sein!" (It must be so), but rather " Es konnte auch anders sein" (It could just as well be otherwise). "
49
" We do not now stand in the middle; in every aspect of our life we have, deliberately or by the 'conditioning' of birth, education or environment, allowed ourselves to stand on one bank of the river of life, with some intolerance of those who were foolish enough to choose or be led to stand on the other. Thus we are male or female, old or young, of the East of West. By temperament we are introvert or extrovert, leaders of followers, all for action or striving rather to be. It surely follows that we should be more tolerant of the other fellow, equally right/wrong, and be less swift to judge him with our ignorant, lop-sided view and definite disapproval. In any event, do we have to express an opinion, presume to judge? "
― , The Buddhist Way Of Life
57
" Someone told me recently that a commentator or some sort had said, " The United States is in spiritual free-fall." When people make such remarks, such appalling judgements, they never include themselves, their friends, those with whom they agree. They have drawn, as they say, a bright line between an " us" and a " them." Those on the other side of the line are assumed to be unworthy of respect or hearing, and are in fact to be regarded as a huge problem to the " us" who presume to judge " them." This tedious pattern has repeated itself endlessly through human history and is, as I have said, the end of community and the beginning of tribalism. "