Respect for Life

     "Respect for life" is a concept that Albert Schweitzer coined to refer to a compassionate embrace of life as embodied in the life of Christ (see Brown, 1968, p.157). While the concept seems really broad-based, I am thinking about the principles that make it really effective in a classroom setting. And I am also thinking about how this concept works in Buddhist teachings as well.
   One of the key aspects about respect for life is that it involves seeing all life as somehow equal. What does this mean, though? Part of it is to understand that what a person witnesses is really a reflection of the deepest part of their mind and heart, which is not in any way different or less than the sacred itself. To use an example: if I see a snake on the road, I can make a choice, either to view it with neutrality, with disgust, or with a loving, accepting gaze. If I see the snake as abhorrent, I am often using the mind of reactivity to look at the snake, rather than seeing its true beauty or aliveness. My disgust and abhorrence renders the snake little more than a 'thing' which causes me to react in some way. We see this kind of reaction in the language we use to describe what we dislike or want to avoid: "Get that thing out of here!" "This stupid thing is annoying!" By rendering something as a 'thing', a person can avoid confronting its reality in itself or its right to exist on its own terms. We also negate the existence of the snake by refusing to give it a name and, thus, a concrete identity.
    I have heard lectures in Buddhism which describe the notion of tathagathagarbha, the inherent Buddha nature in all beings. How does this notion negate or change the way people feel about situations around them? Seeing things as having Buddha nature can remind people that what they see isn't separate from mind itself. Think about it for a moment: think about the complexity and the aliveness of mind, its 'thereness', or its suchness. And then realize: whatever one is interacting with has this same quality of thereness, thusness, aliveness. It's all part of how the mind is. But if I discriminate the mind from the phenomena, I make the mistake of thinking they are two separate things and don't mix together. I forget that the snake is endowed with the same mind. The appearance of the snake is just a wave in the ocean, and the ocean is the same for both the person and the snake.
  In a classroom, one might start to adopt this principle by seeing all the class members as equals in a shared struggle and shared learning experience. While each participant may seem to be completely separate, in that moment, they are waves in the same ocean. Is it possible to compete with another if they are seen as a left and right hand? In fact, it no longer makes sense to treat others in this way. This kind of respect for life is taking a moment to acknowledge how sacred and how awesome it is to behold the mind through the phenomena. What is 'sacred' here is the sense of there-ness: snake and human share the same momentary presence in connection to each other.
   In such a classroom setting, one person is not privileged for her ideas. Rather, ideas themselves are seen as tools for the shared interaction and dialogue to take shape in a learning environment. If I isolate an idea and attach to the individual who seemed to have originated it, I am overlooking many aspects about that idea. The first is that ideas never originate in one individual: rather, they come from a series of causes and conditions which contribute to the creation of the moment. The second is that ideas don't act in interaction; rather, they are shared among many people who evolve those ideas. To see things in this way, one can start to realize that their small 'self' which wants to control the whole operations is never really 'in charge' at all. This self is bound by a series of conditions, and it doesn't exist as a self-sustaining entity.