Sheep
Yishay Mor wrote a lovely response (scroll down, permalink not working – 12/26 2:11 am) to my post. He is a nice guy.

Problem is it’s not the nice guys who dictate how things will be in the world. It’s the not nice guys. It’s the guys filled with anger and hatred and venom. One of the messages of the particular stream of Buddhism I practiced was that if I were a nice guy, my very niceness would have a good affect on people I met, on the world. This is a wonderful idea. I would love for it to work. But it doesn’t. The sheep always get gobbled up by the wolves. Always. It is a fundamental truth. They will never dwell together. The prophet Isaiah used this allegory (11;6) to portray his vision specifically because it was not, and could never be, possible in the world as we know it.

I wish I had kept on meditating in my office during the late shift. I didn’t. I couldn’t. And now the poison penetrates me.

There are people one would rather not be in contact with, but sometimes there is little or no control over this. And it is difficult to protect oneself, not to mention the dismaying inability to spread anything positive.

And here am I saying to people like Yishay don’t give up, don’t move aside out of exhaustion and despair, when it’s me who needs to heed that message.

We’re not so different. The main difference between us is in the solution we have found for ourselves.