Religion is always related to belief and faith. We can see that the people in the world are different to each other in religious aspect. They have different belief and faith. However, as I saw in the news recently, religious tensions have emerged throughout the world either it is in the form of discrimination, destruction, or violence. This makes me think about how people behave in their religious life.
Some people might think that religious difference is a problem especially if they are the majority of religion folks. Discrimination has a chance to appear. Seriously, violence and destruction can also be carried out because they don’t agree with what other people believe and do. If a person from different religion expressed a thing that is offensive to them, a conflict might happen.
I would say that a person living a religious life doesn’t mean he has a good morality, ethic, and attitude. If he always wears a religious cloth, that also doesn’t mean he is a person with good morality.
All people, of course, want to have a peaceful life. But they are still carried by their ego. They struggle only for their benefits, not for others. They don’t care the suffering of others. Intolerance is growing inside of them. The virus that can cease the tolerance of someone is fanaticism.
Fanaticism is an uncritical thinking that one would retain his thought without ever considering other thoughts. A fanatic religious folk tends to “live for religion” instead of “religion for living”. He would kill for religion. He would destroy for religion. He would do anything for sake of his religion. He could not differentiate again whether this thing is good or bad. This is a dangerous thinking and wrong view.
I just want to say that tolerance is the only way to live religious life peacefully. In the context of religion, tolerance is the act of allowing people to do what you don’t agree. But that doesn’t mean you accept that thing. Tolerance is only allowing. I can see that tolerance is the root of peace. When you live in a high diversity area, tolerance is the core to prevent any religious conflicts.
We can live a religious life but don’t forget the essence of humanity. Humanity makes you more religious. In my opinion, the person that always cultivate good deeds, help people, reduce the suffering of others is more “religious”. Think that every human is the same under The Supreme One. Tolerance and humanity are the keys to make you a good being.
I really like this Dalai Lama’s quote and it is expected to make people realize that every human is the same as others.
I’m Tibetan, I’m Buddhist and I’m the Dalai Lama, but if I emphasize these differences it sets me apart and raises barriers with other people. What we need to do is to pay more attention to the ways in which we are the same as other people.
For me, fanaticism is bad. How about you? At least you try to get less offended if someone expressed bad thing about your religion even you are a sensitive person. Saying this is true and that is false are creating conflict.
A good person is a person who has right view, do good deeds, and ignore bad deeds.
Just practice more and more tolerance. Make your religious life aligned with humanity. Religion should make people better, not worse. The religion is not wrong but ourselves.