A torrent of tears
When Bankei read the petition he called everyone before him. “You are wise brothers,” he told them. “You know what is right and what is wrong. You may go somewhere else to study if you wish, but this poor brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I do not? I am going to keep him even if all the rest of you leave.”
A torrent of tears cleansed the face of the brother who had stolen. All desire to steal had vanished.
We who are not sitting in Bankei’s “seclusion-weeks of meditation” can only imagine our reaction to the pupil who was caught stealing. When we see another doing wrong, we need to decide how to respond. We could ignore, decide not to engage. We could appeal to his peers. We could enlist others to help us confront the culprit. Or we could invoke Bankei’s response and reach out to the offender and help him see better ways.
We could ask ourselves, how would we respond to Bankei’s willingness to stay with the pupil and teach him? Have you ever chosen to stick with someone in the face of their having done wrong in your eyes? As a teacher? As a parent? As a friend?
As a teacher, were you to stick with an offender, you might undermine your relationship with other students. You may feel the need to remind them, as Bankei did, “You know what is right and what is wrong.…Who will teach him if I do not?”
As a parent, you stay beside your child when she has committed wrong. You would not think otherwise.
In society, we choose who we relate to, who we do not. In these troubled times, we must be careful not to choose some over others solely because of characteristics including race, ethnicity, religious or political affiliation. We need to remember what I’ve posted earlier: it’s We the people, just us, no other. We can’t forget that.
