When I know someone’s trying to sell me something, whether it be cleaning supplies, a timeshare or a religious perspective, I shut down. I don’t want someone else telling me what to believe or how to spend my money. Yet, when I first went vegan, I tried to sell it to people. Once people hear how wonderful this lifestyle is for their health, for animals and for the environment, they’ll thank me for enlightening them.
Um, hello REALITY CHECK! I was just turning people off.
Still, I know that if people really discovered how wonderful veganism is that many of them would fall in love with it too. So what do I do?
The Buddha suggests openness.
I’m currently reading Walk Like a Buddha by Lodro Rinzler, and I was struck when I read his response to the question about how the Buddha would deal with the challenges of our times. He said, “Forcing fixed views on other people is just another form of aggression. Society does not need more aggression. …If you want to shift the psychological environment of a group, you have to do it from a place of openness rather than from your own sense of what is right and wrong.”
Maybe this way of changing the world doesn’t happen overnight, but I believe that it is the only viable way to change the world.
Anywho, that’s how I see it.
Photo courtesy of jonathanstormet.com.
