{"id":742,"date":"2009-02-21T12:39:26","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T09:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kaveh.ymer.org\/?p=742"},"modified":"2023-07-03T08:57:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T08:57:16","slug":"rugged-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/2009\/02\/21\/rugged-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugged Stone&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"583\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/rugged_stone_5.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/rugged_stone_5.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/rugged_stone_5-300x219.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/rugged_stone_5-768x560.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Understanding the whole<\/p>\n<p>The Master views the parts with compassion, because he understands the whole. His constant practice is humility. He doesn&#8217;t glitter like a jewel but lets himself be shaped by the Tao, as rugged and common as stone.<\/p>\n<p>(Tao Te Ching, Chapter 39)<\/p>\n<p>Wisdom, i.e. true understanding of the whole, is essential to compassion. It is only when you have a picture of the whole that you can understand the individual.<\/p>\n<p>It is clear, isn&#8217;t it? It is easy to condemn a person if you do not understand the circumstances which led to the person&#8217;s acting in an &#8220;unforgivable&#8221; way. The moment you get a more comprehensive perspective, and you understand the background and circumstances, you can forgive, or at least act in a constructive way. Even the most despicable criminal becomes human if you can place him or her in a broader framework.<\/p>\n<p>What the passage clearly shows is that humility is a natural product of true understanding. The moment you understand the whole, you realize that you are not better than a person who has fallen by the wayside. Looking down on others is a sign of ignorance. You might even come to the conclusion that you might have acted worse if you had been in the same circumstances as that person.<\/p>\n<p>In some countries, many people are so poor that they are sometimes forced to steal to stay alive. I have often seen people in a country of chronic unemployment who would rather beg than steal. It is easy to look down on the beggar for begging, but wouldn&#8217;t you have done worse in the same circumstances? I have seen infinitely poor people smile at me without a sign of hatred, even though I represent everything they will never have. Would we smile at them and be without hatred if we were barefooted and in their ragged clothes?<\/p>\n<p>When I see this nobility in suffering, I feel humbled, and the last thing I would like to do is &#8220;glitter like a jewel&#8221;, i.e. shine in my affluence. The true sage is truly like a &#8220;rugged stone&#8221;: his compassion forbids him to be anything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hdr","category-landscape","category-nature","post_format-post-format-image"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1478,"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions\/1478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kavehsaffari.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}