Is your neighbor a Buddhist?

By Joy Jones

Do you know some­one who is so beloved by ani­mals that they imme­di­ately cud­dle up to them? Some­one who has had things stolen from them and inex­plic­a­bly returned? Who is “reli­gious” about what they eat and how much they weigh? How about some­one who is active in pol­i­tics and has a pro­gres­sive mind set? Know any­one who is tol­er­ant of oth­ers? What about that per­son who is gen­uinely inter­ested in other peo­ple? Who gets spot­ted in a crowd and every­one sings or claps? Do you know some­one who moves toward what they dis­like in order to change it instead of away? How about that per­son you know that dropped out of col­lege to pur­sue a dif­fer­ent career path? Who do you know that is a per­fec­tion­ist? Some­one who com­poses songs? Some­one who has helped another get started? What about that per­son you know that names their fic­tional char­ac­ters after fam­ily mem­bers? Do you know some­one whose mother still knits them sweaters?

What do all these peo­ple have in com­mon? They were all one per­son: Fred Rogers of Mis­ter Rogers Neigh­bor­hood. I was lucky enough to read a CNN arti­cle about him in a friend’s jour­nal the other day. And I found myself won­der­ing, even though he was a Pres­by­ter­ian min­is­ter, if Fred Rogers might not also be Buddhist…because he cer­tainly per­son­i­fied many East­ern prin­ci­ples as well.

I’ve writ­ten before about how the ide­al­ism behind all faiths is essen­tially the same. But what about the term “neigh­bor” itself? The days of bor­row­ing a cup of sugar or hav­ing a bit of gos­sip over the back­yard fence are mostly behind us. So it seems to me we have to think in terms of every­one being our neighbor…especially when peo­ple are as close as a click or Skype away. With that in mind, you want to look for the qual­i­ties listed above as a good ref­er­ence point for how you choose neigh­bors. And, inter­est­ingly, they prob­a­bly won’t be the peo­ple you expected!

My hus­band is one of those peo­ple that ani­mals love. To our mutual embar­rass­ment, I’m usu­ally ready to cud­dle up to any­one else’s pet we come across—but invari­ably the ani­mal runs right to him! My boss, being a power lifter, is very care­ful about what he eats and that he weighs enough for his meets. I once enjoyed din­ner in a group with Mark Lenard (who played Spock’s father in Star Trek the Orig­i­nal Series). I never for­got how he wanted to hear all about every one of us instead of talk about himself—not what you’d expect in an actor! And I have a cousin who is bravely writ­ing a mem­oir about her fam­ily. Just yes­ter­day, we met a man named Chris on the street who asked us for a dol­lar. He told us he lives at a home­less shel­ter down­town, but on the week­ends vis­its his elderly mother and helps her do things she can’t around her home.

I’m proud to have all of these peo­ple as my neigh­bors. Won’t you tell me about yours?

Joy Jones is a syn­di­cated colum­nist liv­ing in Ander­son, Ohio. She’s on the same jour­ney you are—to dis­cover what life’s all about. You can also visit The Mid­west Bud­dhist on Face­book, Twit­ter and Live Jour­nal. Joy appre­ci­ates your com­ments (espe­cially of the pos­i­tive vari­ety). Email her at joyjones@zoomtown.com.

Posted by Guest 2 Columnist on Nov 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.