“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.”

– Dalai Lama

In celebration of the birthday of the Dalai Lama, we must once again consider kindness.  As the king of Kindness, the Dalai Lama has spent years encouraging the millions of people his teachings have touched to be kindness, love, and compassion to all they meet.

It is easy to be kind to those who are kind to us in return.  It is even easier to be kind to those who offer kindness to us first — and our only obligation is to return it.  It can be more challenging to practice kindness when an enemy is involved.  When there are no warm, fuzzy feelings to encourage the kindness to flow between us, we have a wonderful opportunity to find our way to compassion through the practice of tolerance.  I suppose you could say that tolerance is “agreeing to disagree.”  It is the act of being able to be true to our own views without having to destroy those of someone who disagrees with us.

When we lose the ability to tolerate those whose ideals oppose our own, our only recourse is war, whether it is at a national level or only a personal one.  If it is our desire to be love, to be compassion, to be kindness to everyone we meet, then this intention must be focused on our enemies as well as on our friends.  Friends do little to help us grow in tolerance, because they do not challenge our values or require us to consider view too far from our own.  It is our enemies who offer us the chance to stretch ourselves into the realm of tolerance.  It is our enemies who encourage us to become more kind and more compassionate than we might have thought was possible.

Love your enemies today.  Remember that they are some of the finest teachers you have.  Remember who you are and practice kindness.