I am proud of my friends who truly represent loyalty, honor, and compassion. Even my friends who are very tough, have a compassionate side to them. Although, every now and then, some of them would like to retaliate against those who have done wrong to us. Instead, we stay positive and do our best to not feed the fire of negativity.
I have one particular friend who is extremely loyal to me. He is so positive and caring for others. But like me, once in awhile a negative person can throw him off and he gets very disappointed, and at times upset. When he is disturbed, I try to bring him back to a positive balance. Likewise, he does the same for me.
My advice I gave to my good friend in regards to negative actions by people:
Whenever people physically attack me, threaten me, swear at me, or do a negative act towards me, I try my best to look deeper at the situation despite how upsetting or painful it is. There are different levels of negative people, and they are all suffering souls, suffering at different levels. We must try to understand the cause to their suffering. There are certain events in their lives that have led to their suffering that developed their negativity. We must positively counter these negative “causes”.
We have to be positive as best as we can and share that energy with others to overcome negativity. Even if someone kills us, our positive energy will live on and help others. Let’s strive to understand the meaning of our existence and the existence of all beings and non-beings so we can end our suffering and the suffering of those around us.
Note: Negative “causes” – i.e. Negative behavior is a learned behavior whether it be anger, violence, rudness, impatience, selfishness, etc. We can continue this cycle of learned behavior or end it. Our actions today will not only affect the people around us now, but many generations to come. One negative person can negatively impact many people. In contrast, one positive person can positively impact many people.
JON RIKI KARAMATSU 