Darkness Into Lightness

Trying to assess folks in reference to how well they communicate and how they strive to communicate is always a challenge. Comments made over 25 years ago regarding the character of individuals are applicable to that challenge. It was during one of his peace walks in 1992 when the now-deceased Cambodian monk, Venerable Maha Ghosananda, observed there are four kinds of people in the world: "One in darkness who is headed for darkness, one in darkness who is headed for light, one in light who is headed for darkness, and one in light who is headed for light." The reference for this comment by the monk, a Nobel prize recipient, was "Tamonata Sutta."

I see a definite correlation between this observation and the manner in which many of us either strive to or do communicate in our day-to-day lives. Sadly, I see numerous incidences when people seem satisfied they were able to impart a particular message to others without regard to whether they actually communicated as well as they could have. (At times, I fall into this category.) Never mind that how they communicated their thoughts was punctuated by anger, impatience and perhaps even an insult or two. Doing emotional harm to another, at these times, is secondary to communicating a particularly perspective.  

Make no mistake, such communicating is darkness. Such darkness can be turned into light if the communicator recognizes their behavior and tries to apologize for it. Darkness remains darkness when the communicator takes no responsibility for their behavior. Every time we communicate represents an opportunity to do so with as much light as possible. Each of us should ask ourselves: How often do I succeed? How often to I fall short?  Moving toward the light and then remaining there is a challenge that, ideally, all of us should take. Because communication is so much apart of our lives, the least any of us can do is be the best we can at it.