Common Ground: Wicca & Buddhism pt 1
Happy Friday, Everyone. For those of you that didn’t read the previous description of Uncommon Ground, you can find that here. For now, I’m just going to dive right into The Three Trainings and how they coincide with Wicca.
These three are: Sila, Samadhi, and Prajna. Don’t worry, we’ll go in depth on all three over the next three week. These all tie into the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, and it’s far too much to cover in a single post. This week we will be covering Sila.
Sila: Morality, good behavior, and honor. This training is based on two principles:
The principle that all living beings are equal
Reciprocity: treating others as you’d like to be treated.
I’m pretty sure that everyone reading this entry can agree that these are two excellent examples of Wiccan principles. To my tradition, everything is living and has some level of consciousness, and humans are no more special than the blades of grass outside in the yard. All things have a purpose and a desire for that purpose to be fulfilled. All living things are equal, it makes no difference the color, gender, faith, orientation. We are all equal; we are all one.
Reciprocity is the “golden rule”. Treat other people the way you wish to be treated; there are no exceptions to this rule. In Wicca, we have “harm none” which can boil down to the same thing as reciprocity in many ways. What you send out, you receive back. No matter how shitty people are being to you, be better than that. Don’t let your karma suffer because you let someone ruin your day. You think your a badass? Look someone else in the eye that is actively saying the most awful things about you, and respond with genuine kindness and love. ***I’m going to insert here that it is okay to have boundaries, and keep toxic people out of your life. No one is asking you to be the mean person’s friend; just treat them with the same kindness and respect you wish to be treated with, even if they don’t.***
That’s all for this week, next week’s post is all about the next teaching Samadhi. Until next time, blessed be.