{"id":636,"date":"2007-05-15T22:46:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-15T22:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2007\/05\/buddhism-change-for-the-better\/"},"modified":"2007-05-15T22:46:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-15T22:46:00","slug":"buddhism-change-for-the-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2007\/05\/buddhism-change-for-the-better.html","title":{"rendered":"Buddhism: Change for the Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Sometimes something happens.  We see a crying child with no shoes or food to eat, we see nuns serving lepers in poverty, we hear about the genocide of Rwanda, Sudan, the Balkans, Armenians, Jews, Tibet, Cambodia and so on, we see the smiling face of a spiritual person.  And it happens, our life changes.  We can no longer follow our old habits, our selfish goals lose significance.  We change.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.networkforgood.org\/topics\/international\/famine\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 200px\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/olmedia\/660000\/images\/_663994_hunger.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.orphansofrwanda.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;float: right;cursor: pointer;width: 200px\" src=\"https:\/\/content.answers.com\/main\/content\/wp\/en\/d\/db\/Rwandan_Genocide_Murambi_skulls.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But usually we don\u2019t.  <span style=\"font-weight: bold;font-style: italic\">We avoid, rationalize, become cynical, defeatist, distracted.<\/span>  What has kept you from changing for the better today?  Yesterday?<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chgs.umn.edu\/Visual___Artistic_Resources\/Cambodian_Genocide\/cambodian_genocide.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px;float: right;text-align: right;cursor: pointer;width: 200px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.chgs.umn.edu\/Visual___Artistic_Resources\/Cambodian_Genocide\/cambodia1a.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmswr.org\/member_communities\/MC.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 234px;height: 157px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.exileimages.co.uk\/MasanoriK\/MotherTeresa\/MK.ASI.006.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.savetibet.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 253px;height: 298px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.snowlionpub.com\/data\/img3\/spti9.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thekingcenter.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;float: right;cursor: pointer;width: 200px\" src=\"http:\/\/einside.kent.edu\/files\/Jan162006\/2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gandhiinstitute.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 200px\" src=\"https:\/\/i13.photobucket.com\/albums\/a288\/Mandaberry\/Ghandi.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7907151-6061516505025820429?l=americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes something happens. We see a crying child with no shoes or food to eat, we see nuns serving lepers in poverty, we hear about the genocide of Rwanda, Sudan, the Balkans, Armenians, Jews, Tibet, Cambodia and so on, we see the smiling face of a spiritual person. And it happens, our life changes. We [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Buddhism: Change for the Better<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sometimes something happens. We see a crying child with no shoes or food to eat, we see nuns serving lepers in poverty, we hear about the genocide of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2007\/05\/buddhism-change-for-the-better.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Buddhism: Change for the Better\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sometimes something happens. We see a crying child with no shoes or food to eat, we see nuns serving lepers in poverty, we hear about the genocide of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2007\/05\/buddhism-change-for-the-better.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Buddhist Perspectives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-05-15T22:46:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/olmedia\/660000\/images\/_663994_hunger.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2007\/05\/buddhism-change-for-the-better.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2007\/05\/buddhism-change-for-the-better.html\",\"name\":\"Buddhism: Change for the Better\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-05-15T22:46:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-05-15T22:46:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9\"},\"description\":\"Sometimes something happens. 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