Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘We’re coming up on the 250th anniversary of 1776, of the Declaration of Independence and the revolution. And this was one of the core points of the revolutionary generation: that we’re not different, we’re not special, and that it’s incumbent on us to actively try to be better. To actively try and work to build a different kind of society.

And obviously their efforts were chock-full of all kinds of hypocrisies. You don’t need to tell me about them. I live down the street from Thomas Jefferson. I get it. And yet, that insight and intuition, which seems basic but true, that we are not different, that we are subject to the same temptations, and that part of the work of being a citizen in a representative government — whether you want to call it a democracy or a republic — part of our obligations are to be mindful of our temptations and our weaknesses and do everything we can to mitigate them, both in the building of our institutions and in how we interact and live together as just people in this world.’ (from the New York Times)