As human beings we're exactly the same. But the many layers of labels prevent other people from seeing you as a human being. Thinking of yourself as or calling yourself a Buddhist ...or Christian, Jewish or Muslim can be a disadvantage.This can be an important part of your identity, but it is not the whole of who you are. People are caught in these notions and images, and they cannot recognize each other as human beings. The practice of peeling away all the labels so that the human being can be revealed is truly a practice for peace. (From: Answers from the Heart).
He could just as easily be speaking about many other and equally powerful labels we give one another: white/black/Asian, skinny/fat, old/young and so many more that become powerful by being laden with years/centuries of emotional burden. Difference/otherness seems to be so overwhelming in us sometimes that as he says, we don't see each other as human beings, as people more like us than unlike us.
He didn't mention the labels we give ourselves but I suspect they are just as powerful. If we see ourselves as stupid, ugly, too short, too tall, too whatever... we don't see ourselves as fully human. We sell ourselves far short of the reality of who we are.
The spiritual writer Henri J. M. Nouwen, in a talk he gave, spoke about the ways we seek our identity. He pointed out three ways we tend to 'value' and identify ourselves; ways that really don't touch the core of who we are. The three ways he says we most often value ourselves are 1) by what we do 2) by what others think about us and 3) by what we have.
When you think about what Henri is saying there seems truth both in what he identifies and in the insubstantiality of them. We know from our own experience that what we do is often quickly forgotten; that what others think about us can change from moment to moment and that what we have disappears quickly or loses its value and is just as quickly replaced by something else.
What Henri and I think Thich Nhat Hanh are saying, is that there is something much deeper and much truer at the heart of who we are. Henri puts it very simply: that our truest identity is that we are the beloved daughters and sons of God. Although that is not always easy to believe it is in fact the heart of our reality. What Thich Nhat Hanh then says is that when we strip away what is not our reality we will be much more able to live in peace with one another.
That is all so hopeful.
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