From SGI USA, I'm Cassidy Bradford and this is Budability.

The weekly series where I talk with Buddhists from all walks of life about the power we each have to change our lives and the world around us.

It's Friday night and your friends come by your place to catch up over dinner.

You're all ready to dish about the week you've had.

Your toxic manager, a bad date, a fight with a friend.

It's totally natural to want to get things off our chest and to process stuff with our friends. It can be super cathartic, but what happens after the catharsis? After feeling

better in the moment, you've still got to face your boss tomorrow and the fight with your

friend isn't resolved. If we get stuck in a spot of complaint,

it's easy to let the one thing we dislike about someone become their entire identity.

We don't leave much space for the depth of their humanity.

It's so easy to villainize people close to us, let alone those far away.

When we take a step back from the interpersonal, this kind of demonization extends to

larger conversations about society and culture.

Your TikTok is filled with hate for Taylor Swift's new album criticizing her and her fans.

Or if you're on the other end, praising the album like there's

no tomorrow. Or is that just me? Of course, this is a lighthearted pop culture example, but

it illustrates how easy it is to get sucked into an echo chamber of our own views, flattening real

people into caricatures.

That dehumanization, no matter how small, leads to increasing divisiveness and misery in the world.

As Buddhists, our goal is to bring people together, enable them to live happy and fulfilling lives, and create a peaceful

society. Nietzran Buddhism teaches that the function of evil is to divide, while the function of good

is to unite. It's tough to do this when we feel like there are villains all around us.

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