Bodhisattva

Where do we learn the delicate art of thinking our life is more precious than our neighbor’s?

Is it in the pews of a church, holy rollers preaching that our dogma confers upon us some unquestionable superiority?

Could it be our own parents, caring for us like a precious gem from the day we were suddenly forced into consciousness?

Perhaps it is some deep dark thing within us, Freud’s Id, the constant thumping drumbeat of self-obsessed desire.

How can I cause this unwelcome part of me to come suddenly, thoroughly, upon a beautiful, mournless death?

Where may I address it— packaged tightly in paper, tied up using too much twine— to be certain it will be forever lost along the way?

How can I be entirely sure that the thought will never cross my mind again, that my life carries greater eternal weight

than that of a friend, a stranger, a bird, water, air?