"The Myth of Fingerprints"

I've always loved this lyric by Paul Simon from the song "All Around The World" on his Graceland album:

It was the myth of fingerprints
I've seen them all and man
They're all the same

Gen Jampa taught the same concept, in very different words, in his public talk at the Olympic Sculpture Park last week. I'm loosely paraphrasing here, but he said that we tend to emphasize our differences with others, grouping people into all kinds of different categories, which often makes us feel separate from them. Sometimes we even think, "I don't understand them at all." If we examine very carefully, we can see fine differences in the loops, whorls and arches of someone's print, just we can distinguish different superficial characteristics of different beings, but in essence we are all the same, in that we all want to be happy and to be free from suffering.
When we cherish others, we consider them important. Gen Jampa told us that we can respectfully disagree with someone politically, but we can find agreement in thinking they are important. Because they agree with that, we have found some common ground, on the most important matter : )