What is the difference between appearance and reality, between perception and truth, between fact and interpretation? There is more to things than meets the eye. As the bumper sticker says, "Don't believe everything you think."
The human mind loves distinctions, comparisons, contrasts. It makes sense of exerience by comparing the yin and the yang, the right with the left, the light with the dark, the loud with the silent, the sweet with the sour, the pain with the pleasure.
While these distinctions seem "real", they are really only a part of the whole, a component of the overall process we call life, or God.
Jesus said we should love our enemies, and the Buddha said we should acknowledge our suffering and strive to be happy, and as the bumper sticker says, in an irreverent way that makes us laugh, "Shit Happens!"
The wise person knows that whatever we exerience whether joy or sorrow, whether triumph or defeat, whether great pleasure or great pain, this too shall pass.
We should strive to become aware of the underlying Tao, the Oneness of God, the awareness of enlightenment.
The 7th principle/value of Unitarian Universalism is "The respect for the independent web of all existence of which we are a part." This respect involves the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the blessed and the evil. This respect also involves great humility which is a hallmark of wisdom which teaches us that much of what happens to us in life surpasses our limited mortal understanding.
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