View From the Top > Esteemed Reader

Blame
Keeps the sad game going.
It keeps stealing all your wealth—
Giving it to an imbecile with
No financial skills.
Dear one,
Wise
Up.
—Hafiz "The Sad Game,"
from The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Yield, yield.
—aphorism

Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:

I am dumbfounded by the horrors my representative government is inflicting in my name. To be specific, these horrors include: the brutal and unnecessary invasion that has claimed the lives and limbs and homes of thousands of innocents; our government’s intentional sacking of a museum featuring the artifacts of the cradle of civilization; their wanton destruction of a society’s infrastructure; their hubristic claim to the right to choose the victim nation’s educational (read: indoctrination) system; and the lies I am so disrespectfully fed and expected to believe. These arouse revulsion and nausea if I dwell on the implications.

I see that I am angry, hurt, scared, insulted. I see that I am blaming. And I see that what I see in myself is more of the same kind of violence; that I am a hypocrite because all my blaming and criticizing and complaining is as violent as the objects of my ire.

Violence, from the Latin for “an injury or irreverence”, is always rooted in ignorance. In violence we ignore what is before us. We fail to heed the delicate balance of factors and instead resort to force.
Violence is never necessary, always a crime. It is the violation of the subtle pattern of forces that pervade the universe—what Buddhism calls the Dharma.

Violence is the result of our worst weaknesses. The weakness can be laziness—failing to make the requisite effort to understand another person or people—or it can be the result of greed—lust for money, power, oil. To be sure, violence is tempting, and its forms can be extremely subtle and multifarious. The ubiquity of violence is astounding, and yet elusive in the moment, as it always appears to be a justifiable means to achieve our ends.

Fundamentally, any kind of interference is violence. We violate whenever we obstruct or derail the process of the fulfillment of someone’s or something’s possibilities. That is why nonviolence requires such vigilance, such wakefulness. It requires that we stay awake to what is before us and persist in the discomfort of our anger, frustration, outrage—even boredom—and continue to pay attention; continue to listen. It is our listening, leaving off confrontation and argument, that makes peaceful response possible. There is a way of reconciling any situation. We only need the patience to allow it to become apparent.

A person stops me on the street to talk, but I am in a hurry. I am tempted to half-listen and get on my way. If I am practicing nonviolence I stop and listen. Or someone tells me the truth about a fault or weakness. I am tempted, as the British say, to “deny and counter-accuse”. But if I am practicing, I listen, consider the criticism, and acknowledge its veracity.

The most insidious forms of violence are accomplished with the tongue. Criticism is lethal. It tears down what we find reprehensible without supporting what is good. Steadfast watchfulness is all that can prevent this destructive use of speech. And then, instead of criticizing, we can praise. For there is always something to praise.
Blame, too, is violent, for it not only interferes with others’ processes but also our own. Blame prevents us from finding the true cause of our suffering. It externalizes the cause of our woes, when the source is always rooted in some variation of pride or vanity within. We mistakenly believe that our strength lies in our pride or feeling of self-worth. In blaming, we miss an important opportunity to see ourselves as we are.

In fact, true strength is humble, never forcing, always yielding. Whenever we insist on our way, forcing situations or others to bend to our willfulness, we violate. But you and I can learn to yield, to make ourselves malleable. This doesn’t mean we allow ourselves to get tread underfoot. It means we transcend the master/slave paradigm and step into a disposition that is truly our own.

To be nonviolent is to trade in righteousness for humility. It means that wherever we go we leave nothing but a good impression. It means we are respectful to all. For as the Sufi poet Hafiz so eloquently states, “Everyone is God speaking. Why not be polite and listen to Him?” If you and I can make our every action nonviolent, we can, with our limited means, wage a peaceful war that even tanks and guns and incessant deceptive propaganda will not overcome.

—Jason Stern