No Blame

A glimpse into the misunderstandings & inversions of our reality

This over-caffeinated Saturday morning, I find myself thumbing through the pages of my 25th-anniversary edition of the Tao Te Ching as translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. It’s a beautiful version, illustrated entirely in black and white, both photography and brush and ink. This was a book I kept from my very first Eastern philosophy class as an undergrad at the University of New Mexico, over 20 years ago.

Somehow, after all this time, I finally read the intro, written by cosmologist Rowena Pattee Kryder. And it’s blowing my everlasting mind with how perfectly (divinely?) timed these words are for me:

The “Way” is infinitely compassionate, supporting and nurturing even in our ignorance, but we cannot truly be wholly nourished until we forgive ourselves our mistakes along the way and thus cease blaming others for our wounds.

And then I found this:

I laughed out loud. In my experiences, I have come to see both the brilliance and the folly of our logical mind, and especially our culture’s dogged preference and privilege of it over sense perception and lived experience.

I laughed because it occurs to me that we have this backward and upside-down. There are many inversions in our reality, which can make us feel like Alice lost in the rabbit hole. I have this feeling often.

Given what I have seen, felt, experienced, and come to understand, it is feeling and intuitive thought that are objective and logical thought that is subjective. This very simple misunderstanding we live under is the cause of so much division and suffering.

A clue to this is encoded in the Metta prayer. When we boil it all down, all humans everywhere throughout time immemorial have desired a few basic things: Peace, Safety, the opportunity for Happiness, and the chance to be Free from the causes of suffering. Along with the Golden Rule, it’s as close to a human universal as I can imagine.

Truly, it’s that simple.

It’s not about convincing everyone of how right we are about...well...anything: vaccines, abortion, zoning laws, human rights, Democrat versus Republican, less filling versus tastes great, or whatever mind-based dualities we see fit to conjure. As the adage goes, “Would you rather be right, or be happy?” Being right does not bring Peace, Safety, Happiness, or Freedom. It brings dominance, control, competition, and pecking orders. When we act from a place of rightness, we use force and manipulation to achieve our goals. And this is the essence of what Buddhists call “violence.”

When I, as an individual, stop seeking external validation for being right, the world stops arguing with me.  When I connect with others, no matter how different they may seem from me, over the shared desire for Peace, Safety, Happiness, and Freedom, then we experience shared harmony and coherence.

That, my friends, is the closest thing to objectivity I can fathom. And to paraphrase the great Martin Luther King Jr.—the logical mind, for all of its intricate miraculous construction and utility, simply cannot accomplish Peace. Or Safety. Or Happiness and Freedom.

Only the Heart can do that.

I’m reminded of something lovely I’ve seen floating around the interwebs. It is said to be a traditional Náhuatl prayer, and I’ve poked around to verify, but haven’t been able to. It may be one of those New Age repackagings, but whatever the case, the spirit of it has deeply touched me, and so I share it here with you.

I release my parents from the feeling that they have failed with me.
I release my children from the need to make me proud, so that they can write their own ways, according to their hearts.
I release my partner from the obligation to make me feel complete.

I lack nothing in myself.
I learn with all the beings that surround me through all time.
I thank my grandparents and ancestors who met so that today I breathe life.

And I release them from the faults of the past and from the wishes they did not fulfill, aware that they did the best they could to resolve their situations, within the consciousness they had at that moment.

I honor them, I love them, and I recognize their innocence.
I bare my soul before their eyes and that is why they know that I do not hide or owe anything, more than being faithful to myself and my own existence walking with the wisdom of the heart.

I am aware that I am fulfilling my life project, free of visible and invisible family loyalties that may disturb my peace and my happiness, which are my greatest responsibilities.

I renounce the role of savior, of being the one who unites or who fulfills the expectations of others. And learning through LOVE, I bless my essence and my way of expressing, although there may be someone who cannot understand me.

I understand myself, because only I lived and experienced my story; because I know myself, I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it.

I respect and approve.
I honor the Divinity in me and in you.

We are free.