Think On Purpose

I see Pema Chödrön is getting dragged again, this time for her appearance on The Ezra Klein Show. The criticism goes something like this: Chödrön and Klein present Buddhist meditation as a way of accepting oppression rather than resisting it.

I find these critiques tiring. First, they’re based on a caricature: that Chödrön believes people should simply submit to their oppression. That’s clickbait, not serious engagement.

More importantly, the critiques confuse two different kinds of acceptance. It’s one thing to justify or normalize a system that causes suffering. It’s another to accept that the system exists long enough to understand its deeper causes and discover how to act effectively within it. Without that second kind of acceptance, action remains rooted in delusion.

What are the deeper causes of suffering? In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire argued that domination survives partly because the oppressed internalize their oppressors’ habits of mind. Liberation can therefore never be purely outward. Unless we examine our own thinking, those internalized habits will lead us back toward the very structures of domination we claim to oppose.

Take rage. Like water at a rolling boil, rising only to fall back into the same pot, rage often drives us to act in ways that leave us more disempowered, more codependent, and living lives that would make our oppressors rejoice. Perhaps there are times when heated conflict is skillful. But the point is: actually look. Look at what your rage is doing to you and where it's taking you. Don’t just claim it's setting you free.

The essence of the Buddha’s teachings is this: think on purpose. Before following a thought, he said, ask whether it leads toward your liberation or the liberation of others. If it doesn’t, then no matter how radical, enticing, or morally righteous it feels, you have to let it go.

There’s nothing passive about that. And nothing more revolutionary.

As always, if you’d like to be held through your own process, contact me and we’ll set up a free sample coaching call.