You Have To Live With Yourself

During the Vietnam War, Jack Kornfield was staying at a Burmese monastery where he met two Quaker peace activists. One saw Jack meditating and said, “Why are you sitting on your ass while the U.S. bombs villages?” Jack didn’t know what to say, so he kept silent. A week later, the same Quaker approached him and said, “I get it now. You’re trying to be an island of sanity in an ocean of insanity. We could use that.”

Horrible things are happening in the world. The point of spirituality is not to deny this, but to give us tools to face the horrors from a place of sanity. From a Buddhist standpoint, sanity means being able to see our intentions. We need to see that every action we take aims at bringing something into existence.

Too often, however, we react to what is happening without being clear about what we’re aiming at. Like an archer who can’t see his target but shoots anyway, our attempts to change reality can bring about more suffering. A desire for justice can mask a deeper intention to cause harm. A desire for peace can mask a deeper intention to avoid reality.

When we meditate, we see that a lot of our opinions about the world are designed to remove us from it. We imagine looking down on the world from a high place of knowing, because in that way we don’t have to be here on earth, where we are often frightened, confused, and grieving. We don’t want to live with our actual selves.

But you have to live with yourself. Whatever you do, your mind precedes all phenomena: everything you do is shaped by the health or dis-ease of your mind. Not only is it not selfish to take care of your mind, it’s selfish not to.

Someone recently asked: Why should I let go of a resentment when the other person hasn’t apologized? But the other person doesn’t have to live with you. You have to live with you. The question is: What is this resentment doing to your mind? Have the confrontation or don’t. Leave the relationship or don’t. But you can’t get away from yourself.

Jens Krauer, "Self Reflection"