When goaded, 

not fighting back takes courage. 

When surrounded by people with nothing to lose looming over you, their barely suppressed anger radiating off them in waves as they goad you into fighting back, it takes courage to remain composed, and not retaliate. Courage. Not a word we usually associate with the Buddha’s teachings. Perhaps we should. It takes courage—steadfastness in the face of fear—to forgive when wronged, to respect when derided, persist when overwhelmed, and, yes, stand peacefully when goaded. We need courage to overcome our fear of being unworthy of the trust the Buddhas and our teachers have placed in us, and courage to overcome our fear of trusting the Buddhas and our teachers. Our fear is yet one more obstacle to overcome. We need to remind ourselves, if the man in the above account could be face up to and overcome his fear, how can we, experiencing far more favorable conditions, do less? 

Too often, 

we not only repeat our mistakes, 

we seem to be trying to perfect them.

Anything worthwhile takes time, patience, and attention; call it stick-to-itiveness. The same holds true for correcting our mistakes. We need to keep chipping away at them like a sculptor steadily working on a block of marble, eliminating the useless bits to reveal the perfection within. Like the sculptor chiseling away every day, we too need to keep chipping away at our faults, even when we don’t feel like it. This must be easier said than done because those who know us might well declare that not only are we not cutting down our mistakes, we seem to be refining them, like the sculptor polishing his finished statue. We need to follow his example and do things in order, daily finding and eliminating faults. Initially, we will make little progress. But as we improve, we will flake off larger and larger faults until, finally, we reveal the perfection within ourselves.

When about to complain,

remember “That’s my karma.”

Unappealing events assail us all the time. When they do, it can be very tempting to grumble, “Why me?” To which we might raise an eyebrow and query, “Who else? Everything that happens to us is a consequence of the causes we created, the seeds we planted. Having planted onion seeds last year in our flower beds, it would be silly to wander out the back door of our house this year and demand, “What are all those onions doing in my flower beds!” We planted them. No one snuck in under cover of darkness and sowed those seeds in our impregnable back yard. We’re the only person in the universe who can plant seeds in our private garden. No one else. Similarly, no one else can tend our garden. Planting, watering, fertilizing, and weeding depend on us alone. So the next time something unexpected pops up in the garden of our life, we can wisely nod and acknowledge, “Yup. That’s my karma.”

Before attempting to fix the issues around us,

we need to fix those inside us

Our underlying aspiration is to help all beings end their suffering. A noble goal. But before we can hope to fix even small problems in the world, we need to fix the problems within us. How can I tell others how to resolve their conflicts when anger still smolders within me? How can I end discrimination when I view everything in terms of like and dislike, smiling at some while ignoring others? How can I resolve ecological issues when I squander natural resources and treat Earth like a garbage dump? How can I correct government corruption and deceit when I avoid paying taxes and am not truthful with my family and co-workers. Until we clean our own house, people will not listen to us when we tell them how to clean theirs. And why should they? We influence others through our behavior. Yes, words are important, but they need to be supported by actions. And if our actions are altruistic and pervasive, words can become unnecessary.

Before correcting someone,

determine why they’re acting as they are. 

Most of us would probably agree that just because some people act differently from the way we do, they’re not necessarily wrong. At least we know it intellectually. Emotionally, in light of the judgmental opinions rattling around our head, we still believe those people are wrong. If we recall something that just happened and how we viewed it, we will realize how many of our thoughts are still critical. Having felt exasperated, disappointed, bewildered, shocked, we blamed others for not having acted correctly; correctly being defined as how we would have acted. By learning why people conducted themselves as they did, we will better understand their actions. Maybe we will realize that what they did wasn’t wrong after all. Just different. So in those situations when we do need to correct someone—an employee, a child, someone who requests our guidance—we first need to learn what prompted their behavior.