Why “it’s your fault” makes no sense
Solidifying Equanimity
Important: Please fill out this short, anonymous survey to help improve Empty Your Cup (it takes less than a minute).
Click here to open the survey.
Om Sri Gurubhyo Namah. Salutations to all the teachers.
समदु:खसुख: स्वस्थ: समलोष्टाश्मकाञ्चन:|
तुल्यप्रियाप्रियो धीरस्तुल्यनिन्दात्मसंस्तुति:||
samaDukkhaSukhah svaSthah samaLoshtAshmaKanchanah
TulyaPriyaApriyo dhiras tulyaNindatmaSanstutih[The Yogi] remains the same in suffering and happiness, is established in the Self, looks upon a rock and a piece of gold equally, is the same towards the pleasant and the unpleasant, and is equanimous towards blame and praise alike.
- Bhagavad Gita, 14.24Once upon a time, there was a farmer who lived in a small village with his son. One day, while roaming the nearby land, the son found a beautiful, strong horse, and returned to the farm with the horse in tow. Together, the father and son began to take care of the horse, and it was very useful for their day to day work on the farm. Seeing this new horse, the neighbours approached the farmer and said, “What good fortune you have - your son has found this stallion!”
The farmer smiled and responded, “Maybe.”
A few days later, the horse jumped over the fence and ran away. Soon enough, the neighbours approached the farmer and said, “What bad fortune - the horse you had been tending to has now run away!”
The farmer smiled and responded, “Maybe.”
The next day, the son went out to the nearby land, and found the horse with two other stallions. Thinking that they would be useful, he brought all three horses back to the farm. The neighbours approached the farmer once again, saying, “What good fortune you have, you have found three beautiful stallions!”
The farmer smiled and responded, “Maybe.”
The next day, the son was riding one of the new horses, and fell off its back, breaking his leg. The neighbours came by and said to the farmer, “What poor fortune, your son has broken his leg!”
The farmer smiled and responded, “Maybe”
The following week, the kings soldiers came into the village with a message of war. All the young and able-bodied men were to be conscripted into the army. Since the farmer’s son had broken his leg, he was not called up to go to war. Sure enough, the neighbours came by and said to the farmer, “What good fortune you have - your son does not need to go to war!”
The farmer simply smiled and responded, “Maybe.”
In order to truly understand equanimity, we must investigate its opposite (its far enemy) - the twin ideas of blame and praise. As long as praise or blame exist in the mind, equanimity cannot exist. Conversely, as long as equanimity exists in the mind, praise and blame cannot be present. As your equanimity-muscle strengthens, you will start to notice the tendency to blame others reduce, and while you may still praise others for their work, you will understand that it is an oversimplification of a much more complex reality.
In praise and blame, there are three things in common:
The mental layer of judgement (ie. this is good, or this is bad)
Viewing an individual as an accountable agent of their actions (aka free will)
The singling out of one cause from an infinite number of causes.
The mental layer of judgement has been discussed at length in the article on the kleshas. The key thing to remember is that praise and blame depend entirely on the observers view of the situation - do they consider it good or bad? If good, we get praise. If bad, we get blame. A thing in itself is neither good nor bad, it is the tendencies in the mind of the observer that make it so.
The second common factor - individual accountability - will be discussed in more detail when we go over the idea of free will in a future article.
Here, we will discuss the third factor - this is the foundation upon which the ideas of praise and blame rest.
The Mango Tree
Consider the simple example of a mango tree. One might ask the question, “why is this mango tree here?”
“Why” is a question of causation, and so in order to answer this question in a satisfactory way, we must understand the cause of the mango tree’s presence in this particular location.
One might think that this is simple - there was a seed, and so a mango tree grew. This is normally how we act when we praise or blame people - we single out a cause that seems most apparent (or that suits our purpose), and then layer on a judgement based on whether or not the outcome was desirable. If we stop to think for a moment, we can see that statements like praise or blame wilfully ignore the vast majority of causes and conditions that led to an outcome.
To make this more clear, let us consider the facts.
The mango tree in this location is the result of several causes - the seed, the soil, the water, the sunlight, and the safety of the mango tree throughout its life (to name a few). These are the first order of causes. Without any one of them, the mango tree would not be where it is today. All of these causes came together just perfectly for the mango tree to be where it is today. Clearly, the seed by itself was not sufficient, and so to praise the seed would be factually incorrect. At the very least, you’d have to praise the other first order causes as well.
Let’s go a step further, and focus on one of the causes - the seed.
One might ask, why was the seed placed there?
Well, about six or seven years ago, there was a monkey in the area who was eating a mango. Once it finished the mango it was eating, it threw the seed away, and that resulted in the mango tree we see today.
We can go a level deeper. One might ask, “Why did the monkey eat the mango?”
The monkey was hungry.
Why was the monkey hungry?
It had not eaten food for several days.
Why had the monkey not eaten food for several days?
Well, since you ask, there was a clash of the local monkey clans not too long ago, and the other monkey-clan stole this monkey-clan’s food.
Why did they do that?
There has been a long standing enmity between them, and the rival clan was just getting back at them.
Why was there an enmity?
Several years ago, the leader of the rival monkey-clan was killed by the leader of the clan to which this monkey belonged.
Why did this leader kill that leader?
They were fighting over a piece of fruit, and as they were fighting, this leader threw that leader into the river and she drowned.
As you can see, if we keep asking “why”, we can keep going back to the beginning of the Universe (and perhaps even before that!). The depth of causal factors resulting in the mango tree is thus infinite. But this is just one of the primary nodes! We can do this exercise for every single node (primary, secondary, tertiary, etc.) in the chain of events leading to the mango tree’s existence. To make this clear, let us pick another primary node and dig into it.
Why is there a mango tree here?
There was a farmer who saw the mango tree growing, and he has been ensuring its safety from pests.
Why did he ensure its safety?
Because he wanted to make a profit off the mangos.
Why?
Because he wanted to care for his children.
Why?
Because he was raised by his parents to take care of his children above all else.
Why was he raised this way?
Because his parents were taught by their parents.
...and so on down to the end of the line.
Now check this out - we could ask a different question at this same node. Asking a slightly different “why” question at the same node leads to what we will term the breadth of causal factors.
Why was he taught by his parents and not from someone else?
Because his parents taught him everything - there was no school at the time.
Why was there no school?
Because the government had not invested in education in the region.
Why?
Because it was a part of a newly acquired territory at the time.
Why?
Because the old kingdom of which it was a part lost the war.
Why did they lose the war?
Because they didn’t have enough soldiers.
Why didn’t they have enough soldiers?
Because there had been a war previously, and all the young men had died.
Why?
…and so on until the beginning of time.
Note we just picked one node at random to dive into, but we could have done this for any of them. Spreading out into different causal chains from the same node is the breadth of causation. What’s more, the mango tree itself is a link in the chain of infinite future events.
As we can see from this simple example, the depth of causation takes us all the way until the beginning of time, and the breadth of causation eventually encompasses everything in the manifest Universe, all interlocked in an infinite chain of interdependence.
Everything - literally everything - is ultimately dependent on each other, even if it doesn’t seem so upon first glance.
So what does this have to do with praise or blame?
Let’s consider an example to make this clear. Imagine you’re on your way to a dinner party, but you’re running late. This can be a stressful situation. You might be feeling guilty because you promised them you would be on time, perhaps there are feelings of blame as well. Maybe you went to pick up your friend, but they were late - you start to think that it’s their fault. Then you start to ruminate about all the times they’ve been late before, slowly cultivating (bhaavanaa) a feeling of annoyance at their habit of lateness.
Perhaps you have a mental tendency to be hard on yourself - maybe you blame yourself for not having left earlier, for not anticipating the traffic, or for having taken a wrong turn.
At this point, the mind is clouded, and you feel stressed out, and maybe even sad, dejected, or anxious (the accompaniments).
Now let us use the framework of the Brahmavihaaras - the four attitudes.
How would we classify this situation?
It is apunya - a “non-positive” situation. The appropriate attitude to calm the mind in these situations is upeksha, or equanimity.
How should we apply equanimity?
We can apply equanimity by looking at the causes and conditions that led to the event in question (ie. the fact that you are late) without judgement.
Blame is a form of mental laziness (and hence taamasic).
As we go through the causes and conditions, once we land upon something sufficiently “blame-able”, we stop investigating. This could be yourself, someone else, or a situation. In practice, we can notice this mental laziness in ourselves when we find ourselves chalking up the cause of an unwanted situation to unreasonableness, stupidity, bad luck, or general ill will. Sometimes, we may even look to supernatural causes.
Regardless, this very mental laziness, and tendency for simplification is at the root of a lot of interpersonal issues, difficulties with forgiveness, dislike for the “other”, and, at scale, the rise in totalitarian leaders we see around the world today.
On the other hand, with equanimity, you continue to ask “why”, with curiosity and intellectual honesty, and see the person or event as an empty boat rather than as an arbitrary stopping point.
Back to the example - you notice that you are late, and ask why.
Let us list the first order of causes: Your friend was not ready on time, you did not leave earlier, there is traffic on the road, you committed to arriving at a particular time, you took a wrong turn.
There are likely several more, but we can start with these.
Now let us dig in - your friend was not ready on time. Why?
You ask, and you find out that they had to feed their dog.
Why?
The dog was hungry.
Why?
It hadn’t eaten for a few hours.
Why?
Your friend wasn’t home, so wasn’t able to feed it.
Why?
She had gone out to get a gift for the dinner party host.
…and so on to the beginning of time.
You can even repeat this exercise for any of the other first order causes listed. With sufficient curiosity, you will never land on any particular causal factor to lay blame on, and any feelings of anger will dissipate.
Additionally, now that you have a clearer picture of the causes and conditions that led to the unwanted event, you are in a much better position to prevent it from occurring in the future.
P: In this example, what if my friend intentionally chose to sit inside just to ensure we would be late? Should they not be held accountable for their actions?
Jogi: There are two parts to your question - blame and accountability. On the side of accountability - certainly. People can be held accountable for their actions, since they chose to act the way they did. However, with the question of blame, we must also ask why they chose to act that way. When we blame someone we are choosing not to ask this second question, or to deem the answer to be irrelevant.
In the example, your friend was led to her actions by tendencies in her mind. These tendencies came about due to her life experiences - it may have been her parents, her surroundings, her upbringing, her relationship with you, or some combination thereof. What you experienced as her choosing to make you late is simply a playing out of these tendencies in her mind.
P: So isn’t it her fault?
Jogi: Who is to blame for the tendencies in her mind? Her parents? Her surroundings? Her relationship with you? Her teachers?
P: So are you saying there is no free will? She didn’t choose her actions?
Jogi: If a murderer killed someone, and we later find out they had a brain tumour in a specific location of the brain which led them to kill, would they be treated differently?
P: Hmm - I guess it’s not their fault that they had a tumour. Even in the law, defendants can make a plea of insanity.
Jogi: Then why should we treat mental tendencies any differently?
In the story of the empty boat, when the monk opened his eyes and sees that the boat that crashed into his was empty, his anger immediately disappeared. Why was this the case?
Anger requires an actor to be angry with. The monk could have been angry at the waves, or the wind, but this anger would not last since the waves and the wind do not quite feel as blame-able as another human being. Once we assign blame, that is what allows anger to take hold.
Blame is due to a misplacement of causal efficacy onto an arbitrarily narrow locus of action.
When we blame, we are saying “that was the cause”, when it is simply not true. There are always infinite causes, interlocking and intertwining. With blame, we find one, arbitrarily decide on it, forget that we made that choice, and finally pour anger onto it. On the other hand, with the wisdom of equanimity, once we realise that there is no single cause, there can be no anger - what or who will you be angry with?
“He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.”
- Chinese proverb
P: Aren’t equanimity and compassion in opposition to each other?
Jogi: How so?
P: With equanimity, it feels easy to say “there are infinite reasons why this happened, how could we possibly control it?”
In opposition, compassion seems to be about making a change. How can one feel equanimity and compassion together?
Jogi: To clarify, “there are infinite reasons why this happened, and I am one of the many causal factors that can determine the outcome.” Equanimity and compassion are not in opposition to each other - rather they are more effective together. Equanimity is to clearly see the causes and conditions of an effect, including ourselves. Compassion includes the desire to act to reduce or remove suffering. Together, the effect is magnified - acting to remove suffering with an understanding of the causes and conditions that led to it allows us to deal with the situation more effectively than if we did not understand the full picture, although both will independently result in a calm mind when applied in the appropriate context.
To conclude, here are two quotes on this subject to contemplate over the next week:
“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent … you sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees, which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
- Ram Dass
“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertiliser, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet, if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Until next time:
Catch yourself as you are about to blame someone (this could be for any event). This is your opportunity to practice. Don’t suppress it, just acknowledge it and move to step 2.
Consider as many causes and conditions as possible for the event in question, sifting out facts from judgements. Write it down or draw it out if it helps you.
Notice how by blaming the person, you are singling out one causal chain, and stopping at the person. Instead, extend beyond that node in both breadth and depth of causation, asking “why” with curiosity rather than judgement.
As you go through this exercise, notice the feeling in your mind - do you feel more calm?
Next time: Six Techniques: Stabilising exercises to cultivate calm
Wow! Incredible article. Just loved it.