“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 fertilizer, 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

“We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society.

It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others…. Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”

~Pema Chödrön

“They blame those who remain silent, they blame those who speak much, they blame those who speak in moderation. There is none in the world who is not blamed.”

~Gotama Buddha, from the Dhammapada, verse 227.

 

Dear Friends,

It’s another breathtakingly beautiful day in New England with blue skies and mild weather. While natural disasters and human-engineered disasters are affecting much of the country and the world, those living in the Northeast can escape some extreme weather and suffering, but there is always the internal landscape of habitual suffering to work with. That is our weather pattern we carry with us. We all have conditioned habits and triggers that bring us into reactive habits of mind. One habit that is particularly deadly is the habit of blame. In many households or workplaces, when something is unpleasant, broken, or perceived as wrong, the first question is always, “Who did this?” There is an immediate vigilante hunt for the perpetrator and an assignment of blame.    

Blaming cuts off compassion, compassion for self and for others. Blaming also leads to battles. There is a difference between responsibility and blame. Not blaming does not mean we allow harm and cruelty to happen. We have a responsibility to act with compassion for ourselves and all beings. We also have the ability to utilize loving speech. Blame is never spoken with love, gentleness, or kindness. Blaming always seeks to punish and separates us from them. We can be innocent, blameless, and just, while they are bad, thoughtless, or just mistaken. Blaming does not help the one who assigns blame or the one who is blamed. Blaming is a sure way to increase defensiveness, shame and create an unsafe environment. If there is blame in a relationship, there is always anger. If there is blame as work, there is resistance and fear.

The Buddha said over 2,500 years ago that we are all subject to blame. There will always be praise and blame because blame is a basic defensive response to threat. If we are guiltless, we are safe. Blame protects us on an elementary survival level. Blame is like any other mental formation. The first step in releasing ourselves and others from the damage of blame is to notice. When we are blamed, we can notice, how does it feel?

 In my experience, being blamed is intensely painful, both physically and mentally. We can begin to shift our painful feelings, by trying to stay with the response to blame as sensation, to look with curiosity at the energy in our skin, the tightness in the body, perhaps the rush of adrenaline. We can pull ourselves back from our ingrained habitual response of defending, freezing, or collapsing. Do we try to appease, or lash out and blame someone else? Conversely, we can notice if we tend to blame others. Do we look for the people who caused whatever political upheaval that is happening now and separate ourselves out with hatred and condemnation? Do we spend time finding fault with others who we believe complicate our lives? What is our blame strategy? Perhaps we save all the blame for ourselves?

When we remember the Buddha’s teaching of the Five Keys for Right Speech, “It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will.” We will know how to speak to ourselves and to others, with open hearts, humility, and kindness, free from blame.

May we all trust our light,

Celia