Who Is Responsible?

The injustice and violence woven into our society has been starkly visible this past week. First with the murder of George Floyd, then with the heartfelt and sometimes violent reactions that have now gone on for days and days in cities across the country. It’s not that we didn’t know life was difficult for others, but the degree of suffering and rage at the ‘normal’ injustices is often hidden from many of us. Those of us who have the status and power and privilege to do so can choose the issues we pay attention to. But the privileges of life in America are not equally distributed. Being born into a family of color struggling to get by is different than being born into a white family of privilege.

Of course everyone struggles and every one of us participated in creating the reality we live in. But the truth on the ground is that the materials we have to work with are vastly different depending on our birth. Both environment and personal attributes work together to shape our lives. How can we account for the immense differences of birth and natural gifts that humans are born into? Why was I born into a family where it was just assumed that I would go to college and succeed and not a family caught up in a cycle of drug abuse and violence? Why was born in this country and not somewhere else? Why is one person born with physical or mental limitations and another with great capacities that lead to great accomplishments?

Traditional Buddhists explain this painful mystery through the teaching of karma and past lives. The teaching of reincarnation holds that we are each born multiple times and our current life circumstance—being born a beggar or a prince—is simply what we deserve from our actions in our past lives. The gift of this perspective is that it allows you to accept the inalterable conditions of your life and turn toward living fully where you are—whether that is in a situation of great difficulty or great ease—or somewhere in between.

The problem with the theory of reincarnation (aside from its unprovability) is that it easily leads toward a complacency when looking at the injustices and inequities of the world around us. If someone is poor and has had few options in their life, even if they suffer greatly at the hands of others, it’s really their fault—they must have behaved badly in a previous lifetime.

I do believe there are consequences to all our actions – even to our words and thoughts. But I can only understand and accept the teachings of karma on a much smaller scale. In this moment, everything I encounter is my karma—is what my life is. To complain that it should be otherwise or it is unfair may be natural, but it is not the direction I want to put my energy.

From this perspective, those of us with the privileges of whiteness and economic status have to take responsibility for the fires burning in the streets—for the rage and anguish of people who have been oppressed and targeted by the very system that supports our comfortable houses and nice gardens. This is our world. We are part of the injustice in ways that are mostly hidden from our awareness.

How can we open our hearts to the experience of others that is truly different than what we know? How can we, in these troubled days, listen to the cries of pain and anguish without turning away and without blaming someone else? How can we use the privileges and resources we have to change the very fabric of the world we live in?

Personal Practice – Notice, as you move through your day, how often you blame others for what arises in you and how often you complain about your circumstances. This may be very subtle and infrequent or it may be nearly constant. As blaming and complaining arise, notice the impact of these natural human forms of reactivity. Notice how we can so easily become lost in our images of how the world and others ‘should be.’ Once or twice, when these feeling and thoughts arise, consider what it might be like to meet your immediate situation without judgment. What if this isn’t anyone’s fault? Not mine. Not yours. Consider the perspective that this is just what is happening and you get to chose what to do next.