Straighten Yourself

In these difficult times it would be easy to fall into the trap that has us believing that if we just straighten out the world, we will be okay.

This morning, I was revisiting the Dhammapada. For those that might not know, the Dhammapada is arguably the best known and most widely revered text in the Pali Tipitaka, the sacred scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. According to Theravada Buddhist tradition, each verse in the Dhammapada was originally spoken by the Buddha in response to a particular episode the Sangha was experiencing at the time.

This morning, I was on the section titled Attavagga, or The Self. In the translation I was reading, I was captured by verse 159 which stated that “to straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing — straighten yourself.”

This particular line had me reflecting on our current dilemmas. And my responses, or possible responses to them. It also had me reflecting on a recent conversation I had with a friend where they had shared with me their impressions on new discoveries, they had made reading a Pema Chodron book. This friend shared that they were coming to understand that until they could offer themselves compassion, it would be hard to offer the world that same compassion.

The world is crooked right now. Racism, murder, police brutality, toxic politics, seemingly everywhere we might look these days, we see crooked. In these difficult times it would be easy to fall into the trap that has us believing that if we just straighten out the world. We will be okay.

But what is the Buddha asking us to do here?

As someone born into this world as a white hetero CIS male I have learned from racial justice educators that first I must understand how my own whiteness has cause and effect in the world. How I have been raised and conditioned in a system that is racist and patriarchal in nature. And that I have benefited from it and continue to contribute to it. And how my own ignorance, or fragility, keeps me from seeing the problem, or listening to those experiencing these oppression's.

These are all hard things to lean into. But any racial/social justice educator will tell you that we have to do our own learning…