Being "right"

There’s this mediation practice in Buddhism called metta (lovingkindness). In it, you wish health and happiness on all beings, starting first with yourself, then those close to you, those neutral to you (like the mailman or grocer) and finally with your enemies. The idea is to expand your full circle of compassion toward all living things. Everyone deserves compassion, because they are all worthy just by virtue of existing, even the people you hate. Metta is a little bit like the Buddhist version of unconditional love – loving someone without expectations of getting anything in return.

Sharon Salzberg has an article in Tricycle where she explains how when doing metta practice, it is especially valuable to do it toward one you feel neutral about, because when you know someone (either as a friend or an enemy) your biases about that person and their situation creep in, but with a neutral person, you are forced to face them as they truly are. I have seen the wisdom of her advice from my own experience, as I find myself wishing, for example, that so and so might have health and happiness, then catch myself with underthoughts, like “if only she would see that her health would improve if she quit gluten/alcohol/sugar,” (or whatever I personally happen to think would help that person). With a neutral person, I don’t know enough about them to inject my personal opinion into the wish for their happiness, so I can wish for their happiness in a more pure-hearted way.

After going through this experience with metta I began to wonder: Why is it so hard for us to set aside our biases and our need to be right? We might think are helping someone, when what do we really, truly know?

And I think it comes down to exactly that: we don’t know.

You’ve probably heard stories about people who suffer hardship that turns out to be a blessing in disguise.  With that in mind, how do I really know for sure that my “help” (in real life or in meditation) is helpful? In fact I could be hurting people with my “help.” I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Wishing my mother-in-law would not vote for Mitt Romney, because his policies would set the lives of her granddaughters back several decades in terms of equal rights, doesn’t really help anyone. What do I know? Maybe 4-8 years of Romney in the White House will cause sideline liberals to finally get up and fight for their rights, and in a decade we will actually be better off for it. Maybe another 4 years of Obama will cause liberals to go back to watching YouTube cat videos instead of signing petitions, and in a decade, we’ll be back to the prejudicial 1950’s cultural wasteland before anyone knew what hit them. (I am fully aware of the prejudices I'm expressing with these sentences, yes. :) )

So I aim to set my ego aside as much as I can (easier said than done), and just watch and wait and see. More and more I'm seeing how pointless it is to worry about the future. Maybe I need to do an article on that...