57. I Wish It On Myself

When someone harms another, I demand justice. If justice does not come and the wrongdoer continues to do harm, I might then wish for the wrongdoer to also experience harm.

I wish for this because I feel the wrongdoer should suffer just as his victims have suffered. I see him as my enemy. I want him to pay for his crimes. I want retribution. I want it so much, I become blind to how this wanting itself can harm me.

The desire for vengeance and the need for justice are not the same thing. Desire can consume me through obsessive attachment and dominate my actions in ways that produce even more pain and suffering. Most importantly, when I satisfy my desire for vengeance by responding to harm with further harm, I perpetuate the cycle of violence.

The person I have declared my enemy is also me. For all living beings are part of a continuous whole. The distinction between myself and the other is not a binding or final truth but rather a convention I impose. And since the other is also me, when I wish harm on anyone, I wish it on myself. It may not arrive today or even tomorrow, but it will come. The cycle will continue.

Anyone who does wrong is flawed in much the same way as I am flawed. For like me, the awareness of the other is not total or complete. The difference between us is that he is ignorant of the harm he is presently causing. To meet the need for justice, I must work to eliminate not just this particular ignorance but all ignorance. And not only in the other — for this might not be possible in practice — but in myself, as well.

To create justice, I have to see everything clearly. When I see clearly, I refuse to allow myself to contribute to further harm. When I see clearly, I understand that the system of power and hierarchy — the one we have built on the false premise it will protect us — only serves to produce an endless stream of suffering. When I see clearly, I know that each individual act of wrongdoing is also a product of this constructed system that is itself unjust.

With this clarity, I will always see the need to reduce ignorance and expand awareness. I will be motivated to act from compassion, which means I will work to meet the needs of myself and others, including the need for justice. Instead of wasting my energy wishing harm on those who have done wrong, I will help to create a more just world with my every act.