In this issue:
One aspect of the Zen term koan is
“any spiritual barrier or fundamental question in one’s training
which one needs to face, penetrate, clarify, and transcend…in Soto
Zen the emphasis is on the naturally arising koans of everyday
life.”[1]
For many years I have been working on the koan of righteous
indignation that arises in my daily life. In the years
that I have been teaching in Seattle I have noticed that many others
have this same “spiritual barrier or fundamental question” which
needs to be “faced, penetrated, clarified, and transcended.” In this
article I will examine aspects of righteous indignation and
how we might work on this common problem.
First, let’s look at dictionary definitions
of the terms. A definition I found for righteous: “arising
from an outraged sense of justice or morality.” A definition for
indignation: “strong displeasure at something considered
unjust, offensive or insulting; anger or annoyance provoked by what
is perceived as unfair treatment.”
When a feeling of righteous indignation
arises because of perceived offenses or insults directed toward
oneself, it could be called “self-righteous indignation.”
Because it is the egocentric self that feels hurt, not our Buddha
Nature, our True Self. For myself, I have always been sensitive to
others who try to control me or act superior to me. The ironic thing
is, when I get caught up in this attitude I become the same kind of
person that I have a problem with. I get superior to these folks in
my own way and my heart hardens towards them. In reacting this way I
break the precept to “not be proud of yourself and devalue others,”
not to mention the precept against anger. And as we know from
experience, breaking Precepts causes suffering.
A few years ago I had righteous indignation
come up in a big way. I hardened towards some politicians and got
quite angry with them. At the same time, I had an attitude that my
spiritual practice is better than other forms. My meditation
and mindfulness of the Precepts helped me to catch myself and
realize what I was doing. I called for the help of the Eternal in
pure meditation, and by opening myself to Its nonjudgmental purity,
compassion, and immaculacy I was able to let go of this attitude and
in turn move away from the suffering it caused me.
And it is our suffering that lets us know
we’re going down the wrong road. The teaching says that as our
spiritual dis-ease comes up, most of us habitually try to cure it with greed,
hate (anger) and delusion. I have found for myself that it is a bit
easier to see the suffering caused by greed: I always get in some
kind of trouble (e.g., eat too much and get sick, do too much of
something and get burned out). With hate-anger I get headaches and
just feel lousy. Delusion can make it much harder to see the
suffering because we think we are right and support it with strong
and inflexible opinions. And this one-sidedness blinds us to seeing
everything and everybody as having the True Nature, the Buddha
Nature, the Eternal. Delusion is full of pride even when we don’t
see it, which I have experienced in myself after I am able to catch
myself in this delusion. Also we really have to be mindful of this
kind of self-righteous delusion because it can manifest at any time.
I had it manifest towards my teacher and some friends at different
times. I see in others how it can manifest with family members and
spouses and partners. This delusion has caused much suffering for
many.
What about righteous indignation that arises from seeing the suffering of others? It’s interesting to me that, when inspired by the suffering of others, righteous indignation is actually based in a sense of sympathy and empathy. And as we train ourselves, that sense of sympathy and empathy becomes stronger and more painful. In one of her talks collected in Roar of the Tigress, Vol. I, Rev. Master Jiyu observes that
Any time someone, whether a lay member of the sangha or a priest member of the sangha, tries to do something about themselves they will find themselves burdened with other people’s grief unless they really know that they themselves are not the Cosmic Buddha and that there is nothing in them that is not of the Cosmic Buddha…. The deeper we go into meditation, the more suffering becomes apparent, therefore the more important it is that our faith shall deepen and we shall learn to recognize the little golden moments that point the way to the Cosmic Buddha. We have to stop trying to hold on to being able to do something ourselves about that very suffering. For we can do nothing of ourselves, if “we” are in the way. If all we see is suffering, we ourselves are in the way. And if we are in the way, we cannot see the Cosmic Buddha working through it. This is a very, very hard lesson to learn. (223, my emphasis)
Suffering results for ourselves and others
when we think we know what and who is “right,” and what and
who is “wrong.” That is putting ourselves in the place of the Cosmic
Buddha and thinking we understand the big picture when we really
only have bits and pieces.
It turns out that Rev. Master Jiyu herself experienced righteous indignation early in her training. In another talk in Roar of the Tigress the topic is community involvement and someone says, “I have a difficult time deciding what the most compassionate action might be when I feel a lot of anger over things that are inflicted on people.” And Rev. Master responds,
I asked that question of the Kanin (the Director or Prior) of Sojiji, and I got mad as heck at him when he told me that the only answer, the only real answer, was all-acceptance and education. (230-31)
No doubt like many of us, she was decidedly unpersuaded by this answer. But she was a good trainee and
went off and I meditated on it and I thought about it. What other alternative is there? Yes, it’s lousy, but unless there is constant work toward education and mutual acceptance on the part of all sides, it will remain lousy. Just killing people off, or putting people in jail or doing all this sort of forcing of things, is only going to make it worse, because it’s going to make tempers get hotter; they’re going to flare higher…. But acting out of anger or righteous indignation isn’t the answer. It’s just very sad, and acceptance and education really are the key. (231)
So how are we to respond to the suffering that hurts our hearts?
So many people feel that “getting into a flap” over something is to get involved in it, but it’s not. To be truly involved is to be doing something wholeheartedly and yet to recognize one’s own limitations. Not to try to do everything oneself, not to try to do the impossible, is to be concerned but not emotionally involved. Do not allow emotion to become the central theme of your life; do not be a slave to it. Emotion is important, but do not become emotional. There’s nothing wrong with emotion—everyone feels emotion—but to become emotional is quite a different thing. To become emotional is to become so wrapped up in something that you can’t see beyond it, and you can’t really work with it. Not only can you not see beyond it, you can see no way out, ’round, or under it. And then you go into anger or despair because of it. Frequently, people are so overwhelmed by what is going on that they cannot see beyond it, and that is called “to become emotional” in Buddhism. (226)
Actions precipitated by emotionalism tend to be thoughtless and impulsive, and usually leave behind them a karmic “wake.” As Rev. Master says, we must recognize our own limitations, and one of the best ways is to be mindful of the influence the emotions have on our actions of body, speech, and thought. Since acting on emotional impulses tends to break Precepts, keeping the Precepts in mind really helps us catch ourselves before acting impulsively.
This world is not a perfect place. And we can find true Perfection when we can perceive all seeming imperfections as Perfections—in other words, when we can recognize the Immaculate Flow of the Eternal in everything. When we live in this place we can let righteous indignation dissipate within this cleansing flow, and we can move from suffering into peace.
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1Editor’s note in Roar of the Tigress: The Oral Teachings of Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett Western Woman and Zen Master, Volume I, Shasta Abbey Press. Page number references in this article are to this edition.