Slogan #38

Don't seek others' pain as the limbs of your own happiness.

This slogan is a study of human behaviour—when we feel wronged or hurt by someone, we can feel gleeful when calamity strikes. We may even imagine doing a “ain’t karma a bitch” happy dance on their grave! Like the other slogans, #38 requires both humor and compassion in order to investigate our relationships with attention and care. Pema Chodron wrote about her personal understanding of this slogan: “We are glad when the troublemakers in our lives get hit by a truck or go bankrupt, or anything of that nature. I have a few people in my life who fall into this category, and I’m amazed at how happy I am when one of them writes me a letter and tells me that things are going badly. Conversely, I feel haunted by distaste when I hear that things are going well for them. There’s still the memory of how they hurt me, and I wish they would just continue to go downhill and drop dead, painfully.”

Like Pema, you will benefit from the knowledge about your specific modus operandi; what are the ways that you put yourself first above all others? What are your secret wishes for your enemies? Do you dream about exacting revenge, taking advantage of their misfortunes, of exploiting their weaknesses? Awareness precedes compassionate action so be curious about your thought patterns and have the courage to be honest about them, at least to yourself. Can you bear witness to your stuck places?

At a systemic level, Slogan #38 is about taking advantage of others in order to maintain our wealth and privilege. It could also be applied to our attitude toward the earth; how do we take advantage of its suffering? Compassion is a call to action and real compassion is not selective. How do privilege and power impact your life and what are your steps towards social justice, equity, and safer spaces? I love this quote by Ruth King: “Life is not personal, permanent, or perfect” which is her contemporary translation for the universal truths of selflessness, impermanence, and suffering (or “shit happens”).

“Happiness, then, is the confidence that pain and disappointment can be tolerated, that love will prove stronger than aggression.”

Mark Epstein