Right & Wrong

You notice that when the Buddha teaches the path, there’s a right path and a wrong path. Sometimes we hear people say that the reason our society is falling apart is because people have very strong opinions about what’s right and wrong. This issue not so much about having a strong idea about right and wrong. The problem is using your ideas of right and wrong in the wrong way. If you use them to beat other people up, then no matter how right you are, that’s wrong.

Look at the precepts—no killing, no stealing. They don’t say that you can kill and steal people who are wrong. No killing. No stealing. At all. In other words, you treat people like human beings, knowing that we’re all wrong in some way. If we were totally right, we’d all be arahants. We’d be free from suffering. The fact that we’re suffering means that there are things wrong in our minds.

But we can get some things right. But when you get something right, and you sense someone else is wrong, you don’t have to get angry about it. You try to be skillful: What is the best way to help that person see that his or her ways of acting are wrong and be willing to change?

So you have to be careful, especially when you’re angry about an issue and you’re confident that you’re right and the other person is wrong. How are you handling right and wrong? Can you handle them in a diplomatic way? Can you handle them in a persuasive way? That’s the right way of dealing with right and wrong.

One of the reasons why we meditate is to help us get out of our anger. When anger arises, you have to remind yourself that when you’re angry, you tend to do stupid things. You feel that your being right gives you special rights. Well, no, it doesn’t. The Buddha has you remember that the nature of human speech is that there’s true speech and untrue speech; timely speech, untimely speech; beneficial, unbeneficial; kind, unkind.

So when you’re faced with false speech, untimely, unbeneficial, unkind speech, it’s not out of the ordinary. This is the nature of human speech. It’s all over the world. You have to figure out how to deal with it in a skillful way. Your being right, as I said, doesn’t give you extraordinary rights. It means that you have to learn how to use your rightness in the correct way.

When you think in these terms, you’re thinking in terms of the need for harmony in the world. Then you’re more likely to handle the issue of right and wrong in a way that’s actually productive and not just divisive. So when you’re angry about something, remind yourself, “I’ve got to get this anger under control.” This is why we step out of our normal narratives by getting the mind into concentration. That way, when we return to our narratives, we can get a better perspective on them.

So work on this ability to step out, step back, be quiet for a while, and then look at that situation from outside the anger. You’re more likely to be able to think of the skillful thing. The problem with anger is that it narrows our perspective. We suddenly have blinders on. When you look at things with blinders on, you don’t get a true perspective on them. You have to open your gaze. That’s what the meditation is for.

This is one of the reasons why we develop an all-around awareness so that we can look at what other people are doing and also look at what we’re doing. You realize, okay, we’re responsible for what we do and say and think, so this is where our attention has to be focused. If each person focuses on his or her own responsibility like this, then the world would be a much more harmonious place.

But you can’t wait for other people to do that first. You have to do it yourself. You have to start. Then whether other people pick up on your example or not, that’s something you can’t control.

But remember, you can control your own speech. You can control your own actions. So try to exercise intelligent control, kind control, effective control. In that way, you handle the issue of right and wrong in the right way.