Do No Harm

This past week's community slanderfest is probably not over, just in remission until someone else picks it up.  Therefore, the following lesson is particularly appropriate when considering New World Thug Behavior and Carelessness.  Much gratitude goes to Scrapwood for sending in the 59 Lojongs.  It will go on the left sidebar in the Free NeverOverdue Library shortly so you will have immediate access to all 59 teachings and the preliminaries.


"... The Mind-Training Slogans, #31 

Each Friday, Acharya Judy Lief, teacher in the Shambhala tradition of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, comments on one of Atisha's 59 mind-training (Tib. lojong) slogans, which serve as the basis for a complete practice. 

Atisha (980-1052 CE) was an Indian adept who brought to Tibet a systematized approach to bodhicitta (the desire to awaken for the sake of all sentient beings) and loving-kindness, through working with these slogans. Judy edited Chogyam Trungpa's Training the Mind (Shambhala, 1993), which contains Trungpa Rinpoche's commentaries on the lojong ("mind-training") teachings.

#31. Don't malign others

When we malign someone, our intention is to cause harm. Our words are spiteful and ill-spirited. There is a saying that “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” But in fact words do have power and they certainly can hurt.

In working with the slogans, we are working not only with our actions, but with what is behind them. For instance, when we say something, we should ask ourselves why we are saying it, and for what purpose. Will what we say help the situation or not? Are we trying to connect with someone or get rid of them? Are we trying to help them or to destroy them? Or maybe we are talking just to talk, to fill the space because we are uneasy with the silence.

If we need to malign others to make us feel good about ourselves by comparison, we will never feel all that great. And at the other extreme, when we encounter people who are exceptional, that approach will make us feel pathetic in comparison. According to this slogan we should stop that whole destructive approach.

Not maligning does not mean that we do not notice differences in people. It does not mean that we should not recognize people’s hateful or destructive attitudes and weaknesses when we encounter them or that we should not speak up. Everything does not just become a mush. But when we see other people’s problems without encumbering our perception by the need to prop up our own insecure ego, we can respond more directly and appropriately. By stopping the habit of maligning, not only will we do less harm to others, but we will also begin to free ourselves from the need for such props.

Today’s practice
Pay attention to your speech and to how you talk about and to other people.  What is the difference between speaking critically and using speech to harm or to destroy? ..."


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I  would rather, any day, be thought naive rather than publicly slander another, especially when that person is already down, battling demons no one can dispel but themselves.  I wish I were naive sometimes, ignorant of the viciousness that can arise when expectation and motive are shredded in the bright light of reality.  Naive to the increasing overtone of violence rocking our world off its axis every single day, every hour, somewhere, blind to the immediate flare of tempers feeling wronged by whomever, wanting whatever.  If you look at these situations closely, you would find there are always two elements at the root of conflict, one is of course, money, the other, credibility. The belief systems accompanying our existence in western culture encourages the value of those two elements exponentially to the point that all most people are exposed to is violent in its nature and always disastrous in result.  It does not have to be this way, it never did.  As Ran Prieur quoted on the idiocy of property ownership and John of Survival Acres presented in his essay on food production being at the root of all civilizations, both break down the walls of perception of why vicious conflict, bloodletting, enslavement, abject penury, injustice and arsenals of weaponry never had to be the roadmap to food security, peace, satisfaction and freedom.  In fact, we should be aware by now, our quickly depleting world seems to be composed of frivolous thug-appeal, violent "advancements" against humanity at large principally for the expansion of wealth among the already wealthy, i.e.; more food and property than can possibly be consumed by offspring of offspring.  In the present, it is trusted more than ever, violence is the only means to continue the atrocious, hideous charade.  As it stands now, this ongoing tragedy ends only when we die.  There has always been a better way for mankind to survive.  The reason Thug World thrives is violence is expedient, lacking clarity of thought and convenient, whereas exercising  intelligence and compassion for all beings requires love, that inconvenient marvel that always gets in the way of false desire.


We who seek awareness are on the right track for the most part, but it is evident the violence all around us is a highly contagious disease which is immunized against and blown away entirely with LOVE.