Someone wounds you, so you want to wound them back. With a harsh remark. By cutting them out of the next project. By putting the word out about them. Maybe they hold an abhorrent political view or have done something selfish or mean. So you want to punish them. You want to shame them, draw attention to their awfulness to send a message.
But every time we do this we sense something changing in us, something becoming ugly in us. We don’t feel great afterwards. We may even feel awful.
The Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn, who just recently passed, cautions us:
“Punishing the other person is self-punishment.
That is true in every circumstance.”
This is why he was a peace activist. This is why he was a non-violent civil rights activist. He also found something out in pursuit of those causes and in his journey to enlightenment: Helping other people is self-help. Thich Nhat Hanh’s life and legacy bears this out. Thich Nhat Hanh, who died this past Saturday, was exiled from Vietnam after he published an anti-war poem in 1964. How did he respond? He started an organization that rebuilt war-torn villages and reunited war-torn families. He toured the world to speak out about the people suffering in his country. He became one of the great stewards of Buddhism, making the principles more accessible and applicable to millions of readers worldwide. Word of his brave and selfless efforts spread to the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., who would apply what he learned from Thich Nhat Hanh to his own peace movements.
Marcus Aurelius—and indeed all the Stoics—believed that we were part of an inner-connected organism. That you couldn’t help another person without helping yourself. We are all bees of the same hive, he liked to say. “Have I done something for the common good? Then I share in the benefits.”
This is why the Stoics believed that a good life hinges on justice, on helping others, on being a good steward of the hive, of the common good. It was true for Marcus. It was true for Thich Nhat Hanh, may he rest in peace. It is true for you: if you want to help yourself, you have to help others. Indeed, it is true in every circumstance.
P.S. If you haven’t read Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Taming the Tiger Within: Meditations on Transforming Difficult Emotions, you must! You can pick up a copy at Ryan’s bookshop The Painted Porch and support indie retail by picking it up online too!
