Lenten Day Thirty-One: The Buddha

Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one’s own acts, done and undone.

The Buddha

As I sit with this meditation, I imagine what it would be like if no one (including me) criticized or judged anyone else for the rest of this year.  What a peaceful dream!  I also consider what a beneficial ending to this Lenten Season this would be if everyone “gave up” being critical (including me).  Yet, criticism appears to be one of the hardest habits to break.

We criticize our politicians.  We criticize our pastors and preachers.  We criticize our parents, our children, our siblings, our friends, our spouses.  We criticize other people’s choices about where they live and who they live with.  We criticize who people love, how they raise their children, whether they have children.  We criticize the young and the elderly.  I can’t think of anything or anyone who escapes human scrutiny, including God.  And for what purpose, I wonder?  Perhaps, as the Buddha suggests, it’s to keep from looking at ourselves.

It’s often true that what we criticize or condemn in another is a shadow within ourselves that we want to bury or deny.  We’d prefer to complain about someone else rather than attend to what needs addressing in ourselves.  A friend of mine says that when we point a finger at another, we are really pointing three fingers back at ourselves.  How much, in fact, does our criticism ever change the other person or situation, if we even share it?  We spend an awful lot of energy blowing wind rather than working on ourselves.

Jesus felt the same way when he asked, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Mark 7:3-5).

Judgmentalism abounds, and it isn’t healthy or beneficial or spiritual.  The next time we find ourselves ready to criticize, perhaps we can catch ourselves, stop ourselves, and ask where our own behavior needs some attention. I know I have some logs to work on.

Blessings ~ Rosemary