In thinking about shoring up one’s mind to be more disciplined, you could consider the topic of “The Blame Game” and taking responsibility for our part in things. To illustrate this in a funny way, I’ll tell a story that I heard at a workshop on this topic:
The Blame Game goes back to the beginning of time in the Christian view. Adam and Eve knew God! They walked with God on a regular basis! But, what happened when they sinned and felt ashamed? They hid from God. (Like God didn’t know where they were?) When Adam finally did face God, what did he do? Adam basically said, “God! You created this woman, and look what she did!”
The storyteller who related this to me really laughed about this. Adam wasn’t even blaming Eve – he was blaming God for having created such a creature as Eve! And of course, Adam was completely blameless. 
Haha. The storyteller’s point was that The Blame Game is just something that is a part of us. In other words, we look to find the cause of feelings, emotions and events from outside the self. It’s all the trend to point to one’s childhood situation, one’s parents, one’s teachers and the system itself and say, “Look! That situation did this to me. I’m not to blame!” While our environments and those around us do influence us – I won’t deny that fact – are they exclusively responsible?
I think not.
Looking across historical texts, I come to an old favorite, Epictetus. Back in 44 BC, he was a slave turned philosopher who happened to record his views on reality and the nature of things. One of the early lessons in his Manual For Living reads that “Events don’t hurt us, but our view of them can.”
One translation puts it like this:
Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.
Again, it comes back to disciplining one’s mind and understand things for what they truly are. Looking from another philosophy, we have the Tao te Ching, written by Lao Tzu. Chapter 16 reads:
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you
and when death comes, you are ready.
(S. Mitchell translation)
Granted, this chapter takes a definite push toward one’s realization of spiritual reality in order to see that it boils down to a disciplined mind and the choice to see reality as it truly is. Still, while it has its spiritual angle, the point is clear: “If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.” I read this as that you lash out and blame others for your foibles and feel the universe is out to get you when things don’t go your way. Finding the Truth (be it the Tao or whatever your personal definition is), “you can deal with whatever life brings you.”
Now. These teachers – Epictetus and Lao Tzu – provide some good things to think about. They are both fairly concrete in how they are saying one learns to see reality for what it is and how to avoid engaging in The Blame Game. To jump things up a couple of centuries, I think on a technique that I learned at a grief support group many years ago. This was led by a social worker named Georgann Fuller. Georgann taught the participants to learn to strengthen their mind and thoughts through this action in a situation:
(1) In a scenario where someone is blaming you for something, hold one hand up, palm out toward the person as though to signal “Stop.” Say that, “I can’t make you ________ anything.” Fill in the blank with whatever action/behavior the person is trying to blame you for be that word feel, say, do, believe and whatever else that may apply. You’re refusing to take responsibility for what they themselves are responsible for.
(2) By the same token, guard your own mind. When you feel something is unjust and you’d want to lay blame on someone or something, take heed. Think it through. Realize “no one can make me do or say or believe anything I don’t want to.”
What do you think? Comments?
