Peace Finder

Situation

When someone has wronged me

8 traditions are shelved here, each stating the question in its own words.

Christian

Can I love someone who has not earned it?

A tradition rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, carried through two millennia of churches, commentaries, liturgies and practices. Its texts are read as scripture by their communities.

About this passageThe last of a series in the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus quotes a received teaching and then extends it — "you have heard that it was said … but I tell you". The argument turns on the weather: sun and rain fall on everyone regardless of merit, and the listener is told to love on the same terms. The closing word translated "perfect" carries the sense of complete or brought to its full end, rather than flawless.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't even the tax collectors do the same? If you only greet your friends, what more do you do than others? Don't even the tax collectors do the same? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."

In plainer words

You have been told to look after your own and hate the people against you. I am telling you to love the people against you — wish them well, and mean it. That is what it looks like to belong to God, who sends sunshine and rain on decent people and awful people alike. Loving people who love you back is nothing special; anyone does that. Being greeted by your friends is nothing special either. Go all the way, the way God does.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Stoic

What did this look like from inside their head?

A school of Greek and Roman philosophy taught from the third century BCE onward, concerned with judgement, action and the distinction between what a person controls and what they do not. Its surviving handbooks were written as practical training rather than theory.

About this passageA short chapter on being wronged. Epictetus applies the school's account of judgement to the person who has done the harm: they acted on how things appeared to them, and a person cannot act on an appearance they do not have. The argument concludes that the one holding a false view is the one damaged by it. The chapter ends with a phrase offered as something to actually say under one's breath at the time.

When any person does ill by you, or speaks ill of you, remember that he acts or speaks from an impression that it is right for him to do so. Now it is not possible that he should follow what appears right to you, but only what appears so to himself. Therefore, if he judges from false appearances, he is the person hurt, since he, too, is the person deceived. For if anyone takes a true proposition to be false, the proposition is not hurt, but only the man is deceived. Setting out, then, from these principles, you will meekly bear with a person who reviles you, for you will say upon every occasion, "It seemed so to him."

In plainer words

When someone treats you badly or says something cruel, remember they are acting on how it looks from where they stand. They cannot act on how it looks to you — only on how it looks to them. So if they have got it wrong, they are the one operating on a false picture, and they are the one worse off for it. Get a fact wrong and the fact is unharmed; only the person is mistaken. Start from that and you can put up with someone insulting you, because you can say each time: that is how it seemed to him.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Buddhist

What happens to hatred if I put it down?

A tradition originating with the teaching of the Buddha in northern India and preserved in several textual collections. The discourses gathered here come from the Pali canon, recorded as talks given to particular people in particular circumstances.

About this passageFour verses from the opening chapter of the Dhammapada, titled "Pairs" because its verses come in matched sets showing a thing and its opposite. Verses 3 and 4 are such a pair, identical except for one word. The list of grievances is deliberately concrete and repeated verbatim, so that the only variable left is whether it is carried. Verse 5 calls the teaching ancient, presenting it as something restated rather than newly discovered.

"They abused me, they hit me! They beat me, they robbed me!" For those who bear such a grudge, hatred is never laid to rest.

"They abused me, they hit me! They beat me, they robbed me!" For those who bear no such grudge, hatred is laid to rest.

For never is hatred laid to rest by hate, it's laid to rest by love: this is an ancient teaching.

When others do not understand, let us, who do understand this, restrain ourselves in this regard; for that is how conflicts are laid to rest.

In plainer words

"They insulted me, they hit me, they beat me, they took what was mine." Keep score like that and the anger never ends. Someone who does not keep that score is done with it. Hatred has never once been ended by more hatred; it ends by love. People have known this a very long time. Most people never work it out — so those of us who have can stop, and stopping is how the fighting ends.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Secular reflection

What is the account for, and who is paying?

Reflection that does not appeal to a religious or philosophical authority. The pieces here were written for this collection and make no claim to be anything other than one way of putting a question.

About this passageWritten for this collection. It is one way of putting the question and makes no claim about what anyone owes anyone.

There is an account open in your name, and you are the only one making entries in it.

That is the strange part. The person who wronged you has, in all likelihood, stopped thinking about it. They have a version of the story in which they were tired, or provoked, or right. You have the ledger, and you update it, and every update costs you an evening.

None of which makes the wrong less real. Some things genuinely were unfair, and saying so out loud matters. The question is narrower than justice: what is the account for? If it is evidence, it is already gathered. If it is a warning about who to trust, you have learned that, and you can act on it without rereading the file.

Closing an account is not the same as saying the debt was never owed. It is deciding who goes on paying the interest.

Astrology

What is this conflict asking me to learn right now?

A practice of reading meaning from the positions of the sun, moon and planets, attested in Babylonian, Hellenistic, Indian and Chinese forms and continuous in the West since antiquity. Western astrology divides the year into twelve signs and reads the movement of the planets as a description of timing, season and disposition.

About this passageAn "opposition" is an aspect formed when two planets sit on opposite sides of the chart, a hundred and eighty degrees apart. Mars is the traditional ruler of Aries and, in classical astrology, of conflict, appetite and the will to act. The Aries–Libra axis pairs the sign of self-assertion with the sign of relationship and balance.

An opposition is not a wound. It is a sightline.

Two planets a hundred and eighty degrees apart can only see each other, and the tradition reads that geometry as a subject a person keeps meeting through other people. What sits across the chart from you tends to arrive wearing someone else's face. The argument is real, the other person is real, and the axis is still an axis.

Mars is the planet of the flare — the heat that gets you out of a chair and into the argument. It is not treated as a fault to be corrected. Mars is how anything gets defended, and a chart without it would be a chart of someone who never stood up. But Mars unaimed simply burns whatever is nearest, and the classical remedy is not to cool it. It is to give it a direction.

The Aries–Libra axis is the one that runs between having a self and having a relationship, and nobody resolves it permanently. It comes round again. What changes, across enough passes, is how quickly you recognise it when it does.

Jewish

Have I stood where they were standing?

A tradition carried in the Hebrew scriptures and in the rabbinic literature built around them — Mishnah, Talmud, commentary and law — read and argued over continuously for more than two thousand years. Its teaching arrives as much through recorded disagreement between named teachers as through statement, and its texts are read as scripture by their communities.

About this passageA string of separate instructions from Hillel, kept together in the tractate as he is said to have given them. The one about judgement uses a spatial image — literally, until you have arrived at his place — and the tractate offers no test for when that has happened. The last two undercut a person's confidence in their own account of themselves: that what is obvious to you will become obvious to your hearer later, and that the time to do this properly will present itself.

Hillel said, "Separate not thyself from the congregation; trust not in thyself until the day of thy death; judge not thy neighbor until thou art come into his place; and say not anything which cannot be understood at once, in the hope that it will be understood in the end; neither say, 'When I have leisure I will study'; perchance thou wilt have no leisure."

In plainer words

Stay with other people. Do not assume you have yourself figured out, not for as long as you live. Do not pass judgement on somebody until you have stood where they are standing. Do not say something obscure and expect it to come clear later. And do not say "I will get to it when I have time" — you may not get the time.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Taoist

Can I deal with this while it is still small?

A tradition originating in China and gathered around the Tao Teh King and the writings attributed to Zhuangzi, with a later history of monastic practice, ritual and internal alchemy. Its central term, the Tao, names the way things go of themselves; much of its counsel concerns acting without forcing, and the strength of what is yielding.

About this passageThe chapter opens with the book's central paradox — acting without acting — and then gives it a practical form: everything difficult was once easy and everything large was once small, so the work is done early, at a size where it does not look like work. The line about repaying injury with kindness sits inside that list rather than being singled out, one item among several ways of not letting a thing grow.

(It is the way of the Tao) to act without (thinking of) acting; to conduct affairs without (feeling the) trouble of them; to taste without discerning any flavour; to consider what is small as great, and a few as many; and to recompense injury with kindness.

(The master of it) anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small. All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small. Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things.

He who lightly promises is sure to keep but little faith; he who is continually thinking things easy is sure to find them difficult.

In plainer words

Act without making a production of acting. Handle things without being troubled by them. Taste without fussing over the flavour. Treat the small as large and the few as many. Pay back an injury with kindness. Deal with the hard thing while it is still easy and the big thing while it is still small — every hard thing was easy once, and every big thing was small. So the wise person never tackles anything great, and that is exactly how the great things get done. Someone who promises lightly will not keep much faith, and someone who keeps deciding things are easy will find them hard.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Confucian

Am I asking this of myself, or only of them?

A tradition originating with Kongzi in China in the sixth century BCE and carried through the classics, commentaries and schools that grew around them. Its concern is conduct: how a person becomes reliable, how ritual and family order a life, and what composure under difficulty looks like in someone who has done the work. Its teaching survives mostly as recorded remarks, often answers to a named questioner rather than statements made to nobody.

About this passageTwo adjacent remarks from a book largely made of short sayings without setting. The first turns on where a demand is addressed: the junzi puts the requirement to himself, the small man puts it to everybody else. The second makes the same distinction visible in company — the difference between having standing and needing to win, and between belonging to people and belonging to a side.

The Master said, "What the superior man seeks, is in himself. What the mean man seeks, is in others."

The Master said, "The superior man is dignified, but does not wrangle. He is sociable, but not a partizan."

In plainer words

What a person of real character asks for, they ask of themselves. What a small man asks for, he asks of other people. And: such a person carries themselves seriously without picking fights, and gets on with everyone without joining a faction.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

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