We continue our series of reflections on the precepts, those ethical principles found in Buddhism but that transcend any particular label in their description of what we are at our best as human beings.
“Hell is other people,” said Sartre in his play, No Exit.
During my time as a neighbourhood mediator in east London I met many an individual who might readily agree with Sartre – especially in regard to their noisy or otherwise problematic neighbours.
This cynical take on the otherness of the other stands in marked contrast to the next two precepts: “See the perfection; do not speak of others' errors and faults” and “Realize self and other as one; do not elevate the self and blame others”.
We will reserve reflection on the latter precept – the seventh – for next month. Here I want to focus on the sixth precept, which invites us to see the perfection in the other person where instinctively we may want to dwell on what jerks they are (especially if it is a neighbour – or, indeed, a colleague – with whom you are having difficulties).
“Seeing the perfection” in such an ‘other’ is a rather tall order, if not utterly pollyannish. We are also habituated at times by social media and certain kinds of journalism to demonise those we do not like or whose behaviour is a matter of distaste to us. My Twitter feed and social media notices are often awash with pejorative adjectives applied to sundry sorts. We have also come to thrive on mistrust about the motives of politicians and others featured in a constant stream of news coverage. Cynicism easily becomes our default mode.
The opposite of seeing the perfection is not to ignore the reality of their flaws. In fact, a realistic awareness of the other person’s faults is integral to our capacity to seeing the glow of their humanity – their perfection, as it were – below the surface of our enemy images.
An exercise I used to facilitate when training volunteer mediators challenged them to humanise their enemy images. We all at some time entertain enemy images of certain people. To initially allow some space between ourselves and those closer at hand that we may have very negative views on, we took a poll of people featured in the media of whom we may have had very negative images. We then selected one individual – a politician, a world figure or some other newsworthy person – who generated negative images for us. We were careful to avoid historical characters or certain other notorious individuals who were just too charged with excess negative and symbolic meaning for most people.
Initially we indulged our negative energy and people freely offered a range of unrestrained labels, epithets and thoughts about the person. (We did find this part of the exercise rather entertaining; I must confess! Mea culpa!) After ventilating vitriolic angst about the ‘enemy’, people were invited to step back for a moment and imagine what might dwell behind the person’s behaviour – making it clear that doing so was not a justification for them. What unmet needs deep below the surface may lay behind their dysfunctional attempts to get these needs met? Think of the classic playground bully, whose need to be valued, respected or feel in control lay beneath the surface of their bullying behaviour. The needs are legitimate ones that we all share as human beings: but the behaviours in this case misfire. What feelings might such unmet needs generate? Fear, insecurity, anxiety, etc.
This art of humanising the other did not change people’s overall evaluations about the chosen person’s behaviours and actions. It just put them in the larger context of their being human, who share with us the gamut of universal human needs, emotions and feelings. For a moment, people could see the ‘me’ in my enemy.
At its heart, this is what the sixth precept invites us to do: allow our sense of the other person’s humanity to rise over our tendency to exclusively identity them with what we see as their flaws. Doing this for ourselves is not a bad idea either. Cultivating the habit of ‘seeing the perfection’, to rehabilitate the word as the glow of another’s humanity and their potential for good – and seeing our own perfection rather than identifying ourselves or others with the bumps and warts that we are all prone to – in the long term enhances our wellbeing and relationships.
It can free us from the hell realm of relentlessly thinking that other people are hell.