Chapter 6 - Letting Go of the Blame Game: "It Happened"
Another installment of My Journey Through Calamity
I’ve been finding myself playing the “blame game” when I ruminate about my traumatic fall and inability to be with my father as he was dying. I blame myself for not being more careful, blame the doctors who didn’t detect my fragile bones, blame the person who bumped me at the airport, and on and on.
From a Buddhist point of view, I understand that everything that arises depends on causes and conditions. I can see the cascade of causes and conditions that led to my fall and its aftermath. However, ruminating incessantly about those causes and conditions is not only an exhausting and fruitless endeavor, it is detrimental to my well-being.
So, I’ve been working with a new mantra, “It happened” when I find myself playing the blame game. When I tell myself “it happened,” all of the angst and tension drop away. I see what happened more clearly, with more compassion and without all of my negative emotions and thoughts. Most importantly, when I let go of blame, my grief and sadness about my father’s death is pure, and not contaminated with negativity and trauma.
The teachings of my Buddhist teacher Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in his book Emotional Rescue: How to Work with Your Emotions to Transform Hurt and Confusion into Energy that Empowers You have been very helpful as I work to let go of the blame game. Rinpoche says (p. 12): “[E]ach hateful and unkind thought brings…even more negative, blaming thoughts….We lose touch with what originally happened and start reacting to our own reactions.”
The key for me is to step back and see the entire panorama of what happened, simply as it was, without adding my thoughts and beliefs. When I step back and let go of blame, my view is less self-centered and claustrophobic. Letting go of the blame game is a work in progress, since this is a pretty ingrained habit of mine, but I’m noticing it and letting it go more quickly as time goes on. Remembering what Ponlop Rinpoche has to say about the blame game (p. 72) has been helpful:
What happens when you lose sight of the big picture and your narrow focus becomes obsessive? You fall into the trap of blame. Either you blame yourself or you blame others. Blame never results in good judgment, happiness or wisdom. It only brings more confusion, more pain and more ways of tying yourself into knots.
When I let go of the blame game, I can access my inherent wisdom and ask myself if there is something to learn from the simple fact of my fall. Yes, I have learned so much. I’m learning to slow down, be more attentive and careful, allow others to care for me, experience unadulterated sadness and grief without elaboration and so much more. I can learn from my fall, but I don’t have to embellish it with the blame game and stories that do me no good. It happened.