THE BLAME GAME

Sometimes one comes up against people who are carrying around with them the weight of blaming. It's a heavy piece of baggage to shoulder, and it invariably invokes my compassion. Put it down, I want to say. Just leave it there, and you will walk the taller.

Just occasionally one encounters a severe case, and the individual actually looks tortured by it, as though the habit of blaming has actually twisted their body or demeanour. I can imagine with time such a burden leading to all sorts of skeletal and other health problems.

And it does seem as though it is a peculiarly difficult thing for people to let go. I suppose that may be because blame proves you right, even if you aren't. It feeds on its own certainty. When blaming you perhaps feel as though you are giving the blame to someone else. But you are not. You are deepening its hold on your own body. Not relaxing, for sure.

Buddha said that blame is like a red hot coal which you throw at someone else. It may burn them, but it will certainly burn you.

I try to avoid the habit myself, because I'm a coward, and I don't like burning myself, though I'm certain I have my moments. I've most certainly had my moments of being on the receiving end. They can sting. But the smarting is momentary, depending as it does on feelings of guilt. Sure, there's a pang, a brief primal self questioning as one gets a childhood reminder of the stern parent voice. But guilt is a tricky matter. It's rarely, in my experience, resident only in one person. More normally, it's a bitter pie, to be shared out to a few. Often, to the person doing the blaming there's a fair portion due.

A swift check of the body and conscience, and relaxed order is restored. Did I do what I could? Did I do what anyone might reasonably expect? Did I do what any fallible human might? Yes? Good. I can go on without concern, and without the torture carried on by the blaming habit, etching itself ever deeper, ever more corrosively into character and physicality.

The coal misses, as (because it is thrown in the blindness of rage) it invariably will.