What about justice?

Ever since we were children, the judgment of "It's not fair!" has marred our happiness. Are you surprised that I called that a judgment? Well, don't we typically suffer when we complain about unfairness? So the problem is our attachment to things being "fair".

Charlotte Joko Beck speaks to the issue of justice in her wonderful book, Nothing Special:

In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion. Not me against you, not me straightening out the present ill, fighting to gain a just result for myself and others, but compassion, a life that goes against nothing and fulfills everything.

All anger is based upon judgments, whether of ourselves or others. The idea that our anger must be expressed for us to be healthy is no more than a fantasy. We need to let these judgmental, angry thoughts pass before our witnessing, impersonal self*. We gain nothing by expressing them. It is a mistake to suppose that our unexpressed anger hurts us and that we must express it and thereby hurt others.

The best answer to injustice is not justice, but compassion, or love. You ask, "But what am I to do in this difficult situation? I must do something!" Yes, but what? Always our practice must be the basis for our actions. An appropriate and compassionate response does not come from a fight for justice, but from that radical dimension of practice that "passeth all understanding." It's not easy. Perhaps we must go through agonized weeks or months of sitting. But the resolution will come. No person can provide this resolution for us; it can be provided only by our true self - if we open wide the gates of practice.

I've given you the Amazon link for Nothing Special. You might like to click through and read the reviews.

* What Beck calls "witnessing impersonal self" is what we call "observer consciousness" at the Center. "Impersonal" in this case means we do not impose the preferences of our personality on what we are observing.