18

Taking Responsibility

for Your Own Actions

W

hat really helpsanother person, anyway?
What really causes things to evolve in some
kind of natural spontaneous way? The next slogans
provide some direction. Each begins with the word
don’t. I like to call them the “naked truth” slogans.
Taking responsibility for your own actions is an-
other way of talking about awakening bodhichitta,
because part of taking responsibility is the quality of
being able to see things very clearly. Another part of
taking responsibility is gentleness, which goes along
with not judging, not calling things right or wrong,
good or bad, but looking gently and honestly at your-
self. Finally there is also the ability to keep going for-
ward. It’s been described before as letting go, but in
some sense at a personal level it’s that you can just
keep on going; you don’t get completely overwhelmed
by this identity as a loser or a winner, the abuser or the
abused, the good guy or the bad guy. You just see what
you do as clearly and as compassionately as you can
and then go on. The next moment is always fresh

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