The next slogan, “Don’t bring things to a painful
point,” in some way is saying the same thing. These
are nuances of the human tragedy, nuances of the
tragicomic situation in which we find ourselves.
“Don’t bring things to a painful point” is again saying,
“Don’t humiliate people.” We do all of these things
because we feel pain, because we feel hurt and sepa-
rate. Instead of first making friends with what we’re
feeling and then, second, trying to communicate, we
have all these ways of keeping the “us and them”
story solid and strong. That’s what causes all the pain
on this earth, including the fact that the ecosystem is
turned upside down. All of that comes from people
not making friends with themselves and never being
willing to communicate with the one they consider to
be the troublemaker. That’s how we stay caught in
this battleground, this war zone.
The next slogan is “Don’t transfer the ox’s load to the
cow.” Let’s say you’re Juan’s boss. When something
comes along that you find unpleasant and don’t want
to do, you pass it on to Juan. You pass the burden to
someone else. It’s like that Greek myth about Atlas.
He was just walking along innocently and somebody
said, “Oh, Atlas, would you mind for a moment just
holding the earth?”
We do that. When we don’t like it, it doesn’t occur
to us to actually work with that feeling and commu-
nicate with the person who is asking us to do this, to
Taking Responsibility for Your Own Actions 161