Dealing with Injustice

How do we deal with injustice in our lives, especially in view of our inherent potential for compassion and benevolent affect? This is far from being an academic topic, as most of us have come or will come across injustice in one form or another in the course of our lives. It may not touch us directly if we are lucky, but it still poses a thorny question: what do we do when confronted with the violation of our sense of what is right and what is wrong?

In any discussion of injustice, we will do well to take into account its polar opposite, without which it couldn’t exist. We have to tackle both sides of the topic at once to arrive at a balanced view.

So, what is justice, really?

Well, if we understand it at face value, it would seem to be “what is just”, understood as “what fits.”

But that begs the question: what fits what?

Aye, there’s the rub. There are many candidates for that standard. In fact, there may be as many yardsticks for justice as there are people on this planet, even if for practical reasons we humans have brought the number down to as many countries as exist in the globe, more or less.

Sure, there are some other standards that aspire to be universal, cutting across national boundaries, but in fact they are far from being unanimously honored. Westerners have their human rights, Moslems have their shari’a, Andean Indians have their ancestral law codes… but these fail to win over all and sundry because they appear to be specific to the cultures that gave them birth.

However, all of them share one feature that flaws them equally: they are man-made and tailored to a cognitive idea of justice –besides often reflecting obsolete historical circumstances that have long since been superseded.

Is there a way out of this apparent deadlock of irreconcilable, partial ideas of justice?

Yes, indeed. There is one criterion that is not man-made and operates throughout Nature. We call it the Life Force. It is what vivifies every living being and keeps it alive.

Could we say, then, that anything that protects, fosters and benefits the Life Force is just? And that anything that degrades, harms or destroys the Life Force is unjust?

It would seem that we are on firmer footing here, having done away with the inevitable arbitrariness of human justice systems. The Life Force is unequivocal and admits no distinctions of gender, race, class or even species. 

However, we might have to give up a wide array of cherished notions and entitlements in exchange for that solid ground. This is so because the Life Force is only interested in one thing: SURVIVAL –nothing fancy or luxurious, and definitely not à la carte. Just plain survival, with no frills.

Furthermore, this Life Force is the same in humans and other sentient beings, so if we take it as our standard we must honor that commonality and recognize each living creature’s inherent right to keep on living, limited only by the right of other organisms to survive as well, with the potential for natural conflict inherent in the struggle for survival and the process of natural selection.

This, by the way, comes much closer to the true etymology of "justice," which is the quality of ius, natural right, as opposed to lex, human law.

But mark this: each being’s right to live is only limited by its potential natural conflict with other beings’ right to live. Once again, plain survival is the only valid principle. In other words, it is unjust to deprive any living creature of its right to live according to its own nature for any reason except our own survival –not because we enjoy it, not because we’re careless, not because it’s convenient or profitable. Life feeds on life, so death is inevitable; but we should not kill or harm any living being’s integrity unless it’s absolutely necessary and then only with the fullest possible consciousness of the sacrifice involved.

This is therefore a universal standard of justice, applicable to all life forms on planet Earth, which seems most fair because it does not revolve around humans’ misguided sense of their own importance and superiority. If we embrace it, it is a testament to our exalted predicament as the sole earthling who can act as caretaker for the entire biosphere, thereby ensuring the survival not of individual life forms but of the Life Force as a whole.

The problem is that we humans tend to bypass what’s essential in life and fall in love with the frills; in fact, it would seem that most of our lives consist of nothing but additions, elaborations and embellishments we foist on this basic drive to survive, which we share with animals and plants. After all, a lifestyle that just took care of our bare bodily and mental needs would seem unbearably dull to us in this age of freewheeling consumption, mass entertainment and instant gratification. We call this man-made alternative “culture” and feel it raises us above the lowly realm of brutish instinct that rules over other earthlings. It makes us feel unique, privileged and entitled to dominion over all –our manifest destiny to exploit nature’s bounty while it’s there for the taking.

So this is our challenge. Are we ready to cast our self-importance and entitlement overboard along with our skewed sense of justice? Can we reclaim our status as guardians of the Garden of Eden, even if it entails becoming more ordinary in our own eyes?

The truth is most of us can’t stand feeling ordinary; we would almost rather be special or die. The main culprit for this is, of course, our Identity, which we treat as our most valued possession, allowing it to run our lives.

We are in the grip of a fantastic delusion, which nonetheless has dire practical consequences for our surroundings and the lives we live. We submit to the rule of human justice, which is really alien and oblivious to the Life Force. We violate our connection with Nature, turn our backs on our intrinsic potential, and run into all sorts of problems and unnatural conflicts in the tangled web of Identity interests that governs our lives. It is hardly a surprise that we suffer.

What's more, we are prone to cry "What an injustice!" at any setback, when in fact we are the first and worst offenders.

But let us get down to specific examples for a moment.

You present a brilliant idea and somebody else takes credit for it.

Somebody else screws up and you have to clean up after them.

You confide in someone and they betray your trust and mouth off to a third party. 

You get passed up for a promotion you deserve at work. 

These are everyday cases where most likely you feel a righteous indignation at the glaring injustice. But this common reaction sidesteps the heart of the matter, which is the ultimate injustice we have perpetrated to begin with: the damage we have done to ourselves and all life by siding with the Identities and banishing our own nature to an unwarranted ostracism. Our indignation only reflects half the truth. 

There’s an oil spill at sea and all of a sudden your TV set is showing pictures of pelicans covered with the black slick, helplessly flapping their wings trying to fly out of the mess.

A forest fire breaks out because some person or company wants to develop that particular piece of land. All sorts of trees, shrubs, and animals go up in flames, unable to escape the raging blaze. 

You see a bonsai of an otherwise majestic specimen, shrunk to pygmy size for the satisfaction of human conceit by all sorts of tricks that thwart its natural growth. 

You read of geese painfully force-fed and slaughtered for the enjoyment of a few discriminating palates. 

Again, your sense of grievance flares up, this time in apparent defense of the Life Force in others… yet it also falls short of hitting the real mark if you don't throw yourself into the picture. For we too have covered our own nature with the oil slick of our confusion, burned it with the fires of our craving, mangled it into submission with the pruning scissors of our aversion and tried to force-feed it our identity spam. 

Wouldn’t you agree that in most cases this sense of indignation at the injustice committed by others has a convenient narcotic effect on your willingness to take an honest look at yourself before casting the first stone?

But let us get back to our initial question. What do we do when we come across an injustice committed against ourselves or others? 

The first step, of course, should be to restore justice within us and make peace with our estranged nature. Only then will we be in a position to review the situation calmly, with compassion, benevolent affect and equanimity, and ask ourselves: Is this apparent injustice really harming the Life Force, i.e., our or any other living being’s right to survive, or is it harming our or their Identity instead? 

We know that the Identities are not natural and therefore have no claim on the Life Force’s right to survive; yet we also know how closely they mimic its ways and usurp its prerogatives. We must be very careful in our assessment. 

Bodhidharma had something interesting to say about suffering injustice:

When those who search for a path encounter adversity, they should think to themselves, ‘In countless ages gone by I've turned from the essential to the trivial and wandered through all manner of existences, often angry without cause and guilty of numberless transgressions. Now, though I do no wrong, I’m punished by my past. Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit. I accept it with an open heart and without complaint of injustice’. The sutra says ‘When you meet with adversity don’t be upset, because it makes sense.’ With such understanding you’re in harmony with reason. And by suffering injustice you enter the path. 

We miss the crucial point if we take this to refer to past lives or other flights of fancy of little practical value here and now. The truth of the matter is that Bodhidharma is speaking here of the never-ending cycle of Identity rebirth, which we ourselves have been enmeshed in since time immemorial –that is, since the beginning of our lives, "turning from the essential to the trivial and wandering through all manner of existences, often angry without cause and guilty of numberless transgressions." Following the devious path of Identity craving and clinging, we have long forgotten our true nature as human beings and settled for a third-rate imitation. This in itself is the mother of all injustices against the Life Force –and we carry its seeds and occasionally its bitter fruits with us, wherever we go, as long as we do not extricate ourselves from its snare.

It is this, a karma of our own doing and no one else’s, that fatally distorts our experience of injustice. Until we come to grips with it, our view of what is just and unjust will be hopelessly flawed. We must accept responsibility for this rift inside us and make a commitment to redress it. 

As soon as we acknowledge the primordial injustice we bear within ourselves we take a crucial first step to remedying it, regaining a rightful perspective on life and reclaiming our place in the larger scheme of things.  

In so doing, we can put suffering injustice to good use –in fact, the best possible use: one that dissolves our suffering, sees through the traps of our Identity-ridden outrage, and leaves us in a position to ensure that the Life Force is served in all circumstances to the best of our abilities.

Only then will we be able to “accept it with an open heart and without complaint of injustice” –when the mire of identity suffering yields the lotus flower of understanding and righteousness.