Tag Archives: mahatma gandhi

Becoming Bully Proof

Posted on by

Yesterday a good friend of mine was in a car accident (no one was injured), and the driver of the other vehicle leaped out of his car and called her a horrible string of names that can’t be repeated here.

Being in a car accident is a scary thing, for everyone involved. For a moment, you know that you are not in control. Human vulnerability is heightened. You could be injured. You could die. Things around you break. It’s scary.

But how do we respond? How do we respond to our human vulnerability? By attacking others? By flying into a rage? By becoming a bully? Will our bullying protect us from vulnerability?

And how then, do we respond to people who turn against us like bullies? This man became a bully. He attempted to prove his Powerful Nature by dominating my friend, by insulting and demeaning her. It was an act of violence, an act of hostility. It hurt her. It would hurt any of us.

Mahatma Gandhi said that when you feel humiliated by a bully, it’s a natural thing to want to slap them to “vindicate your self-respect.”* But instead of doing that, he suggested that we try to address the feeling of humiliation inside ourselves. He said that we could become “proof” against a bully’s insults. It’s a beautiful British use of the word “proof”–like a rain coat is rain proof, or a brick is fire proof.

I love the idea that we can become bully proof. But I know that it’s a life-long task! Gandhi talked about internalizing a non-violent spirit in order to become “proof” to violence.

I believe that bully-proofing begins with self-awareness of the shame and humiliation that is already inside us, learning to love and forgive ourselves again and again. For me, it has to do with accepting my imperfection and failings, and knowing that I am human and beautiful and beloved, even when I make terrible mistakes.

Usually, my mistakes are not as terrible as I fear, my imperfection is not as horrible as I dread. But that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is extending generous hospitality to myself, even (especially) in the face of hostility directed against me.

Self-awareness and self-acceptance allow me to experience the goodness that is at the core of my being, underneath and before every bad judgement, every mistake, every oversight.

I make mistakes, but mistakes are not who I am. This awareness is the basis for feeling that I am completely capable of growing and changing–that I am valuable and deserve to be treated with respect at ALL times. All of us deserve to be recognized as having inherent worth and dignity.

Let a bully’s insults remain “in the bully’s mouth and not touch you at all,” Gandhi said.*


*You can find these quotes and more discussion of these ideas and related spiritual practices on page 139 in my book, in the chapter on “Hospitality to Enemies: Extending Generosity through Non-Retaliation.” The Gandhi quotes came originally from The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas, page 174. My book is Hospitality-The Sacred Art, published by Skylight Paths Publishing.

Looking for the Evil Within Us

Posted on by

In my book on Hospitality-the sacred art, I have a chapter devoted to hospitality to our enemies. These are two words we don’t put together in our heads (or our practice) very often. Hospitality. Enemies.

The idea is very akin to the Jesus concepts of “Love your enemies,” “pray for those who persecute you.” When Jesus cried out from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” it’s a similar thing.

In the chapter, I outline a spiritual practice of Self-Examination because transformative spiritual hospitality is based, I believe, on honest self-awareness. This is especially important when we are faced with adversarial or hostile situations.

I rely a lot on the writings of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in this chapter, as they were brilliant theologians and practitioners of “loving” “enemies.” Rev. King has a great sermon called Loving Your Enemies that he preached in 1957, before I was born. I relied on his sermon for inspiration and courage in writing my chapter about hospitality to enemies. Read his full sermon here.

Here is a short piece from my book:

Dr. King’s second step toward loving enemies invites us to look within for a very specific purpose. He suggested that we look for the good in our enemies and look for the evil that is in us. Dr. King described us as being split up and divided against ourselves as though a civil war were raging inside us. It is the “isness” of our present nature being out of harmony with the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts us, Dr King said. In other words, we’re not as completely good as we would like to be.

If we can recognize that this is true within ourselves as well as within our adversaries, then we can no longer see ourselves as entirely innocent, or our adversaries as entirely guilty, or evil. There is no wholly good person, just as there is no wholly bad person. There are only human beings. When we can realize and remember our shared humanity with our adversaires, our attitude can shift, and a little compassion may even rise up within us.

If you would like to explore this particular practice, you can simply add a new step or focus to the earlier exercise of self-examination. Work your way through the same steps of imagining your adversary, and this time look for signs within yourself of hostility, hatred, disrespect, disdain, or anything that undermines the humanity of your adversary by seeing him or her as all bad. Also notice that seeing yourself as all good undermines your own humanity too, because that belief is not based in the complex reality of what it means to be human.