The 32nd lojong slogan says, “Don’t wait in ambush.” In ancient Tibet, being ambushed by robbers was a very real problem. So the wisdom of this slogan carried a lot of impact. It’s sneaky to ambush someone. It means hiding or waiting until someone is in a vulnerable position to make our move. Often, we don’t confront someone at the time of the argument because we worry we might lose. So, we bide our time and wait for an opportunity where we can have the upper hand.
Obviously, this kind of plotting doesn’t belong in compassionate mind-training. Revenge is a very particular kind of poison. Pema Chodron summarizes it so well. She writes, “Don’t wait for the moment when someone you don’t like is weak to let them have it. This may bring immediate satisfaction, but in the long run it poisons you.”
Beating up on someone in a weaker position than we are can always be described as a form of bullying. And bullying and being a bodhisattva don’t really go together.
It feels like waiting in ambush has a particular message for us today with social media, too. I am trying to spend less time on Twitter, but I’m there enough to know that every week, there’s some sort of pile-on that happens to a person over something they did or said. I wonder if we feel more emboldened to ambush in digital spaces because we can find so many people to join in. And it feels like there are endless opportunities to ambush someone over something! The rage machine is constantly churning. It’s not something to be proud about, that’s for sure. And I think in the end, this kind of trolling or negative piling-on makes us all worse off.
So: don’t wait in ambush. It doesn’t do anyone any good. It makes “good” a lot more difficult, in fact.
Shantideva called wrath our “sorrow-bearing enemy.” That feels wise. It’s as if our sorrow took a detour and became violent, and that combination does threaten us like an inner enemy. Revenge, rage, even passive aggressive behavior, can all destroy us from within.
This week, think about people for whom you harbor resentment. List your grudges. And then just consider: can I let this go? What do I get by holding onto this?
