When Gandhi was writing regularly in his newspaper Young India during the Indian Freedom Struggle, he would often receive letters from critics which would be somewhat insulting. His response to these critics would typically begin, “This letter seems to be intended as an insult. However I choose not to take it as such,” and he would go on to take the criticism seriously, but without minimizing his differences with the author. There is a wonderful lesson in this for us.
Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give to one another is the “benefit of the doubt.” What a great practice to assume the best about others in the minor areas of life, instead of assuming the worst (even if we really want to attribute a negative motive to the other). When we assume the worst about another’s intentions, it tends to provoke a mirroring reaction in ourselves (eg. she hates me, so I should hate her). This kind of thinking wastes a lot of our mental and emotional energy, fuel that we could be using toward more constructive and positive ends. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt allows us to break the cycle of negative thinking which in turn makes room for us to draw closer to the other person or group. With enough practice, we can wear that person down with love (as Martin Luther King put it), without absorbing any of the hate or negativity directed at us. This is not being naive, it is a way of breaking free of the low image of people our mass media culture attributes to us, and into which we have been unconsciously indoctrinated for years: that we intend to hurt one another and we can’t be trusted to wish one another well. In nonviolence, we don’t buy into that. We are not separate from one another, and we refuse to believe that we are. Eventually, our vision, our attitude breaks through to the heart of our “opponent” and the relationship moves from suspicion and distrust to trust and wholeness.
Try it–keep on trying it. Try to make a habit of giving the benefit of the doubt to others in those small day-to-day interactions, and find a store of energy we can put to good use for building a nonviolent future.
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By: Stephanie Van Hook
Stephanie Van Hook is Executive Director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.
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Gandhi’s Influence on Dr. James Farmer
A Door Into Ocean
Bystander Intervention is only the beginning
Film Screening Thurs. Dec.10
We cannot love our “enemies.”
