“As a Buddhist I should turn the other cheek RIGHT!”. Absolutely… Except when…

So there is this perception of Buddhist practitioners as being a quiet, easy going sort who are not confrontational at all. I can tell you from my experience true practitioners are not always like that. Yes of course they are willing to turn the other cheek. If it is the right thing to do. But it is not always the right thing to do. Maybe the person needs a strong rebuttal, a bit of push back to help them realise what they are doing is wrong – the assumption being that we somehow know it to be wrong?

But how can you know if you are acting correctly when you push back. this comes down to motivation or the way your mind is at the time you act to push back. Are you thinking “to hell with them, I’ll show them!”. Or are you truly thinking “what this person is doing is bad for them, so I want to prevent them from hurting themselves now or in the future and that’s why it’s important that I not let them think this is okay to do”. If you are thinking the latter then you are generally going to act well or least with the right intention.

Another measure I find useful is to ask yourself if you choose to could you turn the other cheek. If not then it’s really time to turn the other cheek. Because if you aren’t capable of walking away it means your anger is probably quite high and you really shouldn’t act from that place. This is when you really need to be strong to walk away.

Not easy to do all the time but at least we can start with a tactic that might help.