BLAME, BLAME, BUT NO GAIN WITH BLAME

         As we shuffle towards the US General Election with our eyes closed and half open, fearing the worst… not to mention sliding down the chair with our face in our hands as a British Government refuses to feed its own children, it’s time to open our eyes and look at blame, and avoid it from many angles.

         Blame is not lovely, but sometimes we all feel as though we need to do it. The gruesome Trump has no policies, no intelligence and no ideas, but he does do blame really, really, really well. He trumps in the language of blame. He blares on blame, and he blames Biden, the Chinese, losers, war heroes, journos, polls, immigrants from Mexico, Muslims, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, presidential debates, Covid-19 and on and on… he does blame so well. And now… if you want to take a look at our own watered-down version of that odious dude, think about Bojo’s capacity for blame as he lies and whines at Keir Starmer, over and over again accusing him of non-cooperation, doing hindsight, complicity with the IRA and other ugly stuff. And then there’s the list of innocents he likes to throw brickbats at – the European Union, tank-topped bumboys (his words), women, piccaninnies (his words), single mothers and on and on.

         And thus, I do blame as well. Do you? I hate blame, but I do it alright. I blame Bojo’s weakness for Dom for the breakdown of confidence in the Government’s handling of Covid, I blame privatisation and the greedy rich for widespread financial despair, I blame short term gluttony and long-term stupidity for the degradation of the environment, I blame Jeremy Corbyn for his narcissism for losing the election and on and on and on. I do blame, but I hate it. But the trouble is… blame is just an idea. It isn’t real. It doesn’t exist. People who do blame, who use it as an argument are not logical, because blame is an abstract construct like self-pity or mindless prejudice. The ancient Chinese philosophers often said “No blame” and when I kept reading this, I wondered what the hell they meant… but later… when I realised that balance, harmony, acceptance and understanding rule ones perception of the world, there’s no place for blame… 

There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within [有神自在身]; 
One moment it goes, the next it comes, 
And no one is able to conceive of it. 
If you lose it you are inevitably disordered; 
If you attain it you are inevitably well ordered. 
Diligently clean out its lodging place [敬除其舍] 
And its vital essence will naturally arrive [精將自來]. 
Still your attempts to imagine and conceive of it. 
Relax your efforts to reflect on and control it. 
Be reverent and diligent 
And its vital essence will naturally stabilize. 
Grasp it and don’t let go 
Then the eyes and ears won’t overflow 
And the mind will have nothing else to seek. 
When a properly aligned mind resides within you [正心在中], 
The myriad things will be seen in their proper perspective.

And this is how one gets balance into its rightful place… and this is why there is no place for blame. Yippee!