The ground of blamelessness is connecting with things as they are, the simple clean-cut level of things as they are. If you see something wrong, say it. You don’t have to say it in a pejorative or negative sense at all. Just say it and do something about it. Talk to your friends. Tell them: let us not do this, but let us do that. In fact, every one of you has tremendous power.

Blamelessness is a very simple point. Blame doesn’t come from one’s partners or friends. Taking blame onto yourself means that it is yours. In other words, when you’re outside and you shout something, if it bounces off a rock, then the rock says, “ai, ai, ai, ai.” But you don’t blame the rock. You blame yourself, because you said ” ai, ai, ai, ai.” You’re in an echo chamber, so you blame the echoer, rather than the echo itself. Therefore, there is hope; there is hope of reducing blame.

The antidote to that echo chamber is to make friends with yourself. Give yourself a break. Allow yourself to sit in your home or take a drive into the mountains. Park your car somewhere; just sit, just be. It sounds very simplistic, but it has a lot of magic. You begin to pick up on clouds, sunshine and weather, the mountains, your past, your chatter with your grandmother and grandfather, your own mother, your own father. You begin to pick up on a lot of things. Just let them pass like the chatter of a brook as it hits the rocks. We have to give ourselves some time to be.

From: “Blamelessness: How to Love Yourself” in Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala, pages 122 to 123. Published by Shambhala Publications.