which is to say, "Don't seek others' pain as a way to get happiness for yourself." We are glad when the troublemakers in our lives get hit by a truck or go bankrupt, or anything of that nature. I have a few people in my life who fall into this category, and I'm amazed at how happy I am when one of them writes me a letter and tells me that things are going badly. Conversely, I feel haunted by distaste when I hear that things are going well for them. There's still the memory of how they hurt me, and I wish they would just continue to go downhill and drop dead, painfully. That's how we seek others' pain as the limbs of our own happiness.

From START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Chdrn, 1994.
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.