Ram Dass: You Have No Moral Right to Take Away Someone’s Suffering
How our insistence to help people who are suffering just creates more suffering…unless you do it this way.
There’s this Ram Dass quote that has stuck with me for years: “You have no moral right to take away someone’s suffering.” I first heard it a few years back, listening to one of his lectures on Youtube, but I didn’t really understand it. I stumbled on it again recently, while doing research for a book about suffering. So, I thought, I’d better figure it out. After logging dozens of hours rewatching lectures, I think I’ve got the gist…
“To understand those Buddhist teachings about suffering, doesn’t mean that you can use that as a rationalization for other people’s suffering. Say, ‘Well, they’re suffering because of their minds.’ That forces you to deal with an interesting paradox. That you understand that, for an awakened person, suffering is actually grace because suffering shows you where the mind is caught and in that sense, it is an extremely useful gift. But you…
