As I watched the tortured expressions of rage on the faces of the rioters at the Capital Building last week, I thought to myself, “This is why we practice”. We practice to not suffer or create suffering on gross levels such as we witnessed, and on increasingly subtler levels. We practice until the heart and mind are free of what in Buddhism are sometimes called the “defilements”: Greed, hatred, and delusion.

When there is no mindfulness and thus no ability to know what is entering one’s heart and mind, we are vulnerable to being overtaken by the defilements. That defilements visit the heart/mind is not necessarily the problem. This will continue to happen until the seeds of greed, hatred, and delusion have been uprooted and transformed completely. The problem is when there isn’t any mindfulness to know the defilements are present. They then can run rampant (sort of like how the people were running around the Capitol) in the heart/mind and completely overtake it.

Once the heart/mind is overtaken so completely, as we witnessed last week, there is only one avenue left for trying to find some relief. This avenue is to act out. Greed, hatred and delusion are mind states of suffering, and sentient life forms don’t like to suffer. We literally seek relief by trying to act these mind states out of existence. Of course, this doesn’t work and only serves to reinforce and deepen them.

When the defilements do arise, with mindfulness there is an ability to know their presence. This gives one the chance to have some say as to how to relate to them. Along with other aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path, such as Wise Intention to not harm and Wise Effort, these mind states of suffering can be checked and allowed to follow their nature, which is to pass away. They don’t need to be acted out to get relief. Rather, we can simply to skillfully respond until they naturally pass away.

The ability to relate to the defilements in this way is a radical act of social activism. Through the cultivating of wholesome heart/mind states, we protect other living beings from the suffering we would inflict on them, not to mention ourselves, through our acting out. This ability is the mother of all social activism. While the ability to know and respond skillfully to one’s unwholesome heart/mind states is not all of social activism, it does provide a very stable and wholesome foundation upon which other, more engaged forms can spring.

So, the next time you are meditating and wondering, Why am I doing this? What relevance does it have to the suffering I see in our world? remember that it is as much about what you are not doing as what you are doing. In the Dhammapada Verse 183, the Buddha says, “Do no harm, cultivate the good, purify the heart and mind. This is the teaching of all the Buddhas.” The Buddhist path to liberation and social activism begins with doing no harm.