Regret vs Guilt: a Buddhist perspective
Mouse size musings from The Dalai Lama's Cat
If you have ever read a Dalai Lama’s Cat book and thought to yourself wistfully on turning the final page: “Oh, I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye to such a wise and delightful being!” then I have some wonderful news for you, dear reader: you don’t have to.
His Holiness Cat lives - right here, on Substack!
From time to time, when the muse strikes, I may even be coaxed into sharing a mouse size musing, such as the one below.
Intrigued? You should be!
Subscribed? Why are you not, already, pray tell?!
To give you an example of what you’ve been missing out on, read on …
Guilt. Such a burdensome emotion is it not? It combines at least two different forms of torment: abject misery at the harm one has caused, along with self-blame for having behaved so disgracefully. What to do? How to avoid drowning in shame?
It didn’t help that Mrs. Trinci, the very person I had ill-treated, was my most vocal defendant. “It couldn’t have been HHC!” she wailed before anyone could suggest the possibility. “She’s was upstairs with His Holiness early this morning.” Or alternatively, “Even if she did come into the kitchen, The Most Beautiful Creature Who Ever Lived would never do this! It just isn’t in her!”
Alas, dear reader - it most certainly had been.
The crime in question had to do with a Kullu Trout. Filleted, sliced, and infused with the most piquant flavours, instead of the usual heavy glass dish Mrs. Trinci usually placed on food left to marinade, she had used only a single fold of kitchen towel. One that was easily removed with a few deft tugs of the paw while she had temporarily left the room. Drawn by the alluring scent during an opportune prowl, what followed had had an awful inevitability about it. And because a kitchen window had been left ajar, blame was soon apportioned to some anonymous stray cat that must have found its way in and devoured what Mrs. Trinci had planned as the highlight of that day’s luncheon entrée. One she was under immediate pressure to replace.
I had known I was doing wrong, even as I did it. But the temptation was so great, and my craving so insatiable, it had been impossible to resist. What was there left to do after that? How to live knowing that I was causing my most generous benefactor to wail and gnash her teeth – quite literally - as she did her best to recover from the most unfortunate setback?
The Executive Assistants’ office was a calm oasis of business as usual. Suave and suited, Tenzin was responding to emails from around the world. Facing him Oliver, His Holiness’s translator, was proof-reading a new text to which the Dalai Lama had promised a Foreword. On top of the filing cabinet, I was able to doze only fitfully – whether on account of a guilty conscience or a bloated belly is hard to say.
And as is so often the case with these things, when the two men paused for their elevenses – a short mid-morning break for tea and biscuits – it just so happened that conversation somehow turned to a subject of the most direct relevance. It began with an innocuous inquiry from Tenzin, “So,” he nodded to the manuscript occupying Oliver’s desk. “What’s the book about?”
“The four opponent powers,” his colleague told him, blue eyes glinting behind his spectacles.
“To purify negative karma?” Tenzin confirmed – the point in the conversation at which my ears tilted forwards, though not too obviously I hoped.
“Exactly,” Oliver picked up a shortbread cookie that Mrs. Trinci had sent up from the kitchen with the tea tray. “The author offers an interesting metaphor on how regret can energise our practice. Much better than feeling so wracked with guilt that you slide into a spiral of misery when you’re unable to do anything useful.”
“Guilt versus regret,” nodded Tenzin, as Oliver munched contentedly. “Such an important distinction. From all I’ve heard speaking to Westerners it seems to me that some Christian groups, in particular, emphasize guilt to an extent that their followers feel constantly unworthy. Filled with sin – original and otherwise. I was quite shocked when someone first explained this to me, because of how we take the opposite view – that our primordial state is completely pure. Our Buddha nature, our tathagatagarbha, may be obscured by clouds or negativities, but they are only ever temporary. They will be removed as karma plays out, or by purification. Sometimes I think that Buddhism is one of the most positive traditions.”
“Exactly,” chimed Oliver. “It’s empowering to know that you’re in charge of your own reality and that you can find your way back to the divine light within, instead of being filled with such self-loathing that you are paralysed by torment.”
Paralysed by torment. Was this me, I wondered – being, after all, the most suggestible of felines. On the filing cabinet I tried moving my tail, but could only manage a listless tweak. I reached my paws in front of me for a stretch that turned out to be only a half-hearted business. I wasn’t paralysed - at least not yet. But what if paralysis was in the process of setting in?
My movement caught Tenzin’s attention. “HHC!” he greeted, lifting a small ramekin of clotted cream from the tea tray and placing it in front of me. “With the ever-fond compliments of the chef.”
How unworthy am I? I couldn’t avoid the thought. Having stolen the highlight of Mrs. Trinci’s entrée, instead of being punished, here I was being rewarded with an unexpected treat! I roused myself, slowly getting to my feet and bending to lick the cream. I felt sluggish. More than a little blah. Was it the leaden burden of guilt, I wondered - or simple indigestion?
“What’s the metaphor the author uses?” prompted Tenzin.
“It’s about eating at the Bad Karma Café,” Oliver looked mischievous.
“Uh-huh?” Tenzin’s smoothly diplomatic features were alight with possibility.
“A way of dealing with whatever negative things we have done.”
I raised by head, feeling certain that the men would look over and instantly recognise the felonious gaze of a Kulla Trout thief. Oliver did glance over, but without any such awareness.
“The idea,” he explained. “Is to imagine that you’re one of a group of people who went out to a restaurant. In this case the Bad Karma Café. You have fun at the time, eating from a banquet of shared plates. It’s a great evening. But on your way home you get a message from a partner of one of the others that they have food poisoning. They’re in such severe pain they’re being taken to hospital.”
Tenzin’s eyebrows jolted.
“Someone else sends a message after throwing up violently. They’re feverish and in a really bad way. It seems a lot more serious than ordinary food-poisoning.”
As I settled, front paws tucked under, a small empathetic burp escaped me.
“As you hear all this,” continued Oliver. “You start feeling queasy yourself. You begin wondering what everyone ate that night? What dishes did you share? Are you going to be okay?”
Tenzin fixed Oliver with a penetrating expression. “The onset of regret?”
His colleague nodded. “Quite so. When we do something unvirtuous, it’s as if we have ingested poison. And we don’t have to look far to see how the same poison affects others. All the pain and suffering beings experience will become our reality too. Whatever harm we have caused others, we will come to know ourselves. Actions leave imprints on our mind that we are forced to encounter in the future – unless we do something about them.”
“Which is where the four powers come in?” queried Tenzin.
Oliver nodded. “In particular, using the power of regret to motivate us to apply opponent practices. If we have been angry, for example, to cultivate patience. If we have been stingy, to practice generosity. Any positive action really, motivated by sincere regret. This is the power of opponent practices. Sorry,” he was shaking his head. “I’m monksplaining. You already know all this.”
“Monksplaining!” repeated Tenzin as the two men chortled at Oliver’s wordplay. “But I see how the Bad Karma Café idea helps reveal the power of regret. We acknowledge the past and face up to the consequences. Not in a self-hating way. And we also recognise the opportunity to change, to take action to rid ourselves of the poison in us.”
Tenzin paused, his expression earnest. “Which one of us hasn’t eaten at the Bad Karma Café?”
“The proof being,” Oliver nodded in agreement, “that our reality isn’t one of unceasing happiness. But I take great comfort from knowing that even if I can’t recall every single instance of negativity I’ve committed, I can still purify it so long as I keep applying opponent practices. I am also reassured that of virtue and non-virtue, virtue has ten times more power.”
A smile appeared on Tenzin’s face. “You remind me of that famous quote by Nagarjuna in his Letter to a Friend:
Those who have been reckless in the past,
If later, becoming conscientious,
Are as beautiful as a moon freed of clouds.”
“A transcendent image,” agreed Oliver. “Serene.”
“On the subject of serenity,” Tenzin segued. “I wonder how Mrs. Trinci is doing downstairs. She was most upset when I arrived.”
“Yes, she was.”
“And quite determined to believe a stray cat was to be blamed, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t an inside job.”
You may find it hard to believe, dear reader, but when Tenzin said this, the words went straight over my pretty, velvet ears. It was only remembering them later that I realized what he inferred. Because at the time he was speaking, I had resolved to apply an opponent practice just as Oliver had proposed. If I was to purify the non-virtue of theft, the antidote would be to give. And as a feline, my most lavish gift was the one I decided to bestow right now. I began to purr with loud and appreciative gusto.
Tenzin and Oliver both looked over at where I sat, the very portrait of elegant munificence.
“She certainly seems very content,” observed Oliver.
‘Hmm,” Tenzin was equivocal.
I purred on with staunch commitment. And as I continued, I started feeling a bit better about things. Was the majestic serenity of the moon slowly being revealed as it emerged free from obscurations, I wondered? Or simply that my indigestion was starting to wane?
“Regret purifies both negative karma and the tendency to create negative karma again. The extent to which you purify negative karma is dependent on the strength and sincerity of your regret.”
Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, Path to Enlightenment
If you would like further encounters with HHC in future months, among a mix of weekly posts offering uplifting wisdom from the world of Tibetan Buddhism, sign up as a free or paying subscriber (at $7 a month) right now!
Half of your subscription payment goes to three not-for-profits in Zimbabwe, who take care of cats, dogs, orphaned elephants and humans in dire circumstances. You’ll be receving regular updates about these during the year.
Be the change you want to see in the world!