For tonight's meditation class I'm planning to give a dharma talk on Jung's understanding of the shadow - that unacknowledged side of ourselves that often manifests in very negative ways. In looking for material I came across this passage from William Sloane Coffin's Letters to a Young Doubter:
I think self-righteousness is the bane of human relations, of all of them — interpersonal, international, and interfaith. I'm sure it was self-righteousness that prompted Pascal to say, "Human beings never do evil so cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." Self-righteousness blocks our capacity for self-criticism, destroys humility, and undermines the sense of oneness that should bind us all.
Self-righteousness inspired the Christian Crusades against Muslims and, centuries later, the Easter pogroms of Eastern Europe, the sermon-induced slaughter of Jews after the morning celebration of the resurrected rabbi.
Today this same self-righteousness encourages some American Christians to cheer President Bush's messianic militarism, a divinely ordained form of cleansing violence, and all in the name of a Jesus Christ who is the mirror opposite of the Jesus of the four Gospels.
This country lost a great man when William Sloane Coffin died earlier this year. He was America's conscience to those who would listen. He is greatly missed.
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