Summary: Pema Chodron, "No Right, No Wrong"

Patrick Morris

In the article, "No Right, No, Wrong", Pema Chodron discusses several aspects of her Buddhist belief and teachings. She begins by discussing how her own teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche, affected the way she sees the concept of "don't know", and the larger Buddhist concepts in general. Chodron describes how Rinpoche was an unconventional teacher, and how much of his teaching technique was aimed at making the student feel uncomfortable and taking the student outside of the student's comfort zone. In this way, she says, her teacher helped students to let go of their preconceived notions of right and wrong, of propriety and impropriety. She also discusses her teacher's relationships with female students. Chodron emphasizes that she now sees how he was not always right in everything he did, and that he may have exploited the power relationship he had with his students. However, Chodron also puts the onus on the other students as well, in that it was important for them to come to their relationships with Trungpa Rinpoche with open eyes expecting something like this might happen. For Chodron, this is another example of the "no right, no wrong" philosophy.

Chodron then goes on to discuss how her philosophy of being a "student/teacher", and how she sees it as important to maintain a balance between pride and humility in teaching Buddhism to others. Again, she emphasizes the "no right, no wrong" philosophy because she thinks that being too humble is as bad as being to prideful as a teacher. She says it is always important to represent Buddhism, and manifest it, correctly when dealing with students. For her this entails being mindful about your own behavior, but also showing your full humanity and self to the student because Buddhism, for Chodron, is not about cleaning things up, it's about acknowledging the messiness and slipperiness of life. Throughout the article Chodron emphasizes this messiness and how judging things as right or wrong is a useless exercise if the goal is true resolution and peace. She says, "how clean role models were never very useful [to her]". (p.299) For Chodron, the debate, and honest argument, is more important than the resolution of "right" or "wrong". She sees judgment of other people, and their actions, as a reflection of some issue or problem inside the one judging, and that ultimately one can only really know oneself. Any problem one has with another's actions is a reflection of an issue within oneself.