October 23, 2026

Don't Strike Yourself Twice

There is no evil equal to anger, and no fortitude equal to patience. Thus I should strive in every way to cultivate patience.

Shantideva was an eighth-century Indian monk at Nalanda monastery, remembered for reciting the entire Bodhicaryavatara aloud after his fellow monks expected him to embarrass himself. This verse comes from his chapter on patience, where he ranks anger as the single most destructive force in a practitioner's life and patience as its one sure antidote. Buddhist teaching traces this insight back to the Buddha's own parable of the two arrows: the first strikes from outside, unavoidable, while the second is the resentment or rumination we loose at ourselves afterward. Shantideva's argument is that the original wound, the loss, the insult, the setback, does limited damage, while the anger piled on top does the lasting harm. The practice the tradition asks for is not control over events but catching the moment before that second arrow leaves the bow.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: The Second Arrow →