Leading Wisely

4The Golden Rule

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

—Confucius

Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

—Immanuel Kant

Lesson 1: The Golden Rule

One day the Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry young man came up and began insulting him, hurling all kinds of rude words at him, intended to ridicule and demean him.

The Buddha didn't appear to be upset at all by these insults. Instead, he asked the young man, ‘Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?’

The young man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, ‘Of course, it would belong to me, because I bought the gift.’

The Buddha smiled and said, ‘That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I don't get insulted, then the anger falls back onto you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you are doing is hurting yourself.’

The Golden Rule suggests that you always treat people the way you would like to be treated yourself. In other words, what you do not want to be done to you, you should not do to others. It is precisely the rule's simplicity that makes it so important and powerful, so simple to understand and so easy to apply. In fact, the Golden Rule can be looked at as the basis for a society's moral code, even the foundation of the modern concept of human ...