MEDITATIONS: DOKKODO; THE WAY OF ALONENESS VI.
Principle Six
Do not regret what you have done. (Miyamoto, Musashi)
What has been done cannot be undone. This adage resonates throughout time and locale. It can be found in Lao Tzu, in Shakespeare, in Nietzsche, and even in modern consumerist media if it is profound. The sustained presence of this proposition can be taken as evidence of its accordance with the Way. Human beings cannot travel back in time. Though winding, the Great Course tends to flow in a particular direction. This means that, even if a mistake or malicious act is corrected, even if the doer is truly repentant, no amount of reparations can ever change the course of events such that what was no longer was.
We must live and die by the consequences of our actions. If this cannot said to be true, then little else can be. However, the fact of the permanence of the impact of our actions ought not lead us to despair—quite the opposite, for if each of our choices is actually so significant that, once made, the universe will never be the same as if we chose an alternate path, then to linger on the past in negligence of the present is to continue making errors in multitude of that which is regretted.
Thus does Musashi warn us never to regret. He places no stipulations nor limitations on this statement, because nothing is so bad that it cannot be made worse by perpetuating the curse. Hell is a bottomless pit for this reason. If we choose to wallow in guilt, misery, and despair, then we will never escape the double pitfall (Zhuangzi) we’ve dug for ourselves. Echoes of this notion can be found in Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. It is even reflected in the first principle Musashi laid out, “Accept everything just the way it is.”
A modern westerner, particularly a Christian may bristle at his misunderstanding of this. To him, I give this reminder: sin comes from hamartia, which means to miss the mark; and so to miss the point of a proposition is evidence of possession by wicked spirits who would wear the name of God as a skin suit in service for their own vanity and cause.
Nothing about this principle suggests that we should lack repentance for our wrong-doings. On the contrary, Musashi has identified a way forward, toward redemption. When we commit a sin, or even an innocent mistake, to repent is to change our aims such that our paths no longer deviate into bramble hedges and trenches. Regret is the opposite of this. To regret is to pay attention to the temptation which led us astray in the first. And I mean “pay.” We afford habits their allowance by attending to them–which is to say, by aiming at them. Thus is regret an investment of time and energy in service of perpetuating the spirit of the regretted act.
So, “do not regret what you have done.” No matter how terrible it seems to you, it was a part of your being human. Even if you believe it to be just that you suffer in retribution or revenge, that does not make justice a moral good. The past is gone and lost to us. There is only the present and continual becoming. Given that, the only true pathway is forward. Rumination does not repair past wrongs; it does not make anyone a better, stronger, more moral or admirable person. Nothing can accomplish that, but we can each move forward, cultivating our characters to accord more harmoniously with ourselves, one another, and ultimately the Way.
Miyamoto, Musashi. Dokkodo, translator unknown, 1645.
