Buddhism means never having to blame other people for what goes on in my mind.
Buddhism has meant that I will never have to wait for apology or the outside world to change before moving on.
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What happens in my mind is up to me. Or, more precisely: partly and definitively up to me. Yes, the past and my conditioning/habits affect my mind. But my present/now allows me to influence it. To open some gates and close others. And, if I build the will to stop some habit, that habit can lessen and stop.
It's not easy.
But it is always a choice I have, especially since I have been shown/see the path. (That is, people who can't even see the path or who have never been shown... They aren't culpable.)
And hence, I'm never waiting for an apology. There is no story I'm looking to draft others for (the romance story, the social justice story, the X-is-right story). There are no wrongs to be righted so that I can calm/tame the mind.
This is different from "there are no wrongs". There are morals. The 5 precepts. And, above that, it is unskillful (socially and personally) to hurt other people. And oneself. But the simile of the saw stands out. Even from the greatest injustice, that affects you and your kin directly, one can (and must) have Metta. Not Metta to the injustice. But Metta for all beings, without exception. It is akin to "hate the sin, love the sinner". Because that is the skill that is sometimes needed. To calm the mind when all we can see is revenge. Or, harder yet, naked pain.
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