It's not your fault

I was at the zen center this morning, doing something that I now can't remember, and this thought popped into my head: "It's not your fault."
I wondered about this, wondered what this was referring to, and then the thought came up again: "It's not your fault that she died. It's not your fault."
And this feeling immediately came up in me- a sadness, a sorry, a recognition that in fact, I had felt like it was my fault that my mom died.
I've never consciously thought this. But hearing that it wasn't my fault brought up some feeling in me that it had been (my fault). I don't know why I would ever think it was my fault that my mom died- it doesn't make sense in any way, shape, or form. But I know that when I hear that phrase- it's not your fault- I feel a mix of guilt, disbelief, and then...an emerging, an "it's okay, it wasn't you."
And I picture a little six year old, feeling responsible for the world, feeling like she had done something to make it happen. But then someone puts her arm around her and lets her know that really, it wasn't her.
And then the conversation continues:
It's not your fault that you were little and needed to be taken care of.
It's not your fault that your dad took care of you and your brother and sister.
It's not your fault that everyone was so young when all this happened.
None of it is your fault- it just happened.
Things happen.

But I think often, we think it was. I think in general, we believe that we are responsible for things. I think we think there is a cause and effect to everything and that we are responsible for most things. I don't think I consciously thought that I made my mom die, I never thought that. But within a context of a cause and effect world, something must have made her die, and so part of me must have felt responsible.

And I think we're stuck in a lot of suffering because of this. On the one hand, we have this great desire for control, for agency, for the comfort that comes from believing that we can make things be one way or another. But with this belief comes this frustration: things don't always turn out the way we wanted them to, and because we think we made them happen, we feel pretty bad about it. We think that if we had just done this, or remembered to do that, or acted this way, or said that, everything would have been fine. And so it becomes our fault that things turn out bad- when really it actually had nothing to do with us.
But on the other hand, we have a great deal of suffering in accepting that we don't have agency in this world. We don't want to be at the hands of the universe, we don't want to live our lives with absolutely no idea of what's going to happen next- that's terrifying for us. And so we go back to believing that we can make things happen, which feels good at first, but leaves us feeling like failures, or leaves us hating the universe for not going along with the plan.

I don't really know what to say about this except that, it isn't your fault. I mean, nothing in me thought that I made my mom die, nothing. And yet, here I am, 36 years later, seeing that, in fact, I actually felt responsible for an event that had absolutely nothing to do with me, my mom, my dad, or anyone. It was cancer- no one is responsible for that. But I still felt responsible. And I think I felt that way because I thought there was a cause and effect to things, I thought I could control the universe, I thought I was in charge of how things worked out. But I'm not, no one is.

I'm not saying I'm accepting this. I just... after I saw that I felt responsible for my mom's death, I thought about so many people who feel responsible for things that are related to them: an argument with a  loved one, a misplaced promotion or privilege, even a simple forgetting of something that leads to catastrophe. All of these things are related, we do play a role with our actions and decisions but these are so small compared to the workings of the universe. We do have a say, we do make choices, but we're still living within this greater universe with rules that don't necessarily follow our desires or needs. And I guess I just want people to know that mostly, it's not your fault. You really did try your best, it's just that you're in this universe, and there are things that happen, way beyond your control. It might feel like you're in charge, but you're not; and even though that feels like a bummer, it's still the truth and, well, good news... it's not totally your fault.