"A young couple moves into a new neighborhood.

The next morning, while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees the neighbor hang up the wash outside.

'That laundry is not very clean, she said, she doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs another laundry soap.

The husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang out the wash, the young woman would make the same comment.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband, 'Look! she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?

Her husband said, 'I got up early this morning and washed the windows..."

And so it is with life: What we see while watching others, depends on the purity of the window through which we look. In Buddhism, we speak of Ignorance, which refers to an incorrect understanding of the true nature of the self and of the world in which the self exists. The Buddha taught that because we do not understand the true nature of existence (lack of wisdom), we constantly demonstrate the tendency to place too high a value, too great an emphasis on the I, me, myself, while simultaneously devaluing the other in relation to the self. My happiness then becomes more important than your happiness and their happiness, which justifies behavior on my part that results in harm to others