When Suffering Gives Birth to Harm

Understanding the Roots of Violence Through the Lens of Compassion

In the clearest seeing, nothing arises in isolation. Every action, even those we find deeply disturbing —like murder or abuse— has roots in conditioning, pain, confusion, and unconsciousness. This isn’t a justification. It’s an invitation to look deeper.

When someone harms another, it is not clarity or wholeness expressing itself. It is trauma, fragmentation, disconnection. It is the result of unmet needs, buried emotions, and twisted coping mechanism—often formed in childhood, inherited from generations before, and magnified by a world that itself has forgotten its own wholeness.

No child is born with the desire to destroy or hurt. They learn it, absorb it, are shaped by environments that lack the space to feel, to be held, to express without fear. Over time, fear becomes identity. Pain becomes compulsion. Violence becomes a form of survival.

This doesn’t mean harm goes unacknowledged. Quite the opposite. Seeing the root of suffering invites us to respond not with blame or vengeance, but with clarity, care, and firm love. Healthy boundaries and justice are part of that love; not born from hatred, but from wisdom and the longing to end cycles of harm.

From the nondual view, all of this (the pain, the trauma, even the darkest acts) is part of the appearance, the unfolding. Nothing is outside of what is. But from the human perspective, there is deep heartbreak in seeing how often suffering begets more suffering.

And still, in the midst of this, compassion remains. Not as an idea, but as a natural movement of truth seeing itself in all forms—even the most fractured.

Healing begins when we stop labeling people as “monsters” and start recognizing that what seems monstrous is often just a human being who was never shown they were loved.