On Right-Mindedness

“Dying because someone is vexed at being insulted resembles right-mindedness, but it is not that at all. This is forgetting oneself in the anger of the moment. It is not right-mindedness in the least. Its proper name is anger and nothing else. Before a person has even been insulted, he has already departed from right-mindedness. And for this reason, he suffers insult. If one's right-mindedness is correct when he is associating with others, he will not be insulted by them. Being insulted by others, one should realize that he had lost his own right-mindedness prior to the offense.”

~ Takuan Soho, The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master (translated by William Scott Wilson)