Empathy, Unconditional, Universal

I just finished watching the last show of (season 3) the series The Bridge (Bron / Broen) on Netflix. The main impact of this detective show on me has been to markedly increase my empathy for people with mental illness. A number of the characters - both "good" and "bad" - in this series have very serious psycho-social problems, and we see events through their eyes - very powerful.

More than ever, I'm puzzled by the idea that justice systems continue to decide whether perpetrators of horrific crimes, were or were not criminally insane at the time. Isn't everybody criminally insane, at least while behaving in a manner that's completely foreign to civilized human behavior? Shouldn't such perpetrators, at the very least, be kept under close supervision for the rest of their lives, for everyone's, including their own, protection?

We're born with a host of potentials or capacities - call it DNA, nature or karma. And we're exposed to a unique environment, intra-utero and after birth - call it nurture. This is a massive, cocktail of interacting possibilities, unique to every one of us. None of us can truly understand the perspective of anyone else, so none of us can fairly judge anyone else.

I love the title "I Am That" of Nisargadatta's book. To me it implies that I'm as perfect and as imperfect as anyone else. Shunryu Suzuki said it this way: “Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.” When we hear of a misbehavior, crime, or punishment, we might remember: "there but for the grace of God go I."