Note: These talks were directed toward attendees at the Central Ohio Center of Pragmatic Buddhism in Columbus, Ohio. References to local events, people, and prior conversations among the members have been left in the text.
Graeme
October 2024
*this was written to process my feelings about my friendship with Dr. Graham Smith, who belonged to the buddhist group I was part of. He was brilliant, funny in the way only the English are, and was a good friend to me when I needed one*
Some of you will remember Graeme.
I first met Graeme in 2015, when we used to meet at the old Stonewall offices in the short north.
When I first arrived, it was usually Glenn, Nicki, Graeme, and me. We would sit on the threadbare green carpet in between office desks, and Glenn would set up a tiny altar on what I’m pretty sure was a printer. Graeme fascinated me then with his wit and insight.
For the longest time, years, I didn’t know what Graeme did for work, other than that we worked at Ohio State University. He came to practice in ratty clothes and hole-y socks, and more often than not, said what we were all thinking, but not brave enough to voice, in the post talk discussion.
During one of our Sunday brunches at The Angry Baker in German Village, Graeme told me that his job at Ohio State was to teach the science of radar and mentoring PhD candidates in the same. He was struggling with a job offer he received to work at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics lab in New England. He loved his work here but hated that he had to fund-raise his own salary, and was ready to move on to more challenging work.
Graeme had relationship problems and work politics problems like everyone else. As someone who is blunt, I appreciated that he was straightforward. Graeme was terribly funny in that British “Monty Python” kind of way. In our after talk discussion, he would listen to everyone’s opinions and ideas. Then, he could sum up the talk, crack a joke, and challenge the topic all in a few sentences.
After learning about all his accomplishments, it surprised me how unsure of himself Graeme was. Graeme was a good son, an athlete, a thoughtful friend, but pretty much always felt like he didn’t have his shit together.
He would talk with me about the power struggles in his relationship, which baffled him, and how messed up communication can be when ego and hurt feelings are involved. He always listened quietly and carefully to my perspective, and would think on how to make things better. He would also listen to my problems and made me feel less alone in my feelings.
Graeme never made anyone feel like less. Although I made myself feel like the dumb kid at the blackboard sometimes, he never did.
Graeme challenged my practice of putting people in little boxes. This is a habit I picked up from my mother, this categorization. I do it automatically, then get angry with myself for doing so. But before I knew of his professional achievements, he seemed like…a programmer, or maybe your favorite teacher whose wardrobe is one step up from flannel pajamas.
One Sunday morning after the talk – which I think was about the challenges of meditation – Graeme said something like “I don’t know what everyone else is thinking about, but when I close my eyes my imagination goes haywire, creating images and ruminating on my schedule for the week, and when I meditate with my eyes open, all I’m thinking about is that the carpet is dusty and needs hoovering”. I don’t think we realized it until then, but it seemed each of us had been thinking the same thing – that everyone else meditates with a clear head and a sense of peace – and we all have monkey mind. We all erupted in laughter and the tension was broken, allowing each of us to share our personal struggles with zazen (seated, silent meditation). To have a more honest conversation.
The term “truth-seeker” is overused, but that was Graeme down to the bone. He tried to wrest every little bit of data from any situation till the truth was revealed and could be faced clearly.
Other than then warmth of his friendship, what I think of when he comes to mind is his doubt. He doubted himself, his feelings, his perspectives, his decisions. It was baffling to him, but he didn’t let uncertainty win. He moved along and figured things out as he went.
We all have these doubts. Am I a good parent, am I doing the right thing? Should I accept the promotion? Should I keep spending time with this friend? Should I stay with my partner or leave?
In my life, I have let doubt and fear win SO many times. I mis-took my fear of flourishing as a fear of failure and so, I would think about doing things but never act. Didn’t reconnect with that friend who I miss desperately. Didn’t take that class, etc. We all have those. But I try to learn from Graeme, and go ahead anyway. Perfection should never be the goal. Being mindful of what’s in front of us is.
Graeme accepted the job at the applied physics lab in early 2019, I think. in the three years that he was there he jumped feet-first into his job, worked with NASA on a project for the International Space Station, met and married his wife, discovered a love of hiking and photography, and then, he died. He was 45 years old.
I could fill a book with adjectives about Graeme. Most of all he was flawed, fiercely intelligent, straightforward, funny, and kind.
In living his life the way that he did, he demonstrated a fitting lesson in living in the moment. Even though he was far away, he remained a friend of the Center until the end. I know I’m not the only one who misses him very much, and it makes me sad to know that you all didn’t get to meet him.
When he moved to New England, we lost touch. I was hurt and angry at first, but sometimes that happens. People come in and out of your life and if you don’t nurture those relationships, they fade. If there is one lesson I learned from his life and our circumstances, it’s to cherish friendships and do the work to sustain them. To not let so much time pass. To use TODAY for what it offers – an opportunity to begin again.
I think about Graeme when the floor is dusty. I think about him when I get a hole in my sock. When I go to brunch in German Village. When conversing with someone with a crooked smile. When I see photos of from the ISS.
The people we love and lose are always with us. A platitude for sure, but I didn’t really understand it deep down until Graeme died. His work and advancements in radar will always be there. His humor and assistance at the meditation center live through us and our stories. And I like to think that his spirit – or whatever term you prefer – resides in the ether. A reminder to be kind, to laugh, and to get out there and live your damn life. He comes like a warm breeze in my heart when I need a friend.
What matters most
December 2023
Like most topics you’ll see me write about, I’m not the first person to say this.
Think about a time when you were driving from one place to another on a cold day, and you saw someone out in the cold struggling with not enough warm weather clothing on. What went through your mind? Were you thinking “oh that poor person!” or “I’ll donate my unused coats” or some other sympathetic notion? In our warm vehicle, we can drive past thinking kind thoughts about the person, but we can’t imagine the bone-deep cold they might be experiencing. We don’t know what brought them to this place, and may not have suffered what they have suffered.
This is how privilege works. As a white person, I’ve never been stopped by the police for no reason. I’ve never had to speak to my younger relatives about how to stay alive in the presence of law enforcement or an angry white person. I’ve never had to hold my tongue when people say racist things. And I’ve never had to listen while people who call me friend, commit micro-aggressions out of ignorance.
When I was a young adult, I lived in an older part of my city where most people were struggling financially. The area was plagued by drug use and petty crime. But the people I lived close to all helped each other if we could. We had very little, so we understood each other’s experience. You could knock on the neighbors door to ask for a wrench if you were trying to fix your car, and you’d offer them the same. If you look at the volunteers in any organization, you’ll see mostly people who the org is attempting to benefit. The drug counselors are sometimes former addicts. The national organization for women is made up of mostly – you guessed it – women. And charities that serve various BIPOC are mainly founded and run by the same.
Shared experience is what binds us. It’s easier to have empathy for someone if you’ve met the same fortunes and misfortunes. If we look at it in terms of money, members of similar socio-economic groups will usually spend time mostly with each other. Clubs and hobbies, etc. are chosen not only because of our interest, but our ability to afford them. You won’t see a minimum wage worker on a yacht, unless they are employed there. Likewise, the president of a bank will not usually be down at the pub on the corner with warehouse workers. They simply don’t have the same experience on which to build relationships.
This isn’t the fault of any one person or group. Humans are tribal. Historically, living in groups, hunting and growing food together, and guarding against enemies is what kept us alive. I don’t believe that this applies any longer.
In terms of activism (which is not only an action, but a way of life), which way do we point our sword? As of this writing, there are no less than four genocides happening on our planet – that we know of – and the affected people need help. In the United States, there are millions of homeless, and they need help. Similarly, lack of access to fresh food is a real problem; those people need help. It can be overwhelming. It IS overwhelming. I think sometimes we become paralyzed by choice and are therefore unable to act. However, have you noticed that the most effective activists are those who direct all their efforts toward one or two issues or groups of people?
A local artist here in Central Ohio recently wrote on his Patreon that while he loved to paint, he put it aside to fully devote himself to writing. We must consider what may be affecting our ability to act to help a group who really needs it, and put it on the back burner. After all, we’re most useful when our mind is set to one goal only. Our resources of time, energy, and funds are finite. Choices have to be made. If we try to fix everything, we only end up ineffectual and brain-fried.
Let’s come back to privilege. It’s our nature to be more inclined to help ourselves or people like us. And in the past, we didn’t have much information about the wider world, and what we did have was filtered though media. But here in 2023, any person can pick up a mobile phone and tell the world their true, lived experience. We can’t claim ignorance.
I read once (can’t remember where, if I find it, I’ll link it) that privilege is a gilded cage. If I’m fed well, comfortable and warm with all my needs met, it’s more difficult to identify with someone struggling. If I’m out in the cold with them, I’m looking for shelter and asking for help. Maybe what we need to do is say “I can’t imagine myself in their situation, but I can see their pain and struggle”. To do that, we need to get familiar with being uncomfortable, with being upset, with becoming and staying mad as hell at what is being perpetrated on people. Humans. Humans with hearts and lungs and hopes and children and gods unfamiliar to us. We can’t allow anyone to “other” them or dehumanize them. If nothing else, our shared humanity should spur us to action. Find a group, organization, or cause that you can connect with and learn about them. Speak to people in that group. See how we are all the same in all the ways that count.
We are all the same in the eyes of whatever god you believe in. When all our days are counted, what we gave and how we loved are all that matter.
Forgiveness and gratitude
July 2023
In the book of Joy, The Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Tutu tell stories of super human acts of forgiveness, like a woman who forgave the man who killed her daughter, or a man who forgave and ultimately became friends with an officer who shot him between the eyes with a rubber bullet and blinded him. Hopefully, most of us will never have to forgive someone of something this devastating. The situations we deal with are actions that lead to divorce, harsh words, and thoughtlessness. Maybe we’ve been fired from a job or lost a friend.
The severity of someone’s actions doesn’t make it any easier to forgive them, though. From an accidental slight happening just at the wrong time or taken the wrong way, to betrayal by a loved one, We get so stuck in questions like “how could they do this to me? Do I deserve to be treated that way? Why?” that we can become stuck in this ever-cycling loop of unanswerable questions, re-living our hurts over and over.
This happened to me when I was in high school. I was in the school girls bathroom before leaving after an after school choir practice, and two of the boys in the choir came in and attacked me. They shoved me around and grabbed me so hard I had full handprint bruises. For a long time, I kept trying to come up with some justification for their actions, wondering if I’d done something to warrant such a violent reaction. I went over every conversation we’d had. Every time I’d said something rude or sarcastic. It was a long time before I could just say “There was nothing I could have done to justify it, and sometimes you just don’t get to know the answers to those questions.” So in that case forgiveness was me letting go of wanting those answers.
In other situations, we have trouble forgiving the other party because we know we have some culpability. There’s a Chinese proverb that says “There are three truths. There’s my truth, your truth, and THE truth” When we engage in an argument with someone, afterward we’ll tell anyone who listens “Well, THEY said this” or “THEY did that”, while conveniently excluding all the things we shouldn’t have said or done.
I don’t think it would take any of us very long to recall a situation in which we 100% blamed another person for our hurt feelings. But if we honestly examine those situations, we’ll find some blame for ourselves, too. In my experience this is why forgiveness is so hard. We can take the steps that experts recommend: Telling your story, naming the hurt, granting forgiveness, & renewing or releasing the relationship. But if we don’t find the bits that we need to take responsibility for and forgive ourselves, the hurt will still be there.
When we understand why someone would act in a certain way, compassion naturally follows. For example: Several years ago there was an accident near my office where a man driving a dump truck swerved into the opposite lane, killing a woman and her two year old child. He was diabetic and had gone into shock. So the first part of that story has us sympathizing with the woman’s family, and the second causes us to sympathize with both, because we have the full understanding of why the accident happened. And sometimes, as in the case of the boys who attacked me, there are no answers, and we must accept that in order to free ourselves of the incident and its power over us.
Because, as much as we forgive others to release them from the guilt and shame they may be feeling, forgiveness is ultimately for ourselves. When someone “ruins our day” that person has power over us for as long as we’re upset by their actions. The same goes for longer term healing; the time span it takes us to fully forgive the other party and ourselves is the same span of time we carry around the burden of what happened.
Moving forward requires us to let go of experiences and harmful words that are literally holding us back. And guilt, shame, anger, and hurt feelings weigh a ton. Those judgments and feelings are a screen obscuring our potential. When we let go of those feelings, though, we realize the beauty of forgiveness is that we’re giving ourselves permission to be at peace. Permission to be free of the angst we carry. Permission to be free.
The more judgmental I am of myself, the less I’m able to offer myself grace, and the more this feeling spills out to others. I’m less able to be kind and forgiving of others. Said another way, the nicer I am to myself, the nicer I am to everyone else. The more effort I put into being my own friend, the less effort it takes to a a friend of the world.
Right to be happy
October 2023
The first noble truth is the truth of suffering. It exists.
The second is the truth of the origin of suffering. Where it comes from.
The third – Truth of the cessation of suffering.
The fourth – The path to cessation.
I’ve seen these stated as Disease, Diagnoses, Cure, and Treatment, but Imagine if there was another, tucked in between the third and the fourth. Maybe a sub-heading. After the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering, let’s place – just for today – Seeking of the Cessation of Suffering. A patient isn’t treated for an illness unless they seek it out.
Why do people seek treatment? If a person is inflicted with an illness or injury that makes their daily life extremely difficult or impossible to maintain comfortably, they will usually seek treatment then. So how does that translate?
I know I came to Buddhism when my emotional pain, combined with my aversion to Christianity caused me to seek out other options. I wanted some kind of organized spiritual path, and I didn’t want it to be a Christian one. But underneath that was a kernel of belief that I deserved to feel better. Wasn’t I worthy enough? If a friend asked me “don’t I have a right to be a little bit happy?”, of course I would say yes. I would jump up and scream it. For the first time, I turned that question on myself.
Of course people aren’t varying levels of worthy. But I didn’t know that at the time. That was just how I saw it.
So maybe a person is dealing with grief, or is just existentially exhausted, has family troubles, a physical illness, or some other malady. All religions that I know of promise some type of relief from the general feelings of unsatisfactoriness. Some come with guilt, shame, coercion, a cult leader, a rigid doctrine, or some other, external force that acts upon you. Maybe a church is attended by well-meaning, kind people. But even there is god with commandments to follow. Buddhism is the only doctrine I know of that says 1. This is possible, and 2. You can do it yourself. The sangha can be a lovely, helpful, soothing part of our practice, but in the absence of it, one can still walk the path.
In the absence of those external forces, in order to begin a practice, you have to be your own kick in the pants. And in order to do that, there has to be that spark of ‘hey, maybe this IS possible. and if it is, maybe I deserve that, too’.
This doesn’t apply only to new practitioners. Years in to my own practice, i’ve had to give myself this advice – many times. Like the rest of it, for me this is an exercise that must be done over and over.
Even if you had initially come to Buddhism through a purely academic curiosity, there must be a moment of ‘could this work for me?’ and ‘if it works, what does that look like? What does a flourishing me, look like?’
For those of us who are seasoned practitioners, if we’re floundering, maybe we should ask ourselves those questions. Do I deserve to be happy? What does a happy me look like? How could I more positively impact the world if I revitalized my practice? and then adjust our course.
Lastly I’d like to remind us that practice is not linear. Any hiker will tell you that the path is NEVER straight. And there’s no perfect way to practice. Beware of purists who say that only zazen, only movement, only chanting, only guided meditation, or only anything is the right way. The only right way, is to practice earnestly without harming others or yourself.
Give yourself that pep talk. Ask yourself those questions. And as someone reminded me last week, show up to the best of your ability at the time; that’s all anyone expects of you, and it is perfectly enough.
Rigorous Self-Honesty
May 2021
My topic today is rigorous self honesty. I’d like to address what it is, what it isn’t, how we can cultivate it for our own benefit and the benefit of others.
Rigorous is defined as extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate. I like that when Ryugen Sensei gave us this mandate, he didn’t just say “rigorous honesty”. He said “rigorous SELF honesty”. Our practice is sometimes a solitary venture, where we look inward. We don’t look outward and try to find the faults, poor decisions, and mistakes of those around us, we look to our own character, our own past. This mandate does not allow for evasion, distraction, or finger-pointing. Honesty with ourselves and honesty with others not the same, because we can choose what we say to other people, but our thoughts about ourselves come without conscious thought or warning. Notice that the teaching is to “observe” our thoughts, not to stop them.
Plato said “The worst of all deceptions is self-deception”. I think that most people hold this belief that deep down, they aren’t very likable. We compare our everyday ups and downs, beauty and ugliness with everyone else’s facade. We don’t like to think about the times we were snobbish, or ignored a friend’s text for a week, or said a cruel word. We all have a list of these little infractions a mile long, and sometimes, embedded in the list, typed in white font, are mistakes or even intentional actions which are much worse. Our practice doesn’t allow for us to move forward without addressing these actions.
None of this growth is possible without rigorous self-honesty. If you’re like me, you took “rigorous” to mean “brutal”. My co-worker Jerry used to call that “putting on the hair shirt”, the way monks used to do. Instead of seeing our past actions as unskillful, we see them as opportunities to be angry with ourselves. “Why was I like that?”, or “How did I have any friends at all with the way I acted?” Not only is this the opposite of self-compassion, it’s a waste of time. If we’re busy whipping ourselves, we can’t move forward with 1. realizing the root causes of our behavior and 2. Changing that behavior. Time spent hating ourselves is avoidance of the issue.
So far we’ve only talked about negative or unskillful actions. We must also be honest with ourselves about our gifts. What are you good at? What spark and talents do you posses that make the world a better place? And, are you using those gifts? This one is more difficult, I think, because we can self-flagellate all day, but saying “I have a gift for organization, but I’m in a job where I can’t use that talent, I need to make a change” is much harder. Looking around at our environment and realizing it’s not serving us is scary as hell. We allow momentum to steal years from us, while we allow comfort and habit to distract us. I know many artists who can paint and sculpt the most breath-taking art, but ask them to write a CV and they fall to pieces. It’s a middle path, isn’t it, between self-recrimination and grandiosity? The path is self-honesty.
Think of people you admire. Whether it’s a poet or a snowboarder or a politician, those people accepted that they had a gift, and they use it for their own enjoyment and for the benefit of others. We must become aware of our abilities, we must accept them, and we must take action.
Author Gish Jen said out that not everything we do has to come from an intentional out-flowing of our authentic self. This is a mostly Western idea. Some things we do simply out of duty, such as taking care of an elderly parent. There doesn’t have to be a deeply thought out reason behind every action we take, sometimes it just because we have to do it.
Rigorous self-honesty can be scary, and difficult, but it’s a tool like any other. When employed skillfully it allows us to burn away the delusions that hold us back from being our true authentic selves. We can emerge from the fog of our old patterns. It allows us to see ourselves as the miracles we are, to strive for what we want, to stand confidently on the bedrock of our truth. It is how we clear the path to joy.
Interconnectedness
May 2021
Today I’ll be talking about interconnectedness, from the reading of a book titled “Interconnected: Embracing life in our global society” by the 17th Karmapa.
In the book he states that there are two steps we must take to fully understand our interconnectedness with the world around us, and the people in it. The first step is to understand interconnectedness intellectually. I know that this tea cup didn’t sprout out of the ground to land on the shelf over there. I know that it came from the earth, then hands or machines that transported the raw material, then, and then and then until it arrived at our sangha. In that way, this cup is the earth (literally), but it’s also each person who had a hand in creating it.
The Karmapa says that next step is to emotionally comprehend how profoundly we are linked with everything and everyone. This is interdependence. Like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, you only have to go so far before you find a link to yourself.
Knowing we are connected is not the same as realizing our interdependence. We rely on each other for food, for transportation, for fuel, for clothing and all material goods. Everything humans need for survival – air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, and safety – we either provide for others or depend on others to provide for us. When we attempt to find anything or anyone that is independent, we fail. Contemplating this one day, I had the most amazing experience. I was on the cushion trying to call up any item, concept, or person that existed in a bubble. This was rather early on in my practice, so I was genuinely exerting myself, (as in, it wasn’t simply an exercise, I wanted to find something self-sustaining) when all the sudden my mind zoomed out! I saw my little neighborhood, with each person in relation to the other, then broader and broader views until the blue ball of the earth appeared in my mind’s eye – all of us people, and animals, and mountains and weather meeting the needs of others. And alternatively, denying those needs. A delicate, violent, and beautiful dance stretching back to the beginning of everything.
Why is this important? How does it inform our actions today? So what if the clay that made a tea cup traveled half around the world to be here?
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Just as we are all connected to, and dependent on each other – those connections can never be severed. Think of someone you no longer spend time with. You may not see them physically, or speak to them, but those experiences are still part of you, and you are part of them. From a mentor, or a lover, or a stranger on the street who smiled at you, it’s all still in there, and it all still affects and informs our relationship with our world.
This is why kindness and understanding are vital to our interactions with others. Just as they effect our experience of the world, so do we for them. Additionally, when we are kind and compassionate, we set an example for others. When Ghandi said “you must be the change you want to see in the world”, this had to be at least partly what he meant. I can’t expect kindness from you if I’m cruel. I can’t armchair-quarterback my city into reforming the police department. If I want change, I have to get in there and get my hands dirty.
What we do to others, we do to ourselves. When we act in harmful ways, we also cause harm to ourselves.From the smallest action, to our overall legacy, the depth of our practice informs our understanding of our profound and mysterious connection to our precious, priceless world.
Deeply understanding interdependence means understanding that there is no “us and them”. If you stood in front of a mirror and tried to do harm to the person you see there, you would have to harm yourself to do it. This is what our actions are like in the real world.
In the book, he states “Neither social nor environmental justice is possible without significant changes in our attitudes and the intentional behaviour they give rise to. The transformation of our social and material world must begin within us.”
Everything good in practice grows from kindness. When we are kind and forgiving to ourselves, that flows outward to the people in our immediate environment, then to the wider world. And the worlds of the people we affect with that kindness. To realize, then internalize, then actualize. Sounds kind of like the OPB motto, right?
It’s not simple or easy to always offer compassion, especially to ourselves. Old habits re-assert themselves unless we are vigilant. This is why we practice. To make more of a habit of being kinder to ourselves, and letting that flow out.
Listen First
March 2017
When I was a manager for a large telecom corporation, I was having a meeting with my boss one day and he said “DeDe, you need to stop talking so much in meetings. It’s not that you don’t have good ideas; all of your ideas are good ones, it’s just that you never shut up.” Even though I was angry, I realized that no one was going to listen to me if they tuned out every time I opened my mouth. So initially, when I started taking his advice it was only so that people would listen to the ideas I did speak about, but later I began to realize that dominating the whole meeting was not only rude, it robbed me of the chance to hear other peoples good ideas and opportunities for collaboration. I realized that when I was talking abut myself, the other people and their feelings ceased to exist.
The Buddha must have someone like me in his sangha, because he had some specific rules for speaking.
Here is a quote from the vaca sutra:
“Monks, a statement endowed with five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless & unfaulted by knowledgeable people. Which five?
“It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will.
“A statement endowed with these five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless & unfaulted by knowledgeable people.”
and, from the Dhammapada:
Better than a thousand meaningless statements
Is one meaningful word
Which, having been heard,
Brings peace.
– Dhammapada 100
As much as we would like to think otherwise, as many exceptions as we can think up, these rules actually do apply to all situations. When I talk to people about difficulties they have and dealing with coworkers or family members etc., there’s always a caveat. “But they said this” or, “I had to speak harshly so that they would understand”. As if the behavior of the other person is justification for speaking in a negative or harsh manner. The truth is that we cannot base our responses on what the other person says. We can’t control their words any more than we can control their thoughts.
I’m reminded of a day several years ago when I stopped in at Valvoline to get an oil change. I was in a capital letters Bad Mood. I was very short with the gentleman who waited on me. I was thinking about all the things that day that had make me angry or irritated me and I was impatient and not very nice. When I left however, the behavior of the gentleman who waited on me would not leave my mind. When I was short with him, he was patient. When I spoke harshly, he spoke kindly. He countered every one of my negative actions with a positive action. For a long time, this young man whose name I can’t even remember was my model for interacting with people. He had used my behavior as an excuse to act the way toward me that I acted toward him, that would’ve been a very bad day for both of us.
In his book “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching,” Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Deep listening is the foundation of Right Speech. If we cannot listen mindfully, we cannot practice Right Speech. No matter what we say, it will not be mindful, because we’ll be speaking only our own ideas and not in response to the other person.”
There’s a story that goes that the Buddha told his son, “Whenever you WANT to speak, you should reflect on what you want to say. WHILE you are speaking, you should reflect on what you are saying. AFTER you have spoken, you should reflect on what you have said.” If at any of these times, we realize that our words are not skillful and appropriate, then they are unfit for speaking and we must act accordingly. This requires awareness and self-discipline. This mindfulness of speech allows us to pause and recognize what we are about to say BEFORE we say it. This offers us the freedom to choose when to speak, what to say, and how to say it.
Last week I had lunch with a friend and I was explaining a situation in which someone who had been terribly rude and hurtful to me is now behaving like it never happened. I told my friend what I wanted to say, but didn’t. Rather than confront this person with my hurt feelings, I responded to her kindness with kindness. I may never receive the resolution I desire, never understand her point of view, but now I have little glimmers of kindness and understanding, and I enjoy offering it back to her.
Now, going to be brutally honest here. I know I know most of you are thinking “when is she not that way”? I’m always willing to embarrass myself if it will help someone else. But I will say in the spirit of full disclosure that if someone had given this talk a year ago I would just be thinking they were out of touch with reality. Sometimes, you have to say things in a way that just gets people’s attention. Sometimes you have to be mean. Sometimes you have to show people whose boss. But, what brought me around was reading for the first time the monastic vows, when Glenn sent them to me. I was surprised that out of the 10 vows that I took, 4 are related to speech. They are:
I undertake the training of verbal empowerment; I will abstain from useless speech.
I undertake the training of kind speech; I will abstain from harsh speech.
I undertake the training of meaningful speech; I abstain from frivolous speech
I undertake the training of harmonious speech; I abstain from slanderous speech.
When I first read them, I realized for the first time that maybe people came before me know a little bit more than I do. Maybe, Eubanks sensei and Ryugen Fisher sensei, who translated and refined the vows, having practiced the dharma for very long time, might know what they’re talking about. Maybe I should try out this kind speech thing. I was prepared to try and fail. But I was not prepared for peoples reactions. When I began listening more than speaking, when I began looking into peoples eyes and not fidget when they spoke to me, when I began offering understanding instead of advice, the positive response I started to get almost immediately was quite overwhelming.
I don’t always succeed at this. Of course, when my practice suffers, so does my speech. But I do catch myself a lot sooner than I used to. And, instead of always thinking up exceptions to these rules the Buddha gave us, more often than not I look for opportunities to follow them.
Lastly, sometimes I’ve been embarrassed when I didn’t follow, but I’ve always been happy when I did. Emerson says that the only way to have a friend is to be one, and that is exactly true. And it works with listening, if you want to be heard, listen first.
Lastly, sometimes I’ve been embarrassed when I didn’t follow, but I’ve always been happy when I did. Emerson says that the only way to have a friend is to be one, and that is exactly true. And it works with listening, if you want to be heard, listen first.