(No podcast this week, but feel free to check out the new serenitypause.com website that has some downloadables. Podcast to return in two weeks. For free ITunes of other talks, click here.)
How can we expand the experience of loving-kindness in our life?
Sometimes it requires reflecting on how we relate to our past, how we carry the past around with us in this present moment. Today, I want to give us all
permission to look at the things that scare us--those thoughts or emotions that
might be embarrassing or shameful or unskillful in whatever way--depression,
addiction, anxiety, fear, anger, resentment, guilt. We can practice seeing them more clearly, no longer having to run away from them, but instead compassionately shining the light on
these emotions and thoughts and using them as a learning tool for love.
In
Buddhism, we practice being compassionately aware of all of our thoughts, emotions and
sensations, and this practice is a powerful tool to transform our everyday
experience. Making friends with our
demons is a part of these practices, going all the back to the time of the Buddha. The monks and nuns were given a task to spend the night in the “charnel
grounds”. This was worse than going to
the cemetery. This was the place where the vultures were eating the
bodies, tearing them limb by limb. That
sounds terrifying to me, yet sometimes, for me, I have found that my own negative thoughts and emotions seem to be tearing me apart from the
inside.
Sometimes, we
can be fearful and even not be fully aware of the fear. Jung said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and
you will call it fate. You will call it fate, or an accident, or
misfortune. Invite your unconscious shadow material into the light of conscious
awareness and everything will change, inside of you and outside of you.”
You can begin this journey to the Truth in this very moment as you read these words, by accepting all the parts of
you—the parts you are proud of and the parts that you are not, the parts that give
you joy and the parts that the embarrass you.
As tools for truth, consider making two
practices your priority and focus:
- wise and compassion listening (both internally and externally), AND
- actively choosing more encouraging and supportive thoughts
By making these practices a priority, everything can be transformed. It
doesn’t mean you will never feel sadness again. It doesn’t mean that your
life situation will not continue to have ups and downs. But it does mean
that you will find the deeper love of living, the love that arises regardless
of your external or internal circumstances.
The first tool that we
can cultivate is compassionate listening, to ourselves and to others. It is difficult to fully love if we cannot be
open to listening to ourselves and to others, listening not only to the easy
stuff to hear, but even more importantly, listening to the tough stuff as well. One of my favorite books is entitled, Crucial Conversations, which chronicles
the value in having the conversations that are the ones we anticipate will be
the difficult ones. Those conversations
left unsaid are the ones that often lead to the greatest misunderstandings, anger
and resentment. One of the eightfold
steps of the Four Noble Truths is Wise Speech—I think that should include not
only the one doing the talking but also the one doing the listening—Wise Listening is a helpful behavior to enlightenment.
Wise
and compassionate listening is not only about the words that are being spoken
but also the reaction that is going on inside of us. Words spoken, either external by someone else
or internally to ourselves, can help or harm.
We are often assessing and analyzing, judging and opinionating, each and
every moment of our lives.
This over-mental mastication is an obstacle to love. However, do not underestimate the power you have to redirect your mind abd transform
your experience of the world! It helps to start with
recognizing that you are capable of changing some of your thoughts. I’m
NOT saying all your thoughts. This is a
big distinction—there may still be thoughts we don't like that arise.
BUT, we can start to add more wise and compassionate thoughts in response to them. Be more aware of how you talk to yourself, and experiment with changing the tone and texture of the conversation.
One of my favorite images for this practice is that we
are like the ocean. At the depth, is this pristine quiet, a
stillness, not easily swayed--that is that innate sense of well-being that lives within each and every person. On the surface, there are various waves and winds that whirl around causing a great
deal of churning and turmoil. Think of the waves as those difficult
emotions and thoughts. In Buddhism, they’re called afflictive emotions or mental states, because
they can afflict us with this sense of unhappiness if we get caught up in the hurricane of
their energy. These afflictions can be both the painful pleasurable,
and the obstacle is when we get stuck in pushing them away or clinging to them.
Dr.
Aura Glaser wrote “Into the Demon’s Mouth” in Tricycle Magazine, based on her book entitled, Call to Compassion, about how we often respond to these afflictions:
- Distraction: "I’m so angry! Let’s go have a cocktail" (or cigarette or cake...)
- Denial: "Me, Angry? No! I’m FINE….."
- Blaming: "You are the one who is making me so mad!"
- Wallowing: "I deserve this awful treatment. I'm not worthy of anything better..."
- Spiritual bypassing: "I’m Buddhist now, Buddhists aren’t supposed to get angry or jealous or resentful…"
More
skillful ways of handling afflictive emotions:
- Awareness: even if we shut down, we can be aware that we are shutting down
- Acknowledgement: learning to not appreciate who we are, warts and all
- Being Curious: seeing each thought and emotion as an opportunity for learning
- Taking away the fuel supply: No longer focusing our energy on fueling the storyline; instead you might ask the question, "How could I respond more skillfully to this thought/emotion?" and see what arises
We each have our own favorite top five affliction that keep coming up. Pema Chodron describes it like having a
radio that can only be tuned to a limited number of radio stations—worry, fear, resentment,
frustration, whatever your common afflictive emotions or thoughts might
be. If I asked you to make a list of what makes you unhappy, you most likely could
list them right now. Think of times in this last week or month, when you
felt unhappy. What afflictive emotion or thought was simmering in your
brain and your body? What are you afraid of?
With the knowledge of exactly what that voice inside of
our head is saying and the emotion state of our bodies, we can now see the
obstacles to our ability to love fully. When we clearly see the obstacles, we can decide to change the response.
Lastly, optimism
is a mental state that we can all cultivate: it’s important to
imagine that you are capable of change, even if it hasn’t work the last
the last 15 times. There’s a wonderful documentary called "Bob and the
Monster", which is about Bob Forrest, who is now a highly respected drug and
alcohol counselor. He himself had to go through rehab over NINE times
before he got sober and stayed sober for the last 13 years. I love the
inspiration of someone turning their life around. Imagine meeting Bob or
being Bob somewhere around rehab #5. Would you give up? What would
you say to Bob or to yourself to make #5 the winning number? Bob is an
example to remind us that this time is the time we can get it right, this time,
this moment can be the one when we take our life in a new direction. This
moment, right now, can be that moment. Every moment is pulsing
with that possibility.
In each moment, we might have an affliction arise. We practice listening with compassion, to see more
clearly, to have more curiosity about what exactly these afflictions,
then building a greater sense of the vast ocean of peace beneath and beyond, the pristine
stillness, the depth of well-being within us all.
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