Practicing Peace in Times of War Part 3 of 3: Self-Friendliness
April 1, 2010 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
Chödrön tries to more explicitly explain that she is not advocating for us to run away from life. The practice of avoiding shenpa is not just running from all angry situations but confronting them in a peaceful manner. She does not advocate running away from pain toward happiness but to confront suffering. When we run away from the dark part of ourselves, we don’t really get in touch with who we are. When we run away from others, we cannot engage in meaningful relationships. When we do not envision our suffering and what it means, we cannot learn from the wealth of what that suffering was meant to teach us.
Suffering can teach us empathy for others. It can be the foundation for compassion, a beautiful sentiment of when we feel love for others who may be suffering. In the Dalai Lama’s book, The Art of Happiness, he says that suffering with others does not bring you down, it brings you up. Too often we fail to see another in need because we do not want to suffer ourselves. However, by helping someone else, we achieve a much more profound level of help for ourselves.
When we only want to experience happiness, then we even close ourselves to the taste of anything unpleasant in front of us we do not in turn live but live weakly. Life is about experiencing what we have in front of us no matter what it is. Bodhichitta refers to the gold within yourself, or “awakened heart”. When we are trying to flee from our situation because it is unpleasant, then we live a pantomimed life. We must be present to appreciate our bodhichitta.
The word maitri refers to how we have compassion for ourselves. It is a form of self-friendliness. The master Trungpa calls it “unconditional friendliness with yourself.” When we refuse to face our own worst self, we cannot be enlightened. We cannot begin to achieve an enlightened form of peace. We must confront ourselves with honesty and patience and rid ourselves of guilt, self hate, self torment, etc. It is the first step in achieving world peace. Remember the opening line of the book, ““War and peace start in the hearts of individuals.”
Practicing Peace in Times of War Part 2 of 3: The Courage to Wait
March 31, 2010 by dr. lam · 3 Comments
What is the antidote to anger? Patience. How is that possible? Think about it. When we are caught in an angry, provoking situation, what is our gut response? It is to get angry. In short, to lose patience. It takes mighty courage not to engage and what Chödrön calls “biting the hook”, which we have covered in a previous blog series more in depth, and I encourage you to read or reread.
The hook is like a fish that is near the bait. It is so tempting to bite it. Once we do, we are off and running. We lose control. Shenpa is the hook. It is what compels us into a frenzied state. However, through the practice of meditation and disengagement we can begin to feel ourselves separating from the anger. The first time this is very hard. It becomes increasingly easy to find yourself in a tight spot and not engaging, not escalating, not frothing at the mouth.
We need to find a level of patience that allows us to disengage. When we feel the kettle about to boil, when we feel the dynamite about to explode, take a pause, step back to see what there is to see that may be provoking us and disengage. Patience is the answer. In my yoga practice we call it “being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.” That is what we need to do when confronted with an angry, escalating situation. I like what Dyer says: the words “You’re right” ends an argument. Otherwise, arguments are just another form of verbal escalation because our ego dominates and we do not practice patience and disengagement.
Practicing Peace in Times of War Part 1 of 3: Softening Our Hearts
March 30, 2010 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
“War and peace start in the hearts of individuals,” opens the book. Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist monk, whose writings we have covered in the past tries to help us weak individuals through meaning and peace in times of climactic, global warfare. Interestingly, we go to war to achieve peace. However, oftentimes it leads to more war. When we get home and all hell breaks loose, we will get angry in order to level the field so as to achieve peace. But in the act of hardening our hearts, we become worse off. We become more deeply ill at ease, more rigid, angrier, and tighter. It has quite the opposite effect when we allow anger into our hearts, i.e., when we engage in warfare of any kind.
Chödrön quotes from a poem given to her that the definition of peace is “softening what is rigid in our hearts.” I think that is a beautiful sentiment. It will be something that we will discover together over this blog series of trying to let go of innate anger, not to react when provoked, and methods to accomplish what may seem to be impossible.
Chödrön quotes from Jarvis Masters, a prisoner in San Quentin, who wrote the book Finding Freedom. Her favorite chapter, “Angry Faces” talks about how Jarvis used the light from a television to read at night. He turned off the sound and just let the flickering light bathe his books. He would occasionally look up and see an image on television that would appear to provoke his curiosity so that he would yell down the hall to ask his prisoner mates what was going on. “Jarvis, it’s the KKK. They are screaming about how the Jews and Blacks have caused all the world’s problems.” Then another angry face would appear and he would inquire again. “Jarvis, this time it’s the Greenpeace folk. They are screaming at how the trees are being cut down and the animals are being hurt.” Again, Jarvis inquires. “This is a guy from the U.S. Senate. He is angry at how the other side, the other political party, has caused financial ruin for our country.”
Jarvis concludes, “I’ve learned something here tonight. Sometimes they are wearing Klan outfits, sometimes Greenpeace outfits, sometimes suits and ties, but they all have the same angry faces.” Profound. How do we associate the Klan with the Greenpeace movement? We can when we are dealing with a tone of angry indignation against another human. When we practice war, when we engage in war, we allow our hearts to become rigid, firm, inflexible, and we are oftentimes worse off from it.
Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 6 of 6: Self-Compassion
November 13, 2009 by dr. lam · 5 Comments
When we don’t get angry at someone, what happens? We feel better. Maybe not right away, and maybe not after even a few initial encounters of doing so. However, over time as we relinquish any angry feelings, we start to understand the beauty of non-violence.
Some people say, “How do you not get angry at someone mistreating you? You have every right to be angry.” But what happens when you get angry at that person, you feel sick inside, right? As Chödrön says, if you have no compassion for the person who is angry at you, practice some compassion for yourself. Compassion so that you yourself do not “bite the hook” and get into the maelstrom of inner turmoil, negativity, hatred, and pettiness. So if you can’t have compassion for the other person, have it for yourself.
Beyond that, remember that at a very fundamental level compassion for yourself is the beginning of all compassion for others. Most spiritual warriors who go out into the world to help others always begin with themselves. I like to say when their cup is empty, they have no way of filling another’s cup. Filling your own cup is the start of being able to connect, interact, help, and share compassion with others. Begin with self-compassion today and resist the temptation to engage, escalate, and hurt back. It will ultimately destroy both of you. As they say, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Don’t dig your own grave.
Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 5 of 6: Water Logic
November 12, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
We are oftentimes very inflexible in our worldview, and we become increasingly entrenched in our beliefs. We view the world as black or white, this or that, which Chödrön refers to as “rock logic”. We are like rocks: immutable, inflexible, and intolerant. We do not see any way around something because we only see our way, which of course is the right way.
Like the Tao Te Ching’s exhortation to be like water, Chödrön refers to a gentler type of logic she calls “water logic”. If we hold this image in our mind, we can become less stern in our aspect and less believing in the absoluteness of who and what we are to allow for complexity of opinions, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and really people in our lives. We can be like water in how we see things. Another image that we have discussed from Dyer’s review of the Tao is that we can be like bending reeds that do not break with a gentle breeze or forceful gale.
A refinement to this concept is tolerance. A fundamentalist worldview can make us stand apart from everyone around us so that we become overly dogmatic and thereby create walls to others. I am not talking about religion or politics per se but any rigid framework that does not allow open dialogue but forces non-acceptance and raises barriers. When we are like water, we can accept friends without labels like “black”, “poor”, “uneducated”, “lazy”, “Muslim”, “Democrat”, or whatever word that does not fit into your narrow worldview. Again, be like water.