Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living (16 page)

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The next slogan, “Don’t bring things to a painful point,” in some way is saying the same thing. These are nuances of the human tragedy, nuances of the tragicomic situation in which we find ourselves. “Don’t bring things to a painful point” is again saying, “Don’t humiliate people.” We do all of these things because we feel pain, because we feel hurt and separate. Instead of first making friends with what we’re feeling and then, second, trying to communicate, we have all these ways of keeping the “us and them” story solid and strong. That’s what causes all the pain on this earth, including the fact that the ecosystem is turned upside down. All of that comes from people not making friends with themselves and never being willing to communicate with the one they consider to be the troublemaker. That’s how we stay caught in this battleground, this war zone.

The next slogan is “Don’t transfer the ox’s load to the cow.” Let’s say you’re Juan’s boss. When something comes along that you find unpleasant and don’t want to do, you pass it on to Juan. You pass the burden to someone else. It’s like that Greek myth about Atlas. He was just walking along innocently and somebody said, “Oh, Atlas, would you mind for a moment just holding the earth?”

We do that. When we don’t like it, it doesn’t occur to us to actually work with that feeling and communicate with the person who is asking us to do this, to somehow open up the situation and work in an honest, fearless way with what’s going on. Instead we just give our burden to somebody else and ask
them
to hold it. It’s called passing the buck.

The next slogan is “Don’t act with a twist.” It means don’t be devious, but it’s similar to those slogans about not eating poisonous food or turning gods into demons. You’re willing to drive all blames into yourself very publicly so everyone will notice, because you want people to think well of you. Your motivation is to get others to think that you’re a great person, which is the “twist.” Or there’s a person who’s doing you wrong, and you remember lojong, but there’s a twist. You don’t say, “Buzz off, Juanita,” or anything harsh. You’re this sweet person who wins everyone’s admiration, but the other side of this is that they dislike Juanita more and more for mistreating you. It’s as if you set Juanita up by acting like a saint. That’s the idea of acting with a twist. There are all kinds of ways to get sweet revenge.

Finally, “Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness,” which is to say, “Don’t seek others’ pain as a way to get happiness for yourself.” We are glad when the troublemakers in our lives get hit by a truck or go bankrupt, or anything of that nature. I have a few people in my life who fall into this category, and I’m amazed at how happy I am when one of them writes me a letter and tells me that things are going badly. Conversely, I feel haunted by distaste when I hear that things are going well for them. There’s still the memory of how they hurt me, and I wish they would just continue to go downhill and drop dead, painfully. That’s how we seek others’ pain as the limbs of our own happiness.

These slogans are a curious study of the human species. They reveal that we need to be very honest about what we do. Through seeing these things we can begin to have a lot of compassion, because in studying ourselves we’re studying the whole human race. The monastic rules give us insight into what all these saintly monks and nuns were like at the time of the Buddha. There are rules like Don’t cover your meat with rice so that the server will give you more meat, thinking that you don’t have any. Don’t irritate your roommate on purpose to get the person to leave so that you’ll have the room to yourself. These are actually rules, the code for the monks and nuns coming from the time of the Buddha.

All the cartoons in the world and all the funny movies are made out of what this particular group of slogans is saying. When we are doing things like this, either we don’t see it or we do see it and feel as if we’ve committed a sin, so we either zone out or make a big deal: “I malign others. I’m not fit to live on this earth. What a burden. The more I know myself, the more I see. I’m just continually gossiping. There’s no hope for me. Oy vey.” However, we can also just see what we do—not only with honesty but also with a sense of humor—and then keep going and not make a whole identity out of it.

However, we’re still left with a question: when I feel my worst—when I feel jealous or like I need to get revenge—how do I give my best? The first step is to dive into the experience of feeling bad. Make friends with that feeling. The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery—not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart. This is a lifetime’s journey, and a profound one; it’s not something that happens quickly or easily.

19

Communication from the Heart

L
ET’S CONTINUE
with the exploration of compassionate action. We have a strong tendency to distance ourselves from our experience because it hurts, but the dharma provides encouragement to move closer to that experience. Although there are lots of words that could be used to explain compassionate action, I’d like to stress one word, and that word is
communication
—in particular, communication from the heart.

“All activities should be done with one intention.” This one intention is to awaken bodhichitta, to awaken the heart. We could say, “All activities should be done with the intention of communicating.” This is a practical suggestion: all activities should be done with the intention of speaking so that another person can hear you, rather than using words that cause the barriers to go up and the ears to close. In this process we also learn how to listen and how to look.

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There is an extremely pointed slogan that goes along with “All activities should be done with one intention”: “Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.” Instead of the resentment being an obstacle, it’s a reminder. Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully. It’s a reminder to stop talking; watch and listen. It’s a reminder to use tonglen practice to allow some space.

For example, you hate this person who is standing in front of you. You just wanted to help a hungry person get food, and then you find yourself talking to the enemy—a bureaucrat, a politician,
them.
All you do is get more and more angry at them, so nothing happens. They grow more stubborn as you grow more furious and polarized and the sense of huge
me
versus huge
them
increases.

When we feel resentment, the words that we speak, the actions that we perform, and the thoughts that we have aren’t going to produce the results that we’re hoping for. Beyond that, we’re so aggressive that we’re not exactly adding any peace and harmony to the world. Resentment becomes a reminder not to feel bad about ourselves but to open further to the pain and to the awkwardness.

If we really want to communicate, we have to give up knowing what to do. When we come in with our agendas, they only block us from seeing the person in front of us. It’s best to drop our five-year plans and accept the awkward sinking feeling that we are entering a situation naked. We don’t know what will happen next or what we’ll do.

The slogan “Keep the three inseparable” is saying that your actions, your speech, and your thoughts should be inseparable from this yearning to communicate from the heart. Everything you say can further polarize the situation and convince you of how separate you are. On the other hand, everything you say and do and think can support your desire to communicate, to move closer and step out of this myth of isolation and separateness that you’re caught in.

Usually when we feel wronged, our only intention is to get revenge. The slogan “Correct all wrongs with one intention” is trying to cheer us up a bit, lighten up the situation, and add some space. The “one intention” is to exchange oneself for other. This is the key. To correct all wrongs with one intention is to hear what’s being said, to see the person who is in front of you, and to be able to rest in not knowing what to say or how to act but just to watch and wait. Then out of your mouth comes something, because the person in front of you is saying, “Well, what do you think?” or “I don’t know, see if you can convince me to do it your way,” or they’re just yelling at you.

If simply to learn how to communicate were our life’s challenge, not only might we be able to help find food for people who are hungry and shelter for people who are homeless, but we might even see a fundamental change—less aggression on the planet and more cooperation.

We
are
different; we are very different from each other. One person’s idea of what is polite is someone else’s idea of what is rude. In some cultures it’s considered rude to belch when you’re eating, and in others it shows that you enjoyed your meal. What might smell repulsive to one person might smell wonderful to another. We are really different, and we have to acknowledge that. But instead of going to war because of our differences, let’s play soccer. It will be a strange game, given our instruction to let others have the victory and keep the defeat to ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that we play to lose; it means that we play to
play.
We could play
together,
even though we’re on opposite teams. There are no big stakes, just playing. There are different teams; otherwise the game won’t work. But it doesn’t have to lead to World War III or the destruction of the planet.

One of my favorite dharma teachers is Dr. Seuss; he captures the human condition so beautifully. One of his stories starts with two people walking toward each other along a narrow road. When they meet, they each refuse to step to the side so that the other can pass. Everyone else builds bridges and even whole cities around them, and life just goes on. But the two stubborn ones stand there for the rest of time, refusing to budge. It never occurs to them even after eighty-five years that they could be curious about why the other is refusing to move, or that they could try to communicate. They could have had a really interesting debate in all those years even if they had still never moved.

The point is not that you’re trying to achieve harmony or smooth everything out. Good luck, if that’s your goal. The point is to live together on this earth with our differences, to communicate for its own sake. The process is the main thing, not the fruition. If you achieve your goal with aggressive tactics, nothing really changes anyway.

Dr. Seuss tells another story about the Sneetches. The superior race, the ones that everybody aspires to be like and also the ones that everybody hates, are the Star-Belly Sneetches; they have stars on their bellies, and everybody else doesn’t. One very clever fellow knew how predictable these Sneetches were, so he came in with a big machine that would put a star on your belly. All the Sneetches
without
a star on their belly rushed in and came out
with
a star on their belly, but of course the original Star-Belly Sneetches still knew who—and how superior—they were. They weren’t thrown by this at all. But to facilitate this very predictable situation, the same clever fellow came along with a new machine by which you could go in and get the star taken
off
your belly. So all the Star-Belly Sneetches went into this machine and came out without stars on their belly; the superior ones were now without stars.

The clever fellow kept these two machines going. Sneetches were running in and out, and the money was piling up, but after awhile all the Sneetches experienced shunyata. They didn’t know who was who or what was what or who was a Star-Belly Sneetch and who was a non–Star-Belly Sneetch, so after awhile they just had to look at each other without labels or opinions.

Another slogan says, “Train without bias in all areas. It is crucial always to do this pervasively and wholeheartedly.” Train without bias, that’s the trick. Train without bias, without the labels. This is supported by the whole tonglen practice and lojong teaching, which encourage us to see bias when it comes up and begin to connect with how painful that is, to feel the prejudice, the resentment, the judgment. It’s a powerful, compassionate teaching because it respects our intelligence and our innate good heart. It simply says, “Begin to see what you do, and don’t necessarily try to change it; just see it.” That’s how things begin to change. When we say, “Train without bias,” the first step is to meditate on bias when you see it arising. This is the same as “Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.” Then one begins to be able to train meticulously and pervasively in all situations.

Often tonglen is taught exactly as this slogan describes—as a way of training pervasively and meticulously with everyone. You can do this practice in any situation. You start with yourself. You can extend the practice to situations in which compassion spontaneously arises, exchanging yourself for someone you want to help. Then you move on to a slightly more difficult area.

This slogan is saying you should extend this practice to everyone, pervasively, not excluding anyone. Move the practice out to what are commonly called neutrals. These are probably the most frequent relationships that we have. They’re people we never get to know and aren’t even interested in. They’re the ones who sit on the sidewalks and don’t have any homes, whom we walk past very fast because it’s too painful. They’re the other people who are also walking by very quickly. Beginning to do tonglen for the ones we haven’t noticed might be a difficult practice, but it could be the most valuable—to begin as you walk through the streets of your life to look at the people that you didn’t notice before and become curious about them.

When we encounter life situations that spontaneously evoke compassion, it is not necessary to go through all four stages. It’s fine to begin with the third stage, the stage of breathing in the pain in the situation that confronts us and breathing out something that will help. It’s fine to breathe in the pain and send out relief or love. There is no need to do the other parts—flashing absolute bodhichitta or working with the black, heavy, and hot and white, light, and cool. These can be skipped in daily life when you do tonglen on the spot.