Hello Readers!
Last night I wrote an email to my brother where I proposed a way we might work more skillfully and peacefully with some strong differences of perspective.
I thought I would post some of that here, as it strongly relates to the theme of this blog.
Hello Nate,
I have been reflecting quite a bit on our phone conversations of last week and of a
When you suggest as you did last week that you are "totally sure" that you are right, I can hear that and feel your passion with that. From your perspective, you are.
Yet, from over here I just am located inside of a very different perspective with thoughts and concerns that are in a different realm.
As in any situation of diversity, I feel the best solutions come when all points of view can really be on the table and be heard. This is, I believe what Jimmy Carter worked for at Camp David, and Bill Clinton in Ireland, and what Byron Katie is doing in the Middle East.
There were quite few times in our talk of a few days ago when I was seeking to put my concerns on the table and I experienced you cutting me off in mid sentence. This is really not a big deal. It often happens in any lively conversation and I have watched myself do that with you sometimes.
Yet, I feel that our conversations can work the best when we both allow ourselves to slow everything down and be involved in a mutual exploration with each other, rather than trying to convince the other of our own point of view.
To use a famous Quaker phase, a sweet "sense of the meeting" can be reached when strong opinions are set aside and each of the concerns of each participant are heard and responded to. Each person brings an aspect of the larger picture, an aspect of the truth that is important.
Often, in difficult conversations each participant can think that they know best, that they have special, important "inside information" that the other does not get. This sense of having inside information and being sure one is right, can be used as a justification for pushing ones views onto the other.
Yet, the reality is that both sides have unique information, a unique perspective.
To say a famous Quaker phrase in a different way: "There is that of God in every perspective." There is truth everywhere.
Marshal Rosenberg, the founder of Non Violent Communication, was successful in dealing with very angry Islamic folks when he took the time to really hear, really get their frame of reality.
I am proposing these ideas just because I feel they bring resolution much faster. Yes, it is work, yet much less work than holding onto being right and trying to convince another of something.
Much love,
Bruce
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Then That Can Become A Dance Partner
Yes, every moment, every feeling has great texture, tone, detail and richness to be fully experienced. I find that when I slow down I notice much more, I am able to move into actual relationship with what is happening.
Let's say this alleged "I" is feeling frustration. He wanted something to be easy and it is turning out to be more complicated. He can polarize with that frustration, thinking that "I am here and that frustration is over there" and "I need to do something about that". In this he is making the sensation into an object.
Or he can, as the previous quote suggest, experience the suchness of that, the as-is-ness of that as an independently arising movement in creation. He can enjoy it on its own terms as if he is watching a movie, or eating a meal at an ethnic restaurant, or watching a cloud going by in the sky of mind. Free of resistance. Free of judgment.
Then that can become an interesting dance partner.
Let's say this alleged "I" is feeling frustration. He wanted something to be easy and it is turning out to be more complicated. He can polarize with that frustration, thinking that "I am here and that frustration is over there" and "I need to do something about that". In this he is making the sensation into an object.
Or he can, as the previous quote suggest, experience the suchness of that, the as-is-ness of that as an independently arising movement in creation. He can enjoy it on its own terms as if he is watching a movie, or eating a meal at an ethnic restaurant, or watching a cloud going by in the sky of mind. Free of resistance. Free of judgment.
Then that can become an interesting dance partner.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Suchness
Well, if the discussion is going to turn to suchness, I feel I could do no better than to quote The Great Sage of the East on the subject:
"Idama is very significant; it means thisness, suchness, is-ness. To be in the present, to be now and to be here and nowhere else--that is the moment when bliss arises. And to live in suchness means that whatsover happens, accept it, drop rejecting. Even if you are feeling sad, accept it; live in that suchness. One is sad, so one relaxes into one's sadness; and immediately the quality changes. Then sadness starts having a beauty, a depth, a joy. It looks contradictory, but try, and you will be surprised: if you accept sadness, if you enjoy the flavor of it, soon you are celebrating it.
"Whatsover happens is good. It can't be otherwise, because behind everything is God's hand.
"So live in total acceptance; that is the meaning of suchness. And never go beyond this, because once you go beyond this, the mind arises, thoughts arise.
"If one can live in the present with total acceptance, bliss is bound to happen."
"Idama is very significant; it means thisness, suchness, is-ness. To be in the present, to be now and to be here and nowhere else--that is the moment when bliss arises. And to live in suchness means that whatsover happens, accept it, drop rejecting. Even if you are feeling sad, accept it; live in that suchness. One is sad, so one relaxes into one's sadness; and immediately the quality changes. Then sadness starts having a beauty, a depth, a joy. It looks contradictory, but try, and you will be surprised: if you accept sadness, if you enjoy the flavor of it, soon you are celebrating it.
"Whatsover happens is good. It can't be otherwise, because behind everything is God's hand.
"So live in total acceptance; that is the meaning of suchness. And never go beyond this, because once you go beyond this, the mind arises, thoughts arise.
"If one can live in the present with total acceptance, bliss is bound to happen."
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Practicality Of Loving What Is
It is quite a delight to witness the same thing being said in different ways. I was at a Satsang recently with Peter Brown, the opendoorway.org and Peter was, in his own words, speaking what Tom writes and quotes Byron Katie as saying.
I suspect that most of the teachers listed at this link http://www.satsangteachers.com/links.aspx would concur.
I find that it is much easier for "me" to just experience the outside world and other people as simply "suchness" without judgement, than it is to do this with events in "my" own life.
It is where I think I can change something that more judgment comes in. Do other readers of this blog experience this? Perhaps we judge as an attempt to take action and change something, and yet as Karl Renz points out our very struggle to change something increases it.
Our reactions to George Bush creates a bigger George Bush. I find myself pondering, at times, if this is what Jesus was referring to when he said that if you try to cast out one spirit, ten more come.
Perhaps Byron Katie's path of Loving What Is, is the quickest path to having more of what we want.
I suspect that most of the teachers listed at this link http://www.satsangteachers.com/links.aspx would concur.
I find that it is much easier for "me" to just experience the outside world and other people as simply "suchness" without judgement, than it is to do this with events in "my" own life.
It is where I think I can change something that more judgment comes in. Do other readers of this blog experience this? Perhaps we judge as an attempt to take action and change something, and yet as Karl Renz points out our very struggle to change something increases it.
Our reactions to George Bush creates a bigger George Bush. I find myself pondering, at times, if this is what Jesus was referring to when he said that if you try to cast out one spirit, ten more come.
Perhaps Byron Katie's path of Loving What Is, is the quickest path to having more of what we want.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Dividing Reality into Opposites
As fate, and synchronicity, would have it, shortly after reading Bruce's last post, The Alchemical Mix of Differences, Tom opened up a new book by Byron Katie, "A Thousand Names for Joy," and came across the following:
Commenting on Lao Tzu's words, "When people see some things as good, other things become bad," Katie writes, "When they believe their thoughts, people divide reality into opposites. They think that only certain things are beautiful. But to a clear mind, everything in the world is beautiful....
"If you don't separate reality into categories by naming it and believing that your names are real, how can you reject anything or believe that one thing is of less value than another?... The mind's job is to prove that what it thinks is true, and it does that by judging and comparing this to that....
"By it's very nature, the mind is infinite. Once it has questioned its beliefs, it can find beauty in all things."
Taking Katie's lead, Tom and Bruce might do well in their efforts at learning to dance with their respective differences to realize that their thoughts about their differences are just that -- thoughts, and not reality. And reality, if we can say anything about it, is beautiful, with no part being more beautiful or valuable than another.
A way of dealing with all things disagreeable, including differences, that Tom likes to employ, which is essentially what Kaite is pointing to, is mindfulness. When faced with the unpleasant, the irritating, the frustrating, if one can be mindful, i.e., free of thoughts and judgments and simply aware, then one is immediately delivered from the unpleasant, as the unpleasantness of anything does not inhere in the thing, it lives in the think, the thoughts about the situation or person. Mindfulness brings us into direct contact with the thing, minus our thoughts about it being unpleasant or irritating or whatever. And then we simply deal with the thing as it is, free of our thoughts about it being negative in any way, there is no problem. There is just what is.
Another approach Tom likes to take, if he can only remember it at the time, is to regard all that happens, particularly the stuff he doesn't care for, the aggravating stuff, as teachers or teachings. "What can I learn here in the face of this disagreeable event or person or whatever?" Very humbling approach, and very useful.
The common thread in these various approaches to the "negatives" in our lives is the side-stepping of the ego. It is the ego which compares, and judges, and generally demands that life be a certain way, and resists or argues with life when it doesn't show up as desired. To meet everything just as it is without all our thoughts about how it is or how it should be is to gracefully dance with life in all its beauty and grandeur. This is peace and the end of suffering. This is enlightenment.
Commenting on Lao Tzu's words, "When people see some things as good, other things become bad," Katie writes, "When they believe their thoughts, people divide reality into opposites. They think that only certain things are beautiful. But to a clear mind, everything in the world is beautiful....
"If you don't separate reality into categories by naming it and believing that your names are real, how can you reject anything or believe that one thing is of less value than another?... The mind's job is to prove that what it thinks is true, and it does that by judging and comparing this to that....
"By it's very nature, the mind is infinite. Once it has questioned its beliefs, it can find beauty in all things."
Taking Katie's lead, Tom and Bruce might do well in their efforts at learning to dance with their respective differences to realize that their thoughts about their differences are just that -- thoughts, and not reality. And reality, if we can say anything about it, is beautiful, with no part being more beautiful or valuable than another.
A way of dealing with all things disagreeable, including differences, that Tom likes to employ, which is essentially what Kaite is pointing to, is mindfulness. When faced with the unpleasant, the irritating, the frustrating, if one can be mindful, i.e., free of thoughts and judgments and simply aware, then one is immediately delivered from the unpleasant, as the unpleasantness of anything does not inhere in the thing, it lives in the think, the thoughts about the situation or person. Mindfulness brings us into direct contact with the thing, minus our thoughts about it being unpleasant or irritating or whatever. And then we simply deal with the thing as it is, free of our thoughts about it being negative in any way, there is no problem. There is just what is.
Another approach Tom likes to take, if he can only remember it at the time, is to regard all that happens, particularly the stuff he doesn't care for, the aggravating stuff, as teachers or teachings. "What can I learn here in the face of this disagreeable event or person or whatever?" Very humbling approach, and very useful.
The common thread in these various approaches to the "negatives" in our lives is the side-stepping of the ego. It is the ego which compares, and judges, and generally demands that life be a certain way, and resists or argues with life when it doesn't show up as desired. To meet everything just as it is without all our thoughts about how it is or how it should be is to gracefully dance with life in all its beauty and grandeur. This is peace and the end of suffering. This is enlightenment.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The Alchemical Mix Of Differences.
This is the focus of this blog for me: How can we each, as totally unique beings on the planet, dance with our differences and yet still hold each in our hearts and have fun with the process.
Differences are so often seen and braced against as being a problem, as being impossible to bridge. How can we turn any dialectic, any play of opposites into medicine and fuel for transformation?
The two main characters in the play of this blog, Tom and Bruce, are incredibly different in many ways, almost opposites. They have known each other since 1976 when they were both living near the Zen Center in San Francisco, and have, for the most part stayed in touch since then.
The playful navigation of differences has been a theme all along.
This morning Tom emailed Bruce about wanting him to post new posts rather than adding comments. He also wanted Bruce to move a comment to a post before he would read it. Now this may seem like a mundane event, hardly worthy of mention, and yet it points to this Dance of Difference.
For the Bruce Character, in this case, what is important and interesting is the fiery hot and happening flow of expressions and explosions. Keeping that going, no matter what the form, is the priority for him, how that happens is an incidental footnote. Also he likes mixing it up, doing it differently different ways.
As Bruce emailed Tom, I want 80% of we do to be about the alive doing of it, yeah structures are important, for 20% of it, but when that gets too big it is like a ocean of water putting out the fire.
In a long discussion of blog titles, he watched his energy drain out of this. For him, it felt like an on going conversation was hijacked, by trifles.
When he sees white-picket fences, part of him wants to mow them down. Of course he is fine with doing posts rather than comments, but having to move something before it gets responded to is, arggg, way out of the confines of his 80/20 preference.
So here we see a manifestation of a difference between these two characters.
It is so easy to think, whew it would seem to be so much easier to not to have to navigate this, and both Bruce and Tom have had this thought at different intervals.
And yet, God, through the two of them, is drawn to this challenge as well.
It is so easy to react, to judge, and there is something about really groking the others perspective that is sweet and can lead to breakthrough.
Bruce is still want to get, really get, feel why Tom sends out emails about Bush. This is something Bruce would never even think of doing, as he sees it as very counter-productive and even dangerous.
For me the context of how to work with differences is of greater interest than the content of any specific difference.
Differences are so often seen and braced against as being a problem, as being impossible to bridge. How can we turn any dialectic, any play of opposites into medicine and fuel for transformation?
The two main characters in the play of this blog, Tom and Bruce, are incredibly different in many ways, almost opposites. They have known each other since 1976 when they were both living near the Zen Center in San Francisco, and have, for the most part stayed in touch since then.
The playful navigation of differences has been a theme all along.
This morning Tom emailed Bruce about wanting him to post new posts rather than adding comments. He also wanted Bruce to move a comment to a post before he would read it. Now this may seem like a mundane event, hardly worthy of mention, and yet it points to this Dance of Difference.
For the Bruce Character, in this case, what is important and interesting is the fiery hot and happening flow of expressions and explosions. Keeping that going, no matter what the form, is the priority for him, how that happens is an incidental footnote. Also he likes mixing it up, doing it differently different ways.
As Bruce emailed Tom, I want 80% of we do to be about the alive doing of it, yeah structures are important, for 20% of it, but when that gets too big it is like a ocean of water putting out the fire.
In a long discussion of blog titles, he watched his energy drain out of this. For him, it felt like an on going conversation was hijacked, by trifles.
When he sees white-picket fences, part of him wants to mow them down. Of course he is fine with doing posts rather than comments, but having to move something before it gets responded to is, arggg, way out of the confines of his 80/20 preference.
So here we see a manifestation of a difference between these two characters.
It is so easy to think, whew it would seem to be so much easier to not to have to navigate this, and both Bruce and Tom have had this thought at different intervals.
And yet, God, through the two of them, is drawn to this challenge as well.
It is so easy to react, to judge, and there is something about really groking the others perspective that is sweet and can lead to breakthrough.
Bruce is still want to get, really get, feel why Tom sends out emails about Bush. This is something Bruce would never even think of doing, as he sees it as very counter-productive and even dangerous.
For me the context of how to work with differences is of greater interest than the content of any specific difference.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Coming Full Circle
I'm glad to hear, Bruce, that you agree with me that "studying the nature of darkness is a useful endeavor." Actually, I never meant to argue for the value of studying darkness per se; what I think is of value is to study the nature of what is. And in our dualistic universe, half of what is is of the light, and half is of darkness. So if we are going to take a look at what is, then about half of it will appear rather dark. My point was that I think it's important not to turn our gaze away from what is on account of it being dark. If we are to understand, we must persist in our looking, regardless of how pleasant or unpleasant the view may be.
With your latest post, Bruce, it seems to me you have pretty much come around to the position of RichM with which I started this thread. You write, "When I have a reaction to something that is happening out there, I can always find something similar within myself." Compare that to RichM's assertion that "it’s not really Bush who’s ruined our country.... Bush is the natural & inevitable product of the true nature of US society; he’s a perfect reflection of it." Are you two not saying essentially the same thing? RichM says the problem is not Bush, it's the American people. Bush reflects American society. You say the darkness that is out there is not the darkness of concern to you; it is the darkness within yourself which concerns you. The outer darkness reflects your inner darkness.
This is what I found so provocative about RichM's contention: that it's not Bush, it's us. And now I hear you saying pretty much the same thing: it's not the outer darkness that's important, it's the inner darkness.
So your final position is one of essential agreement with the opening position (of RichM) of my first post in this thread, a position to which you were strongly opposed for some time. Interesting, no?
With your latest post, Bruce, it seems to me you have pretty much come around to the position of RichM with which I started this thread. You write, "When I have a reaction to something that is happening out there, I can always find something similar within myself." Compare that to RichM's assertion that "it’s not really Bush who’s ruined our country.... Bush is the natural & inevitable product of the true nature of US society; he’s a perfect reflection of it." Are you two not saying essentially the same thing? RichM says the problem is not Bush, it's the American people. Bush reflects American society. You say the darkness that is out there is not the darkness of concern to you; it is the darkness within yourself which concerns you. The outer darkness reflects your inner darkness.
This is what I found so provocative about RichM's contention: that it's not Bush, it's us. And now I hear you saying pretty much the same thing: it's not the outer darkness that's important, it's the inner darkness.
So your final position is one of essential agreement with the opening position (of RichM) of my first post in this thread, a position to which you were strongly opposed for some time. Interesting, no?
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