Category Archives: reflections

Unknown's avatar

a lineage of speech

by

Into everyone’s life a Moment must fall.  That Moment landed for me during a gathering at a conference on peer relationships – how children made friends and the positive effects of friendships on child development.  We were standing around in a large-ish group, not-so-greats, wanna-be-greats, and graduate student hanger-ons.  Interestingly, for a group who studied everything from what made kids popular to what created bullies, we were a particularly competitive and mean-spirited clutch of researchers.  At least that was how it sounded by our verbal exchanges which was more about seeing who would be hacked to bits next than about discussing how to make school an emotionally safer environment.  The irony, however, was lost on me as I jockeyed to be one of the group.

I don’t recall what I said; I’m actually surprised I’ve forgotten.  A graduate student I admired made a comment about her work.  I snapped back with what I thought was a witty come-back.  The stunned silence said otherwise and someone quietly exclaimed, “Oh.  That was horribly mean.”  I don’t remember much else after that.  There was a feeling of shame but more one of confusion.  In a whirlwind of cutting remarks and digs at competence, I couldn’t understand why my words were judged so profoundly lacking in kindness.  I still don’t know but it doesn’t matter.  The lesson was well learned.

It was a powerful Moment in which I suddenly felt the lineage of hurtful speech bearing down on me.  I think there are times when we have this felt sense of the stream of all our ancestors.  This was one.  It wasn’t only about Right Speech – or in this case generations of Wrong Speech.  It also brought into high relief the sense of verbal entitlement I had inherited from my family’s way of communicating: a belief that we could say anything about anything to each other and the supposition of love was the license.  Of course, if fair play and willingness to take responsibility were part of the agreement, it might (might?) have passed for teasing.  But there was a one-sidedness to the Unmindful Speech and a scurrying into denial when someone (usually me) broke down.  “Oh we’re just joking.”  “You’re too sensitive.”

Back story aside, I felt in that Moment something needed to change, this was not who I wanted to be.  I don’t know who that person was who lowered the boom on me at the conference but I owe her my practice.  Now, roses don’t fall out of my mouth and I can get pretty foul at times but I notice that edge when my speech is not going to be useful.  I’m learning that Right Speech is not about “make nice” words and tones.  It’s not about tearing one person down to build up a relationship with another.  It’s not about trading integrity for belonging.  It’s neither seduction nor collusion.

It’s about speaking to my truth, going to essence, trusting that what needs to emerge will, and not measuring my words against my preferred outcome.  It’s also about noticing reactivity and taking responsibility for what happens when highly practiced tracks in my brain send the signals before I can hit “mute speakers.”

Thank you for practising,

Genju

Unknown's avatar

no idea

by

In my commonplace book of shodo, where I script kanji characters, their variations, and anything else that might be a germ of inspiration is listed the eight practices of the Noble Path.  They curl in Burmese stacked in a column with the penmanship of a first-grader.  I received them years ago from a Burmese gentleman who single-handedly manned a website of Theravadin scriptures.  Through our brief correspondence I developed enough trust to ask him to visit my sole-surviving aunt in Rangoon when he was there on one of his regular trips.  I didn’t know if she knew her favourite brother, my father, had died; I sent pictures, money, and my land address.  Not only did he find her in a tiny apartment, cramped with her daughters and their families, he left them with food, medicine, and sent me a picture of Aunty Maggie.  She looked sad and worn, making no effort to steer away from the weight of being Burmese in this time and place, even for a stranger from the UK who came with gifts.  I’m not sure why I expected something different.

The characters in the scroll on the left are “mu” and “idea.”  “Idea” is made up of the script for “now” and “heart/mind.” Put together, it conveys what we practice as Right View, the first on the Buddha’s list of practices in the Eightfold Path.  Our stance is one of emptiness of what is in the heart/mind in this moment.  I tend to shy away from the word “emptiness” simply because it evokes too many unrelated meanings.  Another way of understanding emptiness is as interdependence, in other words as a relational process.  That makes it a bit more manageable in my head:

Right View as a process of being with that ever-unfolding relationship between what is happening now in my heart/mind and environment.

I’ve appreciated Helmut’s and Barry’s comments last week on the exploration of the Four Noble Truths as an open system.  They were by turns cautionary about getting caught in ideas and about practice being as simple as “How is it now?”  And here it is.  Practice of seeing clearly (Right View) is very much one of holding no fixed concept of what is happening now.  At the same time, there is a leaning into what feels “right.”  I’m starting to understand that this is more about discernment than seeking support for my opinion about something.  This is the space in which the presence of the “heart/mind” arises.

Yet sometimes, leaning to what feels “right” is not always apparent.  When I’m in pain, leaning into it certainly doesn’t feel “right.”  Nor does it feel “right” to lean into sorrow, loss, or anxiety.  Not surprisingly, looking at the JPG of Aunty Maggie leaning into her sorrow, I lean away.  Yet, because it always seems “right” to lean into joy and happiness, I begin to wonder how to get past the preferential mind and cultivate Right View.

Parallel to these readings on the Eightfold Path, I’ve been enjoying the Tricycle online retreat with Roshi Enkyo of the Village Zendo.  Roshi Enkyo has been teaching on Ease and Joy in Your Practice and Life.  In the second talk, she described how we can take a skillful stance to being with suffering by “turning into the skid.” Rather than evading the suffering by distracting myself or numbing the impact of it, I move deeper into what is happening now in my heart.  It’s counter-intuitive.  It requires letting go of preconceived notions of how things should be or unfold.  It certainly challenges me to be open to possibilities as I change my relationship to how it is now.

Thank you for practising,

Genju