Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 432. Today I want to explore whether it’s possible to get beyond reproach, and whether we even want to.
In The Places That Scare You, Pema Chodron says no. This is near the end of the book and she’s talking about five strengths she wants us to cultivate, to be fully on the Boddhisatva path: strong determination, familiarity with the path, cultivation of the Boddhisatva qualities, reproach, and the aspiration to relieve suffering and for wisdom and compassion to increase.
Strong determination on the Boddhisatva path is not so different from that same quality in the law. It’s a quality to develop when we bump up against difficult moments. At work it could be a moment when we realize we don’t know something we thought we did, or we’ve we miss an element of the case. Or it could be a moment when we’ve done everything right and get outmaneuvered. Or maybe someone calls us out.
So this happens, and the determination we summon is not the determination to sweep the thing under the rug – to deny, run away, defend, blame. It’s the determination to stay in the moment: of anxiety, shame, confusion, frustration, dismay. Maybe we shake our heads at ourselves, but we’re not self-critical. We’re self-compassionate. We remember our humanity, that we’re imperfect, and that so is everyone else. Even as we acknowledge that our profession demands nothing short of total perfectionism, we remember that’s impossible. And then we fix the thing.
Determination in mindfulness practice is not different. It’s the commitment to stay with whatever is happening, no matter how incredibly uncomfortable we feel. We say or do something unkind, we commit a microaggression and it gets pointed out to us or we see it ourselves, and we don’t deny or run away or defend or blame. We’re honest with ourselves and demand a leveling up from ourselves (in a kind way): we’re determined to see, own, apologize, make amends, and do better next time.
I feel like I am doing this a lot these days, especially in the territory of microaggressions: saying and doing things that I don’t realize cause harm (and of course we all remember this is not about intention, but impact), and having to stay in that place of chagrin because yes, one again, I’ve hurt someone. The determination to see this and apologize and learn from my mistakes and do better next time.
Familiarity with the path is the second strength. Pema says familiarity with the path is when we take mindfulness to heart – or maybe a better way of saying it is, take mindfulness into our hearts. In the cases above – in the law, in life – familiarity with the path is getting beneath feelings of embarrassment, shame, anger, blame, or whatever threatens to take us out of the present moment, the moment of just having been nailed, as Pema calls it, and then seeing two things.
The first is, the moment is one of suffering. I’m embarrassed, I’m ashamed, I’m frustrated (maybe with myself). The second is, I’m not alone. Every single one of us says and does unskillful things. We’re all in this boat together and it’s a leaky boat. So there is a commonality here, of sorrow, really: we’re experiencing suffering, we’re causing it, we’re in this thing called ‘being human’ together.
Cultivation is exactly what it says: remembering to look, and see, and lift up, the positive moments. Not the yahoo moments when I get the big win, but the skillful moments when I see what’s happened and apologize, or when I catch myself before I cause harm. It’s easy for me to forget to do this. I forget to observe my own goodness, whether it’s something big-ish, like teaching a class and the students are benefiting, or small, like making dinner or letting someone into my lane on the highway. Even if I’m simply smiling at someone on the street, or in the market, the important thing is to notice the goodness, lift it up for ourselves, and in this way, let it log itself into our brains, into our neural circuitry that neural pathway becomes deeper and wider and it’s easier to go in that direction more automatically the next time.
Reproach – this is an interesting one. Do you remember the last time someone spoke to you with reproach? It’s those “how could you?” words with the implication that you should be ashamed. Someone just spoke to me this way recently and I felt terrible: ashamed - what they were going for.
But Pema is suggesting something different, which makes sense. I don’t imagine her suggesting we should walk around feeling ashamed.
She’s saying, we need to reproach ourselves. But, we need to do it with humor. Maybe she’d say, “loving reproach.”
Because again, we do stuff. We say stuff. It causes harm. Or it’s just not what we should be doing. So she’s saying, when that happens, call yourself out. So for me, I should say, “Judi, come on! Again, not remembering that not every family includes a mother? I did it again!” Or, “again with that edge in your voice, that frustration? There’s that stressed out, lawyer voice again!”
Pema tells a great story about this. There was a monk named Geshe Ben, who was invited to dinner by his patron. After dinner, Geshe Ben gets left alone in the dining room with a big bag of flour. He takes a cup and puts his hand into the bag to scoop up a bunch of flour to take with him. And then, “with his hand in the bag, he says, ‘Ben, look what you’re doing!’ And then he shouts, ‘Thief, thief!’ And his patrons rush in to find him standing there, his hand still in the four, yelling, ‘I’ve caught him! I’ve caught him! I’ve caught the thief red-handed!’” Reproach, with a sense of humor.
The fifth quality is the aspiration to end suffering. She’s not talking about all the ways she’s already talked about it. She’s saying, looks easier than it is. I might know someone is in distress but do I always try to help? If I’m being honest, not always: sometimes I turn away. I’m busy, I’m afraid to get too close, I’m frustrated that the person got themselves into whatever the situation is. She reminds us of how helpful it is to see this quality of thinking we have the aspiration to end suffering and then not really having it. Yesterday someone approached me outside the market with a Street Sheet, which is the newspaper in the Bay Area that shares news about the un-housed and is sold by its population. At first I said no – I was in a hurry and also I didn’t have any cash. And then I went, wait, what? I just wrote that talk! And I doubled back and asked the person to wait, and riffled around in my glovebox until I found some money, and gave it to her. I’m not sharing this because I’m so great. I’m sharing this because I said no, and then there was that moment of reproach, and then, happily, my aspiration kicked in. But it might not have. Because, this being human – not easy.
And, we’re all just here for a minute. So the question is, in that minute, can we be determined to cultivate a solid, durable, aspiration to end suffering, or at least reduce it for one person, one day?
Let’s sit.
