Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 443. Today I want to talk about finding true friends – the kind who’ll insult you.
I have a few really good friends and hopefully you do, too, or at least one friend. The trouble with most of my friends, though, is that they don’t always tell me the truth. There are decent reasons for that: they don’t want to offend me, they don’t want to hurt my feelings, they’re not especially invested in me becoming a better, more mindful, person because they like me the way I am (and also, if I grow and change too much, it could change the relationship).
A true friend, one who’ll insult me, is different. This is what Pema is talking about in Chapter 21 of The Places That Scare You, where she gives us a push to develop this kind of friend, someone she calls a “spiritual friend” or which you could also call a mindfulness buddy.
What Pema says is that as we develop our mindfulness practice, we all “need someone to guide [us] – a master…, a teacher, a spiritual friend, someone who knows the territory well and can help [us] find [our] way.” She studied with one of the great masters of our time, Trungpa Rinpoche. And while she allows that for some people, reading a book is enough. For some, what’s wanted is a long-term teacher/student relationship. But either way, we all should also be cultivating relationships with people whose role is not to reassure us or tell us we look good or are doing a great job. Pema quotes her teacher in the opening of the chapter as saying, “the real function of a spiritual friend is to insult you.”
So what kind of insults are we talking about here? Basically, we’re talking about someone who is on the path, studying and practicing mindfulness, and who will call us on the moments when we aren’t paying attention, aren’t being open, are being defensive, and are trying to justify all of those old, crusty, obsolete habits and patterns of mind. Pema was drawn to Trungpa Rinpoche because, she says, she couldn’t manipulate him and he “knew how to cut through people’s trips.” But she also says, “Moving closer to someone who is so dangerous to the ego takes time.”
We can also be talking about someone who’s not studying mindfulness at all, but who tends to provoke us or upset us. We can also just be talking about the traffic.
Whether it’s someone who’s trying to wake up themselves, or just that difficult person, there’s that liminal moment, when it feels like there’s a kind of binary choice: defend, clarify, hold my ground, attack – all of my old, crusty, strategies, or, invite the person to be my spiritual friend. Invite them to say more. Listen for understanding, whether it’s to them, my own reactivity, or my inner critic. And then turn towards them, care about them, let go of how my ego just got bruised, and see what I can do to help. Invite them to insult me.
The purpose of this is to grow. It’s important to not have as a conscious or even an unconscious motivation, to confirm that we’re not good mindfulness practitioners. We’re all perfect the way we are, said Suzuki Roshi, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, and we could all use a little improvement. It’s important not to skip over the first phrase of that teaching.
This is how I break down being insulted: there’s the thing I’ve just said or done and which the other person either calls me on, or is reacting to. And then there’s how I respond. Once I’ve said or done the thing, it’s said, it’s done. Something disparaging or angry or selfish has come out of my mouth and as the Zen folks say, I can’t un-ring the bell.
And then what? How do I respond when someone is clearly hurt or angry with me, or has the presence of mind to say, “you know, that thing you just said or did? That was rotten. That wasn’t nice.” I can say, “it was not/I am not/I did not/I’m being reasonable/you don’t understand,” or “thank you. I understand (or, I don’t quite see it – could you please say more?).” And then, “I’m sorry. I’ll work on it. Please tell me if it happens again.” Pema puts it like this: “at some point there’s an important change in our allegiance. Instead of always identifying with our neurosis, we begin to have confidence in our basic intelligence and kindness.” Meaning, our basic ability to be with the truth of having cause harm, and the desire to apologize, make amends, help out, and not do it again (or at least not so often).
I would love to be able to say that I do that second thing most of the time. With work stuff, I can say, I do it more. But with my daughter and my partner and sometimes with an aunt or cousin or my brother, I still notice how tightly I hold onto my ego. How deep my tendency is still to say, “that thing I just said or did? That can’t be right, because that’s just not me.”
Sound familiar at all? Pema says it should. She reminds us, once again, that, “The main point is always how we work with our minds. Once we click into solid views of justification or blaming, our minds become very small. Closing down in any form causes suffering to escalate.” This happened to me just the other day, right after last week’s Wake Up Call when I was talking about Pema’s instructions on how to “lighten up[,] and turn around our well-established habits of striking out and blaming.” Right after that, my aunt, who is more like a sister, sent me what felt like a snarky text. And I wrote back an equally snarky one. In fact, mine might have been worse because I was fully aware I was doing it, and I’m not sure if she was.
Instead of inviting my aunt to be my spiritual friend, noticing my activation, realizing my ego was involved and that I was about to fire back and double down on the snarky-ness that had just come my way (and which she probably wasn’t even aware of), meaning, instead of using my mindfulness practice – I did fire back. I did double down.
It took about an hour but finally, the irony surfaced. So then I had to call and apologize - without demanding she reciprocate, and without bearing a grudge if she didn’t. So I did, and she didn’t, and it felt…not good, at first! It felt excruciating if I’m being honest. But it also felt right. More than anything, it felt like a relief.
Pema calls this “limitless love”: we invite everyone to be our spiritual friend, and in doing this we love them, even if they’re our most difficult person, because we’re committed to caring more about them and everyone else, than about our own bruised ego.
