Applying the Methods to a Friend or Enemy

When we are instructed to focus on the person, are we focusing on the face, the legs or the name? What is the person?

This is a deep philosophical question that we examine quite seriously in Buddhist training. However, without going into that analysis or discussion, in this case, we are just using something to represent a person. For those with a Buddhist background, we can use Buddhist jargon. We can’t think of a person without either thinking of something to represent the person or without thinking of a basis for labeling of a person. In this exercise, we are using something to represent a person, a photo, a mental image, a mental idea of the sound of their voice, a feeling or a name. We’re holding onto that. We aren’t breathing that out, because then we would no longer be thinking of the person. We are breathing out all the extraneous aspects. Remember, this isn’t an exercise to be able to concentrate on the person. The point is that when we do think about the person, to be able to do so with proper balanced sensitivity. 

What I experienced while doing this exercise was very strong anxiety that turned into a physical pain. I tried the third method of swells on the ocean and it helped, but not to the extent that I would like because I am still experiencing some level of anxiety and pain.

Very often when we quiet down, we do access underlying unbalanced feelings of sadness, anxiety or pain. This method of viewing it as a swell on the ocean isn’t going to make that feeling go away. It allows us to not be distracted by it. For example, we may be going to visit and talk with the person. We may feel a little bit nervous – so what? We just go into the interaction and don’t let that nervousness take over. This what the method allows. We don’t ignore that feeling in the sense of not wanting to feel it. That’s an unbalanced response as is getting carried away by it. By doing this, it weakens the intensity and strength of that feeling. If the feeling of uneasiness still exists after finishing the exercise, we need to continue applying the method.

Patience

I agree with having to apply these exercises in real life. If I am in an interaction with somebody and then I take my time to try to apply these methods on the spot, I am so intent on quieting my mind and applying the methods that I lose track of what the person is saying or asking. How can I apply it right now when I am not so highly trained while treating other people respectfully and not being so focused on myself?

We have to be patient with the learning process. For instance, it’s very similar to when we learn how to drive. At first we are very conscious of each step and when we become more familiar we are just able to do it without being distracted from the road. It’s exactly the same thing with the sensitivity training or with any Dharma training. The main thing is to be patient and not expect instant results. 

For instance, we have been attending this daylong session and now we go home. We are very keen on applying the methods to the people we find at home. That might not be so easy. As described, we would be very self-conscious in the sense of wondering if we are doing it right and so on. We could become very stiff. This would be like after our first driving lesson, going out and trying to drive four hours from Morelia to Mexico City. It’s too difficult at this point. If we want to practice driving after one lesson, practice a little bit, for a couple of minutes very gently. Likewise, after one or two sessions of this type of training, in our daily life, just try to apply it a little bit. As we become more proficient and familiar with the methods, then we can apply them more and more. It’s like learning anything; it’s nothing special. 

Samsara Goes Up and Down

This is one of the types of patience, to endure the difficulties in learning the Dharma or actually learning anything. This brings up a very important point. What we call samsara in Buddhism refers to our normal everyday existence that is filled with various problems recurring and so on. One of the main things that characterize samsara is that it goes up and down. Sometimes we’re going to feel like applying these methods and sometimes not. It’s going to continue like this all the time until we become a liberated being, what we call an arhat in Buddhism. That’s very advanced. The idea that we will make linear progress, every day getting better and better, is a myth. There is no such thing. Progress doesn’t occur that way.

If we look in the long-term vista, we can see general improvement; however, from day to day or hour to hour, it will go up and down. We may not go to such extremes in terms of completely down or up. Still, it will change from moment to moment. It’s important not to be surprised or thrown by that. It’s just normal.

Joyful Perseverance

In the Buddhist teachings on joyful perseverance, there is the perseverance to endure difficulties. This means that, even though things will go up and down in terms of our progress and experience, we still go ahead. It doesn’t matter if the ocean is wavy with ups and downs, we still go straight ahead and not let it throw us. We stay the course. This applies not only to the learning and training process in Dharma, but anything for that matter. This also can be applied to our usual situations and relationships in life. We all know this from experience when we examine it honestly. A relationship with somebody goes up and down, doesn’t it? It doesn’t get better and better each day; that’s absurd. If we really love the person with deep sincere feelings, then we persevere. It doesn’t matter if it goes up and down. We just continue. 

Obviously, we aren’t talking about something deteriorating into an unhealthy abusive situation. In that case, we need to consider ending the relationship. 

I am a bit confused about bringing someone to mind with a photo or whatever. As soon as I looked at the photo, emotions arose, in this case, sadness. It was unbalanced and I realized it was a label that I had put onto that person long ago. It immediately appears. I tried to un-label the person and quiet down from this sadness. Is this what I am supposed to do in this exercise? Is this what is meant by seeing the person with a calm mind?

Yes, although in English there is a difference between quiet and calm. Quiet means no noise and calm means the emotions are balanced. Those are two very different things. Perhaps, the translation from English to Spanish is why many of the responses are about emotions. We’re talking about no noise, quiet or silence. This means no internal talking, no comments, no history, no associations, no memories, etc. It is just silent and just looking at what is in front of our eyes. If the emotions are noisy, we want to quiet that. 

Remember, we are talking about two legs, although we may only address one in this talk. When the mind is silent, that allows us to have the foundational emotion upon which we can build more constructive emotions. The foundational emotion is this caring heart. The other person is a human being and has feelings just like we do. On that basis, we can develop love, warmth, compassion, and so on. We don’t want these noisy exaggerated emotions and all of that. We don’t want to be like a puppy and jump all over a person because we’re so excited. That interferes with seeing what is actually going on with the person. 

I want to comment on what happened during the exercise. I had a lot of noisy emotions about things the person does that I dislike, even though I love the person. I could quiet down the noise and feel more at ease. It is tranquility and less worrisome.

When we talk about noisy emotions, it’s not just overexcited love and wanting to embrace and so on. We’re also talking about the more negative ones, the complaining and criticism. It’s anything that is bringing up past history, positive or negative that is distracting us from paying attention to what the situation is with this person right now and how our behavior will affect this person right now. There are many methods that can bring us to this state of inner tranquility. When we have some basis of inner tranquility, quiet and calm actually, we need to ensure that this doesn’t block other feelings.

For example, when a loved one dies or when war breaks out and terrible things are happening in the world, we can feel sad about that; however, it doesn’t disturb the inner tranquility.

At the end of each exercise, when we let the experience settle in, with the stranger, acquaintance and loved one, the experience of that becomes progressively more and more pleasant. It leads me to appreciate the quiet and calm mind and the exercise.

That’s very nice. However, be careful of expecting the linear process to always occur. It isn’t always going to be nicer and nicer and make us feel better and better. In most cases, as we go further into the exercises, it can be very disturbing in a negative or positive sense. It can bring up a huge amount of emotion. People may cry and have a major emotional event. The step of just letting it settle is like after swimming a long distance in the pool, we get to the side of the pool, we relax and let it settle before we get out of the pool. It may not necessarily be a pleasant step. That isn’t the point. 

For example, we have a telephone conversation with somebody who is very angry and they scream at us and slam the phone down. When that happens, especially if that is with someone we are close to, we don’t just go back easily to whatever we were doing before. We need to let that settle. That’s why the exercise is in two steps. We calm down because there may be a lot of adrenaline flowing; we calm down and then we focus on the breath to bring us back to the body. This is being sensitive to ourselves.

After the emotions come up, and I quiet them down, I become indifferent. This is like going from one extreme to the other. What to do about it?

This is only half of what we are doing. We need to go onto the next step of developing a caring heart. This isn’t the compete basis; it is only half. We need the other side. We have to bring down all the noise and then make a positive emotional basis for behaving in a positive way. Let’s do the final session of the first section, working with pictures. 

This final step is working with a picture of somebody that we don’t like. In the traditional Buddhist presentation, we refer to this type of person as an enemy. It is referenced as strangers, friends and enemies. “Enemy” is a strong word; most of us may feel that we don’t have an enemy. Applying this in our daily life, we may not have an enemy, but there certainly are people that either we don’t like or really don’t enjoy when in their company. We would prefer not to have lunch with them, for instance, because if they were sitting next to us, they would never stop talking, complaining and being unpleasant.

It’s quite interesting to practice all of this at a large family dinner. There are aunts and uncles and cousins because undoubtedly there will be people in each of the categories that we really like or wish weren’t present. If there is absolutely nobody like this in our lives, then choose a political picture of someone we don’t like. 

Can I choose someone I have an ongoing conflict with?

That really depends on how strong we are. We want to be able to extend this to such a person, that we are very critical of or have been emotionally hurt by, disappointed by and so on. However, for most people, the very first time that they try this, it may be too strong to be able to quiet the mind. In this case, use somebody on the lighter disagreeable side. Nevertheless, surely we need to be able to apply this to everybody.

Again, we will do this with the same steps as we did before.

Guided Meditation

• First, quiet down by focusing on the breath.
• Look at the photo of the person with a quiet mind. Without a photograph of the person, just think of them.
• Use whatever method is appropriate: letting go, writing on water or the swell on the ocean.
• Let go.
• It’s a swell on the ocean.
• Put down the photo and try to think of the person with a quiet mind using the three methods.
• Let the experience settle.
• Finally, focus on the breath.

We end our session for today with a dedication. We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding we’ve gained, may this act as a cause for all beings to attain the state of a Buddha for the benefit of us all.