Civil Civil Servant

I receive Tricyle Magazine’s Daily Dharma in my e-mail every day.  They are almost always thought provoking or act as little reminders ; but, occasionally they resonate deeply with me.  Today was one of those days.

We must realize, if tomorrow is going to look any better than today, that the currency for compassion isn’t what someone else does, right or wrong—it is the very fact that that person exists. Commitment to the possibility of kindness cannot be discarded as foolish or irrelevant, even in troubling times when we often can’t find easy answers. If we abandon the force of kindness as we confront cruelty, we won’t learn anything to take into tomorrow—not from history, not from one another, not from life.

- Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness

I urge you to read just one sentence and take time to think about it before moving on to the next.

We must realize, if tomorrow is going to look any better than today, that the currency for compassion isn’t what someone else does, right or wrong—it is the very fact that that person exists.

This line is so powerful because our first instinct is usually to parcel out our compassion based on another person’s actions.  I recently had a discussion about Rush Limbaugh, where I said that I didn’t like his rhetoric and I believed that he was an incredibly irresponsible and possibly dangerous person; but, that I had compassion for him and the person I was talking to asked me how I could have compassion for a man like him.  I thought “because he is suffering.”  He is a human being sharing our planet and as much as I disagree with his behaviors, I truly do not wish him any suffering.  It does not benefit me or anyone else for him to experience suffering.

Commitment to the possibility of kindness cannot be discarded as foolish or irrelevant, even in troubling times when we often can’t find easy answers.

Kindness and compassion can’t just be trotted out in good times with good and happy people.  Our greatest challenge is to remain committed to being kind and compassionate when it is most difficult to do so.  On a small level this might be extending kindness and compassion to a coworker who is particularly difficult or unpleasant and on a large scale it is maintaining these commitments during war or when under great emotional and/or physical siege.  I heard the Dalai Lama speak in Minneapolis several years ago and he told the audience that one of his dearest friends, a Buddhist monk was finally released from a Chinese prison and he went to India to join a community of Tibetan exiles.  While out gardening with him one day, The Dalai Lama asked him what his greatest fear had been and he said that his greatest fear had been that he would lose compassion for the Chinese.

If we abandon the force of kindness as we confront cruelty, we won’t learn anything to take into tomorrow—not from history, not from one another, not from life.

This is a beautiful reminder that it is in our hands to break the cycle of violence and suffering in the world.  Years ago I saw an episode of Oprah, yes…Oprah.  She had a Jewish couple on who had been harassed and harassed by a white supremacist.  Instead of using anger and hatred to fight this man, they used love and when they found out that he needed help, they helped him and the cycle of hate was broken.

I joined Tricycle as a sustaining member so that I can go back and read from the archives and now, participate in their “online retreats.”  As a sampler, right now, for free they have the first installment of Sharon Salzberg’s audio teachings on kindness.  You don’t have to be Buddhist or even a believer in any religion or spiritual practice to learn important lessons about cultivating compassion and kindness from this gifted teacher.   There is a new book out called, Good Without God that talks about how we as humans have potential for goodness and can lead lives of purpose and compassion without belief in God or a higher being.

I tend to lean on Buddhist teaching because they speak to me; but, cultivating kindness and compassion is not exclusive to Buddhism or any other religion, or religion at all.  Find a way to cultivate kindness in yourself in the way that feels right to you.

photo: shutterbabe510 on Flickr Creative Commons

Suppose we are out on a lake and it’s a bit foggy – not too foggy, but a bit foggy- and we’re rowing along in our little boat having a good time.  And then, all of a sudden, coming out of the fog, there’s this other rowboat and it’s heading right at us.  And… crash!  Well, for a second we’re really angry – what is that fool doing?  I just painted my boat!  And here he comes – crash! – right into it.  An then suddenly we notice that the rowboat is empty.  What happens to our anger?  Well, the anger collapses. . . I’ll just have to paint my boat again, that’s all.  But if that rowboat that hit ours had another person it it how would we react?  You know what would happen!  Now our encounters with life, with other people, with events are like being bumped by an empty rowboat.  But we don’t experience life that way.  We experience it as though there are people in that other rowboat and we’re really getting clobbered by them.  What am I talking about when I say that all of life is an encounter, a collision with an empty rowboat?  What’s that all about?

from Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck (pg. 57 of the 1989 trade paper edition).

I like to say that this is the story that changed my life.  It is one paragraph long in a book that is 212 pages.  I never even finished the whole book.  I read, maybe 50 pages beyond what I now call “the empty boat” story.  I’m sure the second half of the book is just as wonderful as the first half; but, the empty boat story so resonated with me that I basically just stopped reading.

Rereading the empty boat story now after so many years is odd because it’s just such a small story and since then I have read many other profound passages in numerous other books, including The Dhammapada which quickly became one of my favorites.  But it is the this story, in Joko Beck’s book that flipped a switch in me and I never looked back.

This story shone a very bright light onto my life and I realized that I had absolutely been living my life as if there was a person in the other boat.  In fact, I may have been living it as if there were a few people in the other boat.  All this anger and worrying about what other folks were doing in their boat caused me a mountain of suffering.  This was especially true on the road while I was driving.  I would frequently get angry at other drivers.  In my teens and early twenties, I was known to end an argument with a door slam.  Looking back, I can see that most of this suffering was caused by my lack of compassion for others.

I don’t know why it was the empty boat story that struck a nerve in me.  Right place right time?  I don’t want to mislead you.  I didn’t change over night.  And I’m far from perfect now.  But, I started using the empty boat story to alter my reactions to things.  Get cut off on the highway, instead of yelling and stewing over it, I would literally say “empty boat, empty boat, empty boat, empty boat.”  It became my mantra.  I got my partner at the time, Kate, to start saying it.  We would say it to each other.  One of us would come home from work and tell a story about an annoying person and we would be getting all worked up and the other person would just say: empty boat.  We helped train each other to change our thinking.

After some time passed, and by time I mean a couple of years, I started to notice that it was becoming automatic and that I was developing empathy without even realizing that was what I was doing.  All of this happened about 14 years ago and I still sometimes use the empty boat mantra; but, I don’t need it as much as I used to.  I let things go more quickly now.

I sometimes wonder what life would be like today had I not discovered the empty boat.  In 2005/2006, I experienced a crazy, life altering accident and my partnership with Kate ended after 18 years together.  That is kind of a lot to process in a such a short time span and throw in a brain injury and sometimes I’m amazed I’m here: healed, forgiving, experiencing compassion for Kate and her experiences and for the man that hit me.   The empty boat sparked a practice and a lifestyle change that has served me well, helped me be resilient during and after traumatic events and just generally made it easier for me to have fun and find joy in life.

What does any of this have to do with libraries?  Well, everything of course.  I’m my best at my job and in my life, when I am kind, empathetic, patient, compassionate and generous.   And the icing is that all of this also brings a deeper happiness to me.  There have been numerous studies showing that people who are altruistic are happier, people who have more compassion for others are happier and that people find happiness in being kind and helpful.

I don’t know that the empty boat story is for everyone; but, if it doesn’t resonate with you, go find your own empty boat story.  Figure out the best way for you to reduce the stress, anger and suffering in your life.  You will be happier and your impact on those around you will be more positive.  And that is clearly:  win/win.

Painting by Ann Wilberton

The painting above is called Devil Girl and started out as one in a series of paintings I did about my ex’s alter egos; but, the further I got into it I realized I was painting a self portrait:  My own alter ego.  I use this self portrait frequently as my online avatar.  It is this association that confuses people.  “But, you’re all about people being kind…I don’t get it.”  That is a statement or some variation, that I have heard many times when people see Devil Girl.

From Buddha all the way up to and beyond the philosophy of Carl Jung, great thinkers have tackled the question of the human dark side.  I’m not a big reader in the field of psychology; but, I believe Jung called it the “shadow side.”  This is the side that gives us negative and sometimes disturbing or  violent images/thoughts when we are angry/hurt.  In the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, there is a scene where Evelyn Couch, brilliantly played by Kathy Bates, has a parking spot stolen by two young, pretty and rude girls.  She waits until they get out of the car and then rams their car with hers (several times).  This is an example of when a thought and/or urge from Evelyn’s shadow side emerges and she allows it to take over. We cheered her on when she did this; but, obviously there are many dark thoughts that pass through our minds that we would NOT want to act on.

I used to not really believe that a dark side component existed in all of us.  I thought that you could “better” yourself to a place where you were free from negative thinking.  But, I met a Buddhist psychologist who explained different philosophies on our shadow side and I began to see that denying our dark sides is not really the way to go.  I think it creates a tension where one does not need to belong. Plus, it is setting you up to feel failure because it is just impossible to erase all negative thoughts from our brains.  She told me that by embracing our shadow side, examining it and coming to understand it, we will begin to be able to accept it and be in a better position to let it go instead of  letting it cause suffering in our lives.

Instead of resisting these thoughts what if we acknowledged them: “Well, there is a negative thought.”  Inspect it: “Where is it coming from?  Why am I thinking it?  What is it doing to me?”  And let it go:  “Okay.  I had a negative thought.  It doesn’t make me evil or a bad person.  I’m moving on now.”  You let the thought go and consciously move your mind away from it.

In my own experience, I have noticed that I hold onto the negative thinking for less time now.  For example, instead of allowing myself to churn an angry thought over and over in my mind, fueling it, I acknowledge it (label it: angry thought) and then I can quickly figure out where it originated and what it’s doing to me (it doesn’t feel good that’s for sure) and let it go.  In a past post I talked about road rage.  I have a lot of angry, negative thoughts when people do stupid things on the highway.  Labeling those thoughts and letting them go quicker and quicker will only benefit me physically and emotionally and benefit my customers who I’m about to spend the day helping.

The more practice you have doing this the more it will become automatic.  I barely have to put effort into the labeling part anymore.  As soon as I think pissed off thoughts, my brain is labeling: anger, anger, anger and I am already moving away from them.  Acceptance that we have these thoughts also can free us from the shame or guilt over having them in the first place.  It is a part of our human psyche to have these thoughts; but, we can cultivate practices that reduce the suffering to ourselves and the spreading of the negativity to others.

And for this blog, that is the important point of this post.  If you suffer less, if you have less bitterness and anger (not because it doesn’t exist but because you let it go quicker), I guarantee that you will  be happier, more light hearted and better able to help customers and interact with the people in your life in a kind and compassionate way.

Devil Girl is in me.  If I ignore her, there is no telling what sort of trouble she’ll get into behind my back.  If I acknowledge her and embrace her, I can soften the impact she has on my world.

Our happiness, our behaviors, our attitudes are all our responsibility.

I have a challenge for you.  Commit, for one day, to keep track of negative thoughts that pop into your head and label them.  You could do this in your head or even write them down on paper.   Don’t judge yourself for the existence or intensity of the thoughts (even if it is a momentary desire to inflict pain on someone).  Pretend you are completely removed and just taking inventory.  What did you find out?  What are you going to do about it?

Update 11/13:  A Rabbi Harold Kushner quote has been brought to my attention.  “Good people do bad things  …..  If they weren’t mightily tempted by their yetzer ha’ra [will to do evil], they might not be capable of the mightily good things they do.”  from Living a Life That Matters.