Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / Connecting With Family This Thanksgiving - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei

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Connecting With Family This Thanksgiving - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Jomon: Hello and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
• 0:24
  Jogen: I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha. It's very nice to be here with you in this place. In reflecting what I might offer today, I was thinking many of us are going to have Thanksgiving with family or friends and be in relational situations.
• 0:52
  And I think that we often say our whole life is our practice but we don't really believe it. We believe our practice is something we do on a cushion or in retreat and that everything else is sort of in another category or in the way of the real thing that we do But I don't think it has to be like that. So I thought I would talk about, I guess I'm talking about relational practice, how to be with family. And there's a few things that are like bedrock principles in talking about this. And one is that as Zen practitioners, we want to make the best of every situation we're in.
• 1:44
  We're in a situation, why not make the best of it? It's very difficult to make a good argument why you wouldn't, except for I don't want to. Why not make the best of the situation of being with family, friends, community in this relational way? And the other thing that is a bedrock of this talk is that going well or making the best of things is not automatic. Connection which people say connection, connection, connection, I want connection.
• 2:19
  It doesn't just happen by itself. Or when it does, those are nice synergistic kinds of relationships but most of the people in our life, if we don't hide ourselves in a room with just two friends forever, we have to do some work. And we can see how a lot of the principles of our practice can be applied relationally. Now, I think this talk is speaking to where connection is difficult therefore. Where it's easy, there might be some practice points there but I'm not really talking about those.
• 2:58
  And I share these as someone who wishes to apply these things but not as somebody who has mastery. Anybody who actually knows me knows that's true. I just feel like I have to clear the air of that. So I have a list of practices. They're not official lists.
• 3:19
  I just use lists because it helps me write talks. They're not exhaustive or official. And the first thing, I guess I have another bedrock principle actually. These kind of practices in relationship with people, they only find legs if we want to practice what I call choosing the bigger heart. And sometimes the desire is there to choose the bigger heart and sometimes it's not.
• 3:52
  And what I mean by that is sometimes we are kind of like you first. You be present with me first. You make me feel comfortable first. You, you. And we're in this kind of almost like contractual dispute with someone in our life.
• 4:16
  And I think one of the bases of Buddhist practice is this understanding, just choose the bigger heart. Don't delay engaging a relationship positively because you're waiting for the other person to do so. That's called a stagnant relationship. Or don't wait for the bigger heart because you're waiting for someone to make you feel how you think they should make you feel and then you will. A lot of our connections become disconnections because of this kind of thing.
• 4:51
  And the good news is you choose a bigger heart, you have a bigger heart. Right? That is inherently rewarding. We're not fixed beings. We're never actually stuck.
• 5:05
  So, now get to the official list. First one is the concept of connection can get in the way. I think sometimes we are carrying an idea of how I should feel when I'm in relationship with somebody that would make it actually valuable but there's no one way it actually feels all the time even with the same person. Connection is an ideal that we might lean into but it's not some objective state that we can say, well, here it is. This is what it looks like.
• 5:49
  Or we can say that and then we create a problem. So maybe with Uncle Ned, we feel warm resonance talking about our children and that's and we get a very deep simpatico and feeling of really being met. And then with Aunt Zed, all we get is a laugh about a video that she shows us on her phone. And if you decide the latter is not as good as the former, what is the consequence of that? So in a way, I guess I'm talking about being satisfied with what is actually If we lean in, what is actually there in a particular connection?
• 6:33
  Switching from from what can I get from this conversation to what is here? What's here if I put in a little work and extend myself? And that would bring me to second point, this might be a big one for some people and not for all people. And that is to break through indifference. So indifference could show up in different ways.
• 7:13
  It might be numbing or closing or telling ourselves we don't care. We tell ourselves we don't care or we feel that we don't care or we allow not caring to really take over and occupy our hearts. And then the energy to actually connect gets siphoned off. And the difference between this and an ordinary way of thinking about relationship is back to the first point of we're not fixed beings. Indifference is just a state.
• 7:57
  If you feel indifferent towards a being that is not some final truth of how that relationship has to be. It's just the current configuration of the heart. You could change it. Currently not caring about someone doesn't mean I don't care about that person. It might mean there's just indifference that I could work through.
• 8:22
  I have noticed that if I repeatedly have the thought I don't care, it actually means I do. Because if I don't care, why do I have to keep telling myself, I don't care, I don't care about such and such. We do care when we're thinking I don't care. Indifference is a kind of state of being that can go under the radar and become almost a steady feature of our personality and we don't even know anymore that that's what's there. Some people say that the heart wants or needs to be open.
• 9:16
  Is there anything in your experience that shows you that? That when you have an indifferent heart which is not necessarily meanness, it's just a sort of feeling of separateness or a feeling of I'm not going to extend my empathy. Is there something in your experience that shows you that that's off? The closing of the heart, the feeling of that enough to signal that it's something that could be worked with or wants to be worked with. There are studies about the longevity of people, people's health and the degree to which they are engaged socially with others.
• 10:12
  People live longer who are in community, Have to assume that if they have endurance in being in community, that means that they have less indifference. And there's some correlation to the actual basic well-being of this organism and being free of indifference. So, there are some places with indifference where wanting to apply a technique is good. So most of you have probably heard of metta practice, loving kindness practice where essentially you just use a support to open your heart like an aperture. An aperture can close and an aperture can open.
• 10:58
  Right? Or for me sometimes imagining into cause and effect is useful. So that would mean I notice I have indifference and I just really think what's the long term effect going to be if I let this just proliferate? How is this going to accumulate disconnection over months, years? And is it going to spread from this person to the next person who is not exactly how I want them to be?
• 11:27
  And before I know it, indifference proliferates and I'm very lonely. How did that happen? So, there's a place for technique. You can actually apply them and see if they have an effect. I think a lot of times they do.
• 11:53
  And I also want to say sometimes asking how do I get free of indifference, it kind of masks that we have a deep freedom to simply choose a bigger heart. Then you say, How do I choose a bigger heart? It's a kind of endless loop of I want to believe or I think I'm actually stuck and I can't just do it, but it's maybe more simple than that. This next one I realized has some correlate in the Tibetan Lojong slogans which maybe somebody can tell me the one that's parallel to this. But what came up for me is don't go for the jugular when you're triggered.
• 12:42
  See and respect basic vulnerability. Yeah. So the Tibetan Lojong are these very old training system for people to bring practice in their daily life and one of them was basically like, don't be a jerk. When you have the instinct to be a jerk, don't keep the gate closed. It's better to keep the gate closed generally than to let it out.
• 13:11
  See and respect basic vulnerability. Don't go for the jugular when triggered. It's difficult to really make a cold other of somebody or let's say it undoes the cold othering of somebody when you practice seeing the tender heart in them. When you see, you could say, the child in them. And it's not so hard once you start being alert to it.
• 13:46
  Sometimes you can feel it just under the surface, especially if there is a kind of an outer face of anger, or an outer face of seriousness. Often right under the surface, if you attune, you'll find that you can feel the real soft part of somebody right behind that. And it's harder to go for the jugular and by that I mean, voice meanness. Give voice to judgment when we are aware of that tender heart or that child. I think it's still possible to do so, but I think it's more difficult.
• 14:45
  There are lots of teachings in the Buddha Dharma that say that things like one instant of anger is the cause for great suffering. Some of them even say, one instance of anger can be the seed for hell. And we could interpret that as for an inflamed relationship that doesn't easily get back to a good situation. So, the skill of pausing and allowing the reactive feeling to wash through can be a great investment in one's future peace of mind. I was talking with Chosen Roshi yesterday and we were talking about the pervasiveness of the inner critic and how many people, if they investigate their inner critic, part of its harping on the person is based on something that someone said to them when they were young.
• 15:49
  Some mean comment comes through. But we only imagine that adults don't still have that level of tenderness still. You just are out of tune with it being there. Do not give vent to anger unconsciously but seek its source. That's our precept.
• 16:13
  Yeah. So remember that as you're watching somebody take too many mashed potatoes or whatever egregious thing. Whatever egregious thing starts to get your blood boiling. Next, practice curiosity. So when I was a monastic here and I would visit family over the years, not once did anyone muster even a little bit of curiosity about what I was doing.
• 16:46
  That's pretty sad, isn't it? I hope my mom's not listening. But the thing is, she doesn't. She's not curious about it. And I try to have and I do try to practice an understanding of why they would be like that.
• 17:03
  So maybe it's just too foreign for them to like really imagine into or something about living a full time contemplative life sort of is an affront or somehow they take it as a criticism of how they live. I don't know. But I know that it was really painful to over and over have nobody muster even the slightest question about what is it like for you there? What are you doing? And we can be like that.
• 17:32
  We can be with people and not bother to ask them the simplest question about their life and what is interesting to them. And often we're doing that and wondering why other people aren't doing that for us. So this is definitely practice because it's getting out of our shell of self concern. Again, it's getting out of the what can I get out of this situation or how can I get through this very painlessly? And asking, what's interesting to you?
• 18:09
  It's a dual benefit at that moment. I get out of my shell, I practice curiosity which is a virtuous state to be curious. And I might actually learn something. Right? I might actually not know someone as much as I believe I do.
• 18:26
  We assume so much and we know so little. The brain fills in so many blanks or doesn't bother to because we're indifferent. What's bringing you joy? People are afraid of going home and getting into politics if there's division in the family or talking about this or that divisive issue, but no one says you have to. I mean it might come up but there's other ways to skillfully conduct a conversation.
• 18:58
  Not through control but just what's fun nowadays for you? What show are you watching? Why not? Without curiosity, a really beautiful function of relationship is lost and that is relationships enlarge our world. Just our own little world is kind of boring.
• 19:30
  Don't you think? We sort of think the same things all the time and read the same kind of books, watch the same kind of shows. But if we actually are curious about other people's, we're like, Oh, there's other ways of being and thinking and seeing. And you know I experienced this in the role I play as a teacher. I'm enlarged by being invited into other people's lives.
• 19:55
  We have to be curious. It's not that much work. Number five. And this is a place where I feel like Zazim practice and being with people is really one and the same. As we just empty out in order to listen.
• 20:21
  We just shift into a receptive mode. Why is it so difficult to not be full of thoughts while someone else is talking? Why is that so hard? Why is it so hard to leave that space? What's at stake?
• 20:40
  What's the fear? So it's the same thing we do on the cushion here, release clinging to our own feelings and thoughts. They're still happening, we're just not clinging to them. And then there's a space in which we can receive life. And this can be the basic, basically being able to hear somebody and it can be as deep as experiencing no other whatsoever.
• 21:11
  Experience of being interfused with somebody, not being sure who's who for a moment or two. A real intimacy. You can always practice this. What's in the way? Are we trying to be right?
• 21:27
  Are we trying to think of what to say next so we can look smart or good or We have to investigate what's in the way of that kind of emptying out. It's also true that the more we can empty out, we can attune and match different energies. So to a certain extent, affinity is real. Some people we feel an easier, sympatico with and some people it feels harder. But there's also a truth that if we can really enter a receptive mode, there are people's energy that we think is a little bit outside of our frequency but we can meet it.
• 22:07
  We can go there. Related, point number six here is don't bring forward the old ideas into the relationship. Now that's obviously not an easy thing to do, right? Especially if there's a history of hurt, the complication of any long relationship. Don't bring forward the old ideas.
• 22:53
  So one of the things this is, is this is working with our own minds before we actually are relating to people who are in front of us. Because we have relationship with people in our heads all the time. Total fantasy relationships. The fantasy relationship because that picture in our head of so and so or the feeling that comes with that picture of so and so is not actually the person. It's definitely not the whole person.
• 23:27
  There's a sobering study, I think Hogan shared it a while ago, that says that the impression we have of somebody is largely based on the very last encounter we had. That's a scary reflection because that means that it really takes presence of mind and space to take into account all of who someone has been for us, with us, rather than that last little interaction that left us with a particular taste that we tend to run with as the new picture in our mind. So, if we are not careful with Uncle Ned, we are having an ongoing relationship that is really just something we are conjuring. We're reacting to our own reactions. And there might be a little bit of something he is in that consolation in our minds, but there's a lot that he's not.
• 24:33
  And then you bring that forward into the relationship and that's felt. You bring the idea of who you already think somebody is and they feel that and they begin interacting with you based on your own idea. Maybe this is the the human relationship problem. Now this is not saying you're totally wrong that Uncle Ned hogs the mashed potatoes. It is giving someone a chance to be yes and.
• 25:16
  To be more than our idea of them. And it's also giving them a chance to show us that we just had some bias. We just ran with some impression and that's actually not the abiding character of somebody. It might be true. Right?
• 25:34
  It might be true.
• 25:41
  Jomon: Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.