Mike lead Dharma Punx last Sunday with a long meditation and a short reading from “Being Dharma” by Ajahn Chah which sparked a discussion about acknowledging feelings in the moment. We do this during meditation with the practice of ‘noting” or “labeling,” the thought or emotion and then without judgment letting it go and returning to the breath. When we are in conversation with others, this process becomes much more complicated. Members of our group shared their experiences.
Mike talked about being like a dog, intuitively shaking off the emotion, or learning to process the emotion by using “Right Speech”. Asking yourself: Is this comment helpful? Is it skillful? Is it wholesome? And most importantly being gentle with yourself. Having awareness of awareness, or Metacognition. Thinking about one's thinking. More precisely, Metacognition refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance. It includes a critical awareness of a.) one's thinking and b.) learning and oneself as a thinker and learner.
During our group discussion one person talked about how learning noting has helped him to take a pause before reacting impulsively. Another person talked about noting, giving way to a pause, which is followed by an understanding the consequences of his actions, but how he is still struggling with being powerless over his conditioned behavior and impulse to do the unskillful thing. The discussion changed to other people’s communication skills, and a reflection on what to do when someone tells you that “you are being unskillful,” in a totally unskillful way. One solution might be, rather than reacting, let silence be your ally. Still another member of our group talked about being able to feel anger in her body arising while talking to someone, noting it, practicing patience, but only later realizing her anger was in response to the person mansplaining to her. Recognizing that mansplaining is caused by societal conditioning and the female’s perception can also be due to past conditioning. Asking “What is my part in this? and Why is my reaction so severe?” can lead to a different response. Helpful comments were, “Having compassion for the person speaking unskillfully to you can be a way out.” Or if that fails, commenting with humor often works. Such as “You have a brilliant command of the obvious.” One member of our group offered “Why cut the tree down in the first place? The wiser course of action is to observe before you cut it down and try to build a piece of furniture. The work is in observing and understanding, not making the furniture.”
Our group moved to a discussion about political differences between people. “You can fall into the trap of saying something, hoping for change. But if it’s not going to change the person, don’t waste the energy.” This can be tricky, you might want to engage for a chance at civil disagreement, or a positive outcome of swaying a vote or belief system. It can result in a dynamic relationship to have political conversations with someone who holds opposing beliefs. But finally, you may have to disengage, remembering the quote, “Never wrestle with a pig, you get dirty and the pig enjoys it.”