Finding My Part in Events

                A number of years ago I was teaching a philosophy class that I started to dread going to more and more as the school term wore on.  After determining grades for all the students and turning my grade sheets into the records office, I was sitting in my office getting ready to go home when I decided I would scan the class roster and put a red checkmark next to each student’s name that had been argumentative.

                Suddenly I was reminded of a college sponsored workshop I had gone to given by Hal Pitt.  Hal told the story of a person he had met who was in the army and complained constantly that “I hate the army!”  Hal asked why he hated the army and was told “I’m just unbelievably frustrated working week after week with this utter fool who is my immediate superior.”  So as it turned out, he did not hate the entire army, he only hated having to work with this one person.  I realized that this story was also my story of “My class of thirty lawyers.”  The problem was only with two students, and I had allowed the behavior of those two students to color my experience of the entire group of thirty.

                If things aren’t going well, whether in the army or in my class, Hal taught that we must ask ourselves “Who is responsible for being like this?”  His teaching here was that the problem wasn’t the students, it was me.  I’m the one in charge, I’m the who responsible for the class, and I am the one who is allowing this behavior to continue.  All I really needed to do was rein in two students—talk to them after class, make it clear what their objectionable behavior was, and inform them that, if this behavior continued, they would be required to leave the classroom.  I had not done this.

                I don’t think Hal knew anything about Buddhism, but his was a Buddhist teaching he was sharing.  If our life is not going well, instead of usual habit blaming the outside world and demanding that it change, we need to look inside to see how we are helping to create and keep in place the existing problem.  The Buddha would ask me to look for my contribution to the unhappy situation.  This is where my power is because it’s the part over which I have the most control.

                When we get into a problem with another person, we almost always think it is the other person who needs to change: “If you would only do things differently, everything would be ok.” This happens a lot in personal relationships.  This approach almost never works, and typically the other person is approaching things in exactly the same way: “If only Dale would change, everything would be great.”  

                Harriet Lerner, in her book The Dance of Anger, uses a very helpful metaphor to teach the same lesson as Hal and the Buddha.  She says to think of your interactions with another person (or group of persons) as a dance you do with them.  What do you do if you don’t like the way the “dance” is going?  You can try to get the other person to “dance” differently, but they often resist and you frequently cannot get them to agree to what you want. 

                Instead, Lerner says to focus on your own steps in the dance.  If you start dancing differently the nature of your dance together will automatically change.  Instead of blaming the other person and demanding that they change, we take personal responsibility for the situation, look at our own contribution to the unsatisfactory dance, and behave differently ourselves—like with my class of lawyers.  Similarly, if I don’t like being with a friend because he is constantly arguing or pushing unwanted advice, I need to look at what I am doing that is contributing to this continuing to happen. 

                The world can seem full of annoying people.  But as a wise teacher once said “It is easier to put on soft slippers than it is to carpet the whole world.”  I can’t eliminate all annoying people from the world, but I can change how I respond when I find myself feeling annoyed.

The Buddha taught that almost all of the suffering we experience in life is due to our responses to events, not the events themselves.  We can see this for ourselves when we begin to observe the operation of our minds very closely.  When we are suffering, we need to look inward and see what we are doing that facilitates the creation of our own suffering.  Personal transformation was the central core of what the Buddha taught.  He said he only taught two things:  the nature of suffering and the elimination of suffering. And the nature of suffering is that it is generated by the mind and its responses to events in our lives. 

“Looking for my part” in things has been very liberating for me—when I remember to do it.  When I was twenty-six years old, I entered the doctoral program at the University of California, San Diego.  I chose to go there because of their strong financial offer, highly rated philosophy program, and my desire to live in the “paradise climate” of San Diego rather than some place like Chicago or Michigan with harsh winters.

I liked my experience there and learned a lot, but I ended up being asked to leave because of my lack of interest in the history of philosophy.  I wanted to do philosophical work, not learn the history of philosophical work.  I was very angry and resented their unreasonable requirements—why should I be forced to learn this crap?  I felt like the victim of injustice.  I railed against the universe and suffered over my mistreatment and held a grudge against the University.  But years later, when I finally encountered Buddhist teachings about looking for my part in what happened, everything shifted. 

 Looking back on it today, it all seems almost comical.   I had a great passion for discovering important truths about life.  I had very little interest in knowing all about what so-and-so used to think about such-and-such.  And I knew this about myself.  And yet… I chose to go to a university that heavily emphasized history of philosophy.  And while a student there, I chose not to make a strong effort to learn history of philosophy.  Well, Dale… what did you expect to happen when you started work at UC San Diego?  Of course there would be problems!  When I finally saw all this stuff (which seems perfectly obvious now), I was able to totally let go of the hurt, anger, and resentment and make my peace with what had happened.  What a relief!  My grudge against the University for mistreating me simply melted away. As it turned out, the University didn’t do anything to me—I did it to myself through the choices that I made.

Looking to blame others for our troubles in life is often a deeply engrained habit. But when we finally look deeply at what we are doing and experience the peace and empowerment of looking for our part in just one instance, we become highly motivated to do this again and what was a strong habit going back many years can simply melt away and no longer have any appeal to us at all. Eventually, it can become our new “default setting.”

 

Note:   My intention is to add new posts to the blog approximately every 2 to 3 weeks. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.  Some of the material that appears in this blog is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold. 

            If you have questions, comments, or ideas for new Blog topics please contact Dale at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.