Wandering in the Weeds

Late winter woods

I have modified this comment from an e-list I follow, but kept the flowing syntax.  This should give you the flavor of it:

John, none of us care about your gripe with Mary.  We're supposed to be supporting one another on this list, so please take your argument private, you are only going to cause people to leave the group. So grow up....

Don't you love that last friendly last admonition?  How nice is that, as we say flatly.  How helpful, for two people who are both acutely ill right now.  Then another person popped in to refer to it as "high-school drama."  As for me, reading it enhanced my high-summer problem of heat.  Aggression rises easily in my poor stomach, which finds some of my required meds, and some human meanness, hard to digest.

I had an impulse to reply to Perennially Irritable, but took a deep breath and thought I really don't know how to help.  I looked back over the threads on this subject and found others who were  upset by John or Mary's quarrel, and handled their pain by aggressively telling them not to be aggressive.

So what's a Buddhist to do?  In confusing times I go back to the basic commitment Pema Chodron writes about in her forthcoming book, How to Live Beautifully:

I vow to do no harm.

(I highlighted that in the hope that I will get it.)  The first reaction I always have when I have to bring this to mind is, Whoa.  Slow.  Down.  Chill out. Don't say it.  And especially, Don't write it on the internet.
~~~~~
I'd written the above yesterday.  Last night, I myself got annoyed by a supercilious (judgement word) comment about me made by a Facebook acquaintance.  (Yeah, friend, I don't remember how that happened.)  I wrote an answer, deleted it.  Wrote another, delete.  One more, trying to explain that I am not the idiot she seems to think I am.  Delete.  Went to her page, clicked the Friend button, clicked again, fixed it so nothing she writes will come through anymore.  I will not miss her.

Kind of thing I've learned in almost 15 years of practice (!!!!!) is that this hodge-podge self I am, made insane by my childhood, is hypersensitive to criticism.  And meanness, even when it's not directed at me.  All the King's horses and all the King's men, in the form of a succession of therapists and self-help books and practice and journaling and retreats, you name it, I've done it - these things have not changed this part of me.

What getting to know myself has done, though, is that I know how I feel.  I can control my impulses.  And then, I guess a form of wisdom, I accept that I am who I am.  Hypersensitive.You are not a thing to be perfected by meticulous work.

Got to reading Shunryu Suzuki last night before bed, and God bless him, he was talking about how it is exactly when we are working with the weeds in our life that we are enlightened.  This is our practice, to work with our weeds, not to sit on a cushion in bliss.  Though he does advocate nonthinking.

So I'm okay this morning, and didn't set the internet ablaze last night.

Rest

[These photos are among those Tom found yesterday on the retired digital camera.]

postscript next day:  One long-term group member, who was valuable and a frequent commenter, has resigned from the list over that quarrel.

Ask Grandma: Replying to a Big Spender

I read with interest the advice columnists. They are a form of girl gossip I never have been really in on. Each letter is a narrative, for sure, and I've always liked stories.

Today, my eye was arrested (there's a strange image) by Dear Abby, who died, I believe, and is now a brand belonging to Jeanne Phillips, an intriguing concept. Ask yourself, Could I, too, become a Brand, and thus someone could make money off me when I'm dead? Other questions would surely follow from this inquiry.

The poor woman whose letter is featured today wrote to ask how to reply to a "tacky" friend (her term) who always tells how much she spent on something. A shirt is the example given, giving me the opportunity to post this pretty picture, almost a color-field abstraction.

Faux Abby replies gleefully that you could try to make her feel guilty, envious, or miserable; or just "tell her the shirt is beautiful---but that wouldn't be as much fun." She seems to be serious. This is exactly why I avoid girl gossip. There is too often a meanness to it, which can be accounted for by women's incredible one-on-one competitiveness. If this statement surprises you, you can read more in Phyllis Chesler's book, Woman's Inhumanity to Woman, which documents some of the ample research on girl meanness.

A second possibility is that Abby is using irony in an attempt to shame the writer into acting polite. I came up with this thought, but am having trouble buying it. Suppose it is the case, though; shame is a dubious teaching strategy.

This kind of question is one Buddhist teachers do encounter: "ZenPerfect's measured behavior is driving me crazy." To this, a teacher may reply, "Sit with that," meaning, Ah, you have here an opportunity to learn something about yourself. Abby's student, Not a Spendthrift, might learn that she herself craves beautiful clothing or compliments, or that Big Spender taps her wrongheaded sense of personal inadequacy. I don't know what she might learn; these are examples.

A second compassionate way to work with this would be to "exchange self with other," a technique I believe is taught in the Tibetan tradition. Imagine that you are Big Spender, that when someone compliments you on your new shirt, you say, "It cost me $200." Why do you say that? How do you feel when you are complimented, or when you just walk into the office and announce how much you spent on that shirt? Could it be that in your behavior there is no attempt to harm?

Maybe you would contact a time in your life when you said something that gauche. Maybe you were only eight years old at the time, and hadn't learned yet that here in America we destroy our souls for money, and are supposed to pretend, at the same time, that money doesn't matter. That we pay way too much for clothes with visible brands, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Prada, exactly because some people will know from the logo how much that purse cost. That's the game. Maybe Big Spender is just an innocent kid who hasn't quite figured out all the rules.

After meditating like this, maybe Not a Spendthrift could rise above her Self and say something honest and simple to her friend, like "Blue is your color." That's what friends do.