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Totally Open, Present, There
Thursday, October 11, 2007

 
Dear Still Water Friends,
This Thursday Evening, after our meditation period, we will read the Five Mindfulness Trainings.  Our dharma discussion will explore the fourth training: Mindful Speech.

Beverly Winterscheid, who will be our discussion facilitator, wishes to focus the discussion on how we often split ourselves, mid-conversation, so we are no longer fully there. We will begin with an excerpt by Pema Chodron on how we become split (from the November 2007 issue of The Shambhala Sun):

I have often spoken of shenpa, the Tibetan term for the hook in our mind that snags us and prevents us from being open and receptive....We cover over our innate wisdom, our innate intelligence, with rapidly escalating, highly charged shenpa-oozing emotionality .... one hook after another.

What are we to do about that?  We could say that this emotionality is bad and we have to get rid of it.  But that brings problems too.  Since this approach will not work, what we need to do is to neither reject nor indulge in our own emotional energy, but instead come to know it.  Then, as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche taught, we can transmute the confusion of emotions into wisdom.  In simple terms we must gain the capacity to slowly, over time, become one with our own energy instead of splitting off.  We must learn to use the tools we have available to transform this moment of splitting in two.

Let's say you're having a conversation with someone.  You're one with the whole situation.  You're open and receptive and there and interested.  Then there is a little shenpa pulling-away, a kind of uneasy feeling in the stomach - which we usually don't notice - and then comes our big thought.  We are suddenly verbalizing to ourselves, "How am I looking here?  Did I just say something stupid?"

Some thought or other causes us to split off, and before we know it we're completely self-absorbed.  We're probably not even hearing the words of the person we're conversing with, because we have retreated into a bubble of self-absorption.  That's splitting off.  That's dividing in two.

The Buddha taught about this basic split as the birth of dualism, the birth of self versus other, of me versus you.  It happens moment after moment.  When we start out, we are "one-with." We're simply listening and there.  And then, split!  We pull back into our own worry or concern or even our own elation.  Somehow we're no longer together.  Now it's more about me and self, rather than them and other.  By contrast, being "one-with" is neither about other nor about self.  It's just totally open, present, there.

The initial questions Beverly wishes to consider are: When do we split -- in what situations do these "hooks", or "shenpa" that prevent us from being open and receptive, arise in our lives?  What splits in us?  How do we return to being open, present, there?

You are invited to be with us.

The text of the Fourth Training on Mindful Speech is below.

Warm wishes,

Mitchell Ratner
Senior Teacher

Fourth Mindfulness Training

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering.

Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to learning to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.