Cure What Ails You — a Handy Dandy 5‑step Plan

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Cure What Ails You — Left to our own devices, we are never better than our list of rules. Right and wrong discussions lead precisely nowhere.
Here are 5 ways to step out of this swamp, giving you the chance to free yourself, and let others be. 

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Listless Lists

The very first thing we learn, after the names of things, is where each thing is “locat­ed” on the scale of good / bad, right / wrong. Because we are com­pelled to make these eval­u­a­tions, as chil­dren, with the force of trib­al beliefs behind the lists, in a real sense we are quite unre­flec­tive as we judge.

 It’s kind of odd, how sel­dom we
look at our base­line beliefs. 

In order to do so authen­ti­cal­ly, we need to look out­side our tribes and cul­tures, and take a wider view. As we do, we see that, pret­ty much uni­ver­sal­ly, any behav­iour or object you con­sid­er “wrong” is con­sid­ered “right” (and put into prac­tice) by some oth­er group.

Indeed, some things you judge as wrong or bad are oth­er peo­ple’s reli­gious prac­tices, and are held to be not only right, but ‘god-giv­en.’

It’s no won­der we are con­stant­ly at war.

War is noth­ing more than a clash of ide­olo­gies and beliefs. Sticks and stones have been replaced by Scuds and bombs, but the game is the same.

This is also so when it comes to interpersonal conflict.

My coun­selling career stretched from 1981 through 12013, and the only time I ‘knew’ some­one was ‘wrong’ was when they phys­i­cal­ly hurt anoth­er. And I rec­og­nize that this is my per­son­al deter­mi­na­tion, or bias.

Beyond physical violence, differences between people are always differences of opinion, and it’s impossible to judge which perspective is ‘right.’

This is not to say that I do not have a personal preference.

I have a decid­ed per­son­al bias toward good com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and I can even define such com­mu­ni­ca­tion for you. 

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My prej­u­dice in favour of ele­gant com­mu­ni­ca­tion is based upon my expe­ri­ence. My view works for me, and my inten­tion is to teach this way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing. Not because it’s ‘right,’ but because it works… again, for me.

Note: It’s tak­en me sev­er­al decades to learn the dif­fer­ence between being right and hav­ing a per­son­al bias or pref­er­ence. I spent much of my time, pri­or to age 32 or so, try­ing to per­suade every­one of the cor­rect­ness of my beliefs. So I have some com­pas­sion for peo­ple who are stuck in ‘per­sua­sion mode.’ It runs deep.

I suspect that the alternative to being right is to understand the meaning of integrity.

Peo­ple insist that they are ‘right’ because they fear call­ing every­thing they believe into question. 

Exam­ple: It seems strange to me, for exam­ple, to hear men tell me how women ‘should’ behave toward them (or vice ver­sa) and yet have nev­er found any­one inter­est­ed in being that obe­di­ent. Indeed, all of their rela­tion­ships have fea­tured the oppo­site of what they want. 

Yet, on and on they insist that they know bet­ter, and that the prob­lem is that they haven’t found the ‘right’ per­son. There’s that word again. It nev­er occurs to them to change their beliefs. They just keep chang­ing people.

Clinging is to blame

In Bud­dhism, unease (San­skrit dukkha, often trans­lat­ed ‘suf­fer­ing’) comes from cling­ing to some­thing, and in this case it’s cling­ing to pre­con­ceived notions.

Notice that word. Pre-conceived.
This means “thought of in advance.”

In oth­er words, I am apply­ing a rule or judg­ment from the past with­out think­ing, to a present sit­u­a­tion. Or, I’m just apply­ing ‘what I always do,’ with no regard to the present sit­u­a­tion at all.

All cling­ing is a form of attach­ment, and our attach­ments are always to our men­tal formations. 

Here’s the inter­est­ing part: notice how often you’d rather be con­sid­ered ‘right’ about your fer­vent­ly held beliefs, to the extent that you’ll ruin rela­tion­ships, sab­o­tage careers, and spend your life in mis­ery. But boy, are you ever right!

I’m a sim­ple Zen guy, so I “sim­ply say”:

“If you are not con­tent,
it’s like­ly your beliefs that are get­ting in your way,
so let’s work at chang­ing them.”

Up pops your ego, which says, 

“But … but … I’ve spent years devel­op­ing these strate­gies, and your job is to make them work, so I don’t have to change anything!”

But, you see… I’m just not inter­est­ed. I real­ly want you to con­sid­er not hav­ing beliefs. To approach your life direct­ly, trust your instincts, and to engage with life as opposed to cat­e­go­riz­ing it.

To have a life, rather than a judgment.

Haven’t you fig­ured this out yet? All of your stub­born, well-worn plat­i­tudes about how life should be have nev­er worked out, and nev­er will.

You can rant, rave, whine, sob, snif­fle, grouse, bitch, moan, com­plain, lec­ture, defend, demand.

And noth­ing changes.

Except you get to feel hard-done-by. So, doing more of this, hard­er and loud­er, is some­how going to sud­den­ly start work­ing? I think not.

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I love the Tao te Ching for its practical wisdom and innate grasp of the energy of the Universe – chi.

Here’s the 56th chap­ter, trans­lat­ed by Gia Fu Feng and Jane English

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.
Keep your mouth closed,
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is the primal union.
He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.

That first cou­plet is famous. It has a spe­cif­ic mean­ing, and it’s not to stop teach­ing. The Tao te Ching would not exist if that were the case. 

The mean­ing is this: peo­ple who lec­ture oth­ers about right and wrong ‘don’t know.’ Peo­ple who live (with­out pro­nounce­ments) accord­ing to the Tao ‘know.’

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Here’s how (finally! 😉 ) : The handy dandy 5 steps to cure what ails you

1. Close your mouth, guard your senses.

Most of the time, shut­ting up is a good idea.

• Yup. Shut up. Say, for the next decade or so, to make up for all those years of pronouncements.
• You will final­ly have some­thing worth say­ing when you get your own act together.
• Before you tell all in sundry how to have an excel­lent rela­tion­ship, actu­al­ly be in one for a while—you know—10, 20 years. 
• Just go live your spir­i­tu­al prac­tice, quietly. 
• Do your job, with excel­lence, no mat­ter how many ‘odd lit­tle birdies’ sur­round you. 
• Live a healthy lifestyle, and let oth­ers inhale Big Mac’s unmolested.

1a. Guard your sens­es—let in what comes in, and under­stand it’s just data. Your mind will chew it, and judge it, and try to get you all hot and both­ered, but resist the urge to let all of that back out.

Just be with it, gently.

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2. Temper your sharpness.

Are you all edges and prick­les?
Many are. Non-cud­dly, all protected. 

It’s so easy to flare up, to defend and then to come out swing­ing. You have so much more invest­ed in draw­ing blood in every encounter than in sim­ply being with others.

• Tem­per­ing is done through heat­ing and cool­ing off. Tem­per­ing makes met­al use­ful.
• As your heat aris­es, seem­ing­ly unbid­den, have a breath, cool off, and see point 1—stop talking.
• Breathe. Observe. Let your walls down.

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3. Simplify your problems

Else­where, this is trans­lat­ed, “untan­gle your knots.” Notice how self-respon­si­ble this text is. All prob­lems, all knots, are self-cre­at­ed and inflicted.

Here’s how to sim­pli­fy: you feel your­self tens­ing up, get­ting “all knot­ted up.” Ask yourself: 

• Why am I cre­at­ing a dra­ma here? 
• Is decid­ing I have a prob­lem mak­ing things eas­i­er or harder? 
• What would hap­pen if I just dealt with this, rather than first assign­ing blame, then tying myself in knots?

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4. Mask your brightness.

This reflects the cou­plet about those who know ver­sus those who talk. 

Many tell me that they are “just look­ing out for their part­ner’s best inter­ests.” And then they go on to describe the cur­rent lec­ture, advice, dia­tribe, or ‘encour­age­ment’ they deliv­ered.
To me, it’s more of the same.
In almost all cas­es the part­ner did not ask for advice. Often, what the part­ner asked for was to be lis­tened to and heard. Not the same thing, at all.
I find, with Dar­bel­la, that 95% of the time she is ask­ing for the latter—to have a safe place to be heard. Occa­sion­al­ly, she also wants to know what I would do con­cern­ing the sit­u­a­tion.
I always have an opin­ion, but I know it’s based sole­ly upon me and my nature. It’s not right, it’s just “how I do things.”

• So, back to # 1. Shut up—and listen.
• You don’t have to be declared right. Because you aren’t. Sim­ple as that.

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5. Be at one with the dust of the earth.

You know when you are “stir­ring up dust,” and you also know what it means to ‘let the dust set­tle.‘
This idea also links to #4—being ‘com­mon,’ like the dust of the earth, is to be tak­en for grant­ed, in the best sense of that term.
We sim­ply assume that the ground is there, and that it will sup­port us as we walk on it. The ground does not ask for our praise—does not ask to be reward­ed for its sup­port.
So, be the ground. Sup­port, lis­ten, be present, just be there, unob­tru­sive­ly, and with­out agenda.

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If you look at the rest of the text of #56, you’ll see a descrip­tion of some­one uncon­cerned. This does not mean dis­in­ter­est­ed or dis­con­nect­ed. The idea is that one can actu­al­ly be present in the world, curi­ous, sup­port­ive, knowl­edge­able, and exist­ing at the high­est level.

This is possible only when the opinions by others about our character and motives is no longer a concern.

Many are the peo­ple who try to be pop­u­lar, who try to be all things to all peo­ple, who try to ‘help.’ Lives wast­ed being jerked around by the whims and will of oth­ers, and it’s only pos­si­ble if you co-operate.

Non-co-oper­a­tion is not by mak­ing a demand—“I told you and told you. Don’t make me unhap­py!” Yikes. Who cares?

Non-co-operation is simply this: “Here is me, living out me, as me.” I intend to do this, and am not looking for permission. I’m also not looking to be told what to do, as you can’t know what’s best for me. I also know I do not know what’s best for you. So, I’m just going to hang out here, and be me. I hope you’ll join me.”

Cling­ing to rules—to right and wrong—will get you end­less con­flict and no peace. Decide who you are and how you want to be—and make that pic­ture your ‘best self.’ Then, qui­et­ly live from your best self.

Sim­ple.

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