Befriending ourselves by Satyavani

I wanted to start with pain and violence. We've talked a lot this morning about safe spaces and compassion and love, and that's all really important. In the morning break this morning, I went down to see if the cats were all right and Satya, our old man cat, was calling up to me, "Meow, meow," and when I saw him, I saw he had a mouse in his mouth, which is the mouse that Roshi was trying to get from under the freezer this morning first thing, which we failed to— we lifted the fridge and he ran straight into the cupboard. Satya's quite good at catching mice. So I carried Fatty outside and I opened his mouth and the mouse was happy enough, but he was— he wasn't running off quickly. So I lifted him and I took him over to another part of the garden where the cats could smell his scent. And as I took him, he bit me really hard on the finger. I don't know why, but I didn't open my hand. I just, I just said, "Don't bite me," and then let him go. It was fine. He bit me because he thought I was going to kill him, and it really hurt. So when we think about the parts of ourselves and parts of others that are violent and that hurt, that hurt us or hurt other people, it's always helpful to remember that these parts are doing what they're doing because they're trying to survive. There's something which about what's happening that involves the survival instinct. And often those survival instincts have become warped. So the mouse didn't know that I was actually carrying it to safety. It didn't know that. It bit me because biting me was the thing that it— the instinct led it to do. One of the things I like about this particular variety of Buddhism that we practice, Pure Land Buddhism, is that we start with a very realistic picture of what it is to be human. And the word that we use is bom bu, which means foolish beings, wayward passions. That's what we all are. So we're actually filled up almost to the brim with greed, hate, and delusion. And the greed and hate and And the delusion also comes from fear of something. We're greedy and we want more of something because we, we don't want to experience the lack of it. We hate something because we don't want to encounter it, so we kind of push it away. Or we feel confused or deluded about something because we're not really sure what to do with it. So the position that we begin from is being very vulnerable, frightened beings, frightened creatures who need to make some kind of stability for themselves in this world which which is impermanent and often presents us with, with things that we don't like, or not enough of the things we do like. And usually the big stuff, the The bits in us that really bite other people, or that bite ourselves, the bits that really hurt, go way, way back. When we were very young— I guess there's two things about what happens when we were very young. One is that we We learn how to be who we are, we learn how to be a human being when we're very young, so the things we learn at that point in our lives end up being pretty fundamental. It's like the sort of programming that we get. And we also learn these lessons when we are completely vulnerable. We can't even put our hand to our mouth, never mind feed ourselves. I love it when you watch babies and they're sort of working out what their bodies are and how to move them, and there's a sort of a— it's just all over the place, it's kind of like this random movements that just kind of gradually, very gradually become controllable. But when we're that tiny, we are completely dependent on the people around us to feed us, and keep us warm. So we need to work out pretty quickly how to survive in our situation. And if we have a mother who seems to get upset when we're crying, And some part of us will, will learn to cry less because if we upset her too much, maybe she won't feed us, maybe she'll leave us outside. So it's really important when we are considering these parts of us that we really don't like, that they formed in this situation, they formed under these circumstances where the stakes were really high. The stakes were really high. I think it could be helpful to remember that, especially when we feel a bit foolish about how big a deal we're making of something. It may be that we need the mugs arranged very neatly, and that becomes like a really big thing. And it's not really the mugs, it's the fact that some of the way that we feel safe, or that we learn to feel safe, is to make sure that things are in order, that things around us are in order. So whenever we feel triggered by something, whenever we have an emotional reaction that feels sort of bigger than it should be, it's always interesting to wonder about what else is— what might this be symbolizing? What, what story is this about? What, um, survival mechanism is this about? So that's one really important thing, is to, is to bring some understanding to the intensity of these, these personality mechanisms that get set up. And I guess really the The intensity of the difficulty is the other half of all that— it's the reason why we talked about the things we talked about this morning. Because to start to look at these parts of ourselves that are really terrified, or possibly violent, or who hide, you know, that we might have a bit that just hides away completely. To start to bring some light to these bits of ourselves, we need a container that's really safe. We need a container that is really secure, warm, and that won't reject us and that won't push us. And that's why these practices that we do are important, but that's also why it's so important to bring ourselves in relationship with something that isn't in us, that's bigger than— bigger than us, that's bigger than anything else. The other thing I wanted to say about these bits of us is that they all have something to tell us. They all have some wisdom. The wisdom of the mouse this morning was, "Let me go!" That's what the vibe was saying. It was saying, "I want to live, let me go!" And it can be, it can be quite easy to interpret the message of these different parts of us, and it can be really difficult. There's maybe, I don't know, maybe there's two things. There's something about understanding, and then there's something about the message. And maybe those two things are the same, but maybe not always. But it can be difficult to make sense of what's going on when we act in a particular way. I'm wondering if an example might be helpful if I float too far off into abstractions. Um, so I guess something from my own life that I struggle with is, um, feeling too responsible for other people. People that are around me. And I can kind of understand that bit now, and I understand why it's there. And it's a way of making me safe, is that if other people are okay, then I'm okay. So I make sure they're okay first, and then I'm okay. So that's, that's the understanding bit. What's the message for me? What is it that it's— what this thing that happens, what is it telling me? Where is it bringing my attention to? And for me, I think the message is to find a way of doing that for myself, actually. If I find myself focusing on how other people are, then what that tells me is I'm feeling a bit wobbly. So if I tune into my own wobbliness, maybe do something, or maybe just hear it and notice it, then the need to make other people okay kind of disappears. So this is, this is something we can do with these bits of ourselves that are, um, that aren't easy to be with, is we can wonder what it is they what it is they're saying to us. What's their message, and what change are they inviting in us? At this point, I think I'll read the poem that I'm going to give you later, which some of you may know, which is a Rumi poem called The Guest House. House. And this is, this is really saying this much more eloquently than me. The Guest House. This being human is a guest house. Every morning, a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all, even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. Still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. So that's something that I think is really difficult for us to do is to maintain that state of welcome regardless of what it is that comes up or turns up. Feels a little bit like running a temple and being able to greet everybody who turns up with a kind of a welcoming, you know, we don't sometimes tell people that we're not, that we're busy. Um, and I guess that's, that's how it is, is that sometimes in our life there isn't any space to welcome these things that come. We just have to say, sorry, I'm in the middle of something else at the moment, come back later. Um, but it is much easier to welcome some people than it is others, and that varies depending on who's opening the door. Different different visitors will provoke different responses in us. I know that one of our colleagues who was talking to me yesterday was saying that for him it's the quiet people, the sort of people that end up at the back of the room, that he really warms to. Those are the people that he really enjoys welcoming in, and the people that are more energetic he finds quite difficult, and for someone else it would be the other way around. So we all— it all varies, our capacity for welcoming different parts of ourselves and others. But the ideal is that we move towards— we move further towards being able to broaden our welcome to different, to different different bits of us. And if we're interested in this kind of work, this kind of spiritual work, this therapeutic work of including more of ourselves, um, bringing more of ourselves into relationship with each other and relationship with the world, something that's really useful is to notice when we have a reaction to someone else, or to something that we do. Who is it that really pushes our buttons? Who is it we feel drawn to? Who do we really avoid? And the people that we avoid will be our best teachers, unfortunately. I hate that that's the way it is, but But those are the people that are really an opportunity for us to see something new about ourselves, because those are the people that push us over some kind of edge into uncharted territory. As Casper was saying earlier, we can't do that to 24 hours a day. Um, we need to, we need to trust that the process will take us through these periods of growth and possibly pain and, and joy. And then we might have a kind of a fallow period where we just Maybe it feels like we're doing nothing, but that there's some kind of integration taking place of the new stuff that we know. And I guess that during the day today, that's what we've been doing. We've been, we've been leaving some spaces for things to, to compost a bit, to compost down. Maybe that's the other thing that I want to say, or that wants to be said through me, is that we can trust the process. In my experience, that we— another way of putting it is that we're only given what we can handle, even if we don't think we can handle it. Even if we have moments where we feel that it is completely unhandleable, that we can have faith that, that we are being held by some larger process. Sometimes the times that we think are at the most difficult times, or the times that we really suffer, can be where the most riches come from. I know that a year I spent really becoming aware of a lot of my dysfunctional— a whole new layer of dysfunctionality in me. Which was a painful year, it was a frightening year, has really been the foundation that I built my life here on. If I hadn't had that year, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be the person I am now. So even when things feel terrible, it can help to just think, well, maybe this is, this is what I really need right now. That's Somehow the universe knows that this is what I really need, and if I can just stay with it, then it will take me somewhere new. It will, it will take me where I need to go. So the little mouse that bites was a very cute chipmunk, and you might want to take him with you into the next part of the afternoon when, when there's something that feels ugly, or that you will judge, or that you think that other people will judge, just think of it as a mouse trying to, to survive. Keep it in the, in the pain. I'm wondering if there's going to be some conclusion. It's more than a lifetime's work. I think that's the thing that I want to finish with. But it also helps me to remember that because of the intensity of the things that form in us, the different parts of us that form, and the extreme of us as a baby, or us as an adult human facing rejection or death. This stuff is big stuff, so it's okay to just kind of dip your toe in the water of it. That will still help, even little tiny shifts in this kind of stuff. Can make a big difference to the way you live your life. And you can trust that there's layer after layer after layer after layer. So this isn't a self-perfection project. We're not going to do 40 years and then get to a point at which we're Buddhas, unfortunately. That may happen, I won't rule that out. But The things that we're working on are versions or, or consequences of the things our parents were working on, the things their parents were working on, back and back and back and back and back. So it is helpful to expand your sense of the timescale of this and to increase your levels of kindness and softness towards the frustratingness of this project, the sort of the futile nature of it almost. And, um, and to mention Abba Pā again, if we think that we're in charge of this whole process, we're probably not going to feel very good about things. But most of what happens is not because of our efforts. We can maybe— we can— I often think about sort of, I can turn myself towards the light, that's what I can do. But then really the rest of it is, is about being in certain conditions and soaking things up and happening to be in the right place at the right time and having your ears open to the right people. Um, and that is a bit of a relief too because it, it, it's, um, it takes the weight of responsibility off me and puts it onto Anita, or whoever it is, or whatever it is that you're in relationship with. To allow yourself to be changed rather than set out to change yourself. Allow yourself to become more friendly to those difficult parts of rather than deciding that you will do it. These things need to unfold in their own time. And the words that you're listening to now, they may unlock something within the next 10 minutes, or it might be 10 years later and you think, 'Oh, that reminds me of that thing that I thought,' or 'that thing I heard,' or You never know, you never know at what speed things will unfold. You have to be patient. Doesn't matter whether we're patient or not, but it makes life easier.