As I've mentioned in previous posts, the silence and stillness felt on meditation retreats can bring things into clear view. Sometimes, I make a note of something that I observe, with the intention of writing about it later. This is one of such areas that I have been particularly interested in based on my observations during the last couple retreats I have sat. It is a self-reflective inquiry into the ways in which we affect those around us, either by our actions, or our inactions. Of course, our actions come in many forms. They can be passive or aggressive, physical or mental, vocal or silent. In particular, I want to focus on those actions that affect others in a negative way.
We can disturb others in two basic ways, either intentionally, or unintentionally. On meditation retreats, most people put forth effort to either slip by under the radar, which means they try to have little-to-no impact on their fellow yogis (meditators). Or, when necessary, they try to be as kind and mindful as possible, for example, it's common for someone to hold the door open for another, as a friendly gesture, even though speaking is not allowed. But all of this is not very interesting to me. What is interesting is all the ways in which yogis, myself included, end up unintentionally affecting others in a negative way, without even knowing it. This is sort of like an unpolished part of the car. The rest of the car is left beautiful and shiny, but one little section, probably in the back, was overlooked. Now, I don't own a car, and the last (and only) car I owned was sent to the crushing yard many years ago, but I still think this example works.
So what are these things that we do that unintentionally affect others negatively?
Well, they are usually quite small things, but if we can sort of clean them up, we might be able to invite an extra layer of mindfulness into our lives. This is purely speculation as I'm not convinced I have done this yet, but cut me some slack, I'm working on it. Or am I just writing about it??
Okay, so on the last retreat I was on, which wasn't silent by the way, but nonetheless, I had the pleasure of observing an incident that rekindled my interest in this topic. After the teachings were over on the final day, I headed to the office to continue a conversation I had begun the previous day with one of the guys who volunteered at this Tibetan monastery. As the office was only open for one hour each day, it was my top priority. On the way, my forward progress was halted. In front of the door, there was a narrow walkway, and in the middle of this walkway, a woman was bent down playing with a who was lying on its back. At first glance, I thought it was quite a beautiful moment, as she was fully engaged in this process and the dog really seemed to be enjoying it. But then, as I got closer, I realized that it was impossible for me to squeeze past her giant butt, which happened to be shaking to and fro on account of her fervent style of petting the dog. To attempt to squeeze past would mean risking bumping into her butt, which is the last thing I wanted. Additionally, she was enjoying this so much, that I dared tried to disturb her. To do so, would have been extremely jarring, as I would have had to compete with her somewhat loud vocal expressions to the dog.
I just stood there, and couldn't help but to think, "Do you realize you are blocking this entire building right now?" The answer, was quite an obvious "no." On the one hand, she was acting from a place of love for animals and it was quite a sweet moment, but on the other hand, she was in someone's way, and this is a very common example of how a lack of awareness causes problems in the world. If we are so wrapped up in our own little reality, we can't see what's happening around us. This is called "having one's head up one's ass," and it's something we all suffer from. It's not the end of the world, but the people around us definitely suffer because of our lack of awareness, and I see that as unnecessary suffering that we can somewhat easily eradicate.
Let me try to recall some other examples from meditation retreats. While on bathroom cleaning duty, during karma-yoga time, aka "chores," someone would come in and take a shower, causing me to wait for that shower to be freed up before I could clean it and finish my duty. This is an example of putting one's own well-being as a priority and thereby disrupting another. In a largely self-centered world we live in, especially those of us from the west, this is extremely common. One time, when I was a monk in Thailand, one of my monk-brothers would always leave the door open to our shared room when he was the last one to leave. By the time we would return from the meditation hall, there would literally be thousands of bugs in our room, and without mosquito nets, and sleeping on the floor, we would have to deal with them all night long. This is just a simple lack of mindfulness, or in other words, he wasn't thinking about what he was doing.
Probably one of the common examples that most people have to face on a daily basis is dealing with unconscious drivers. If you are a good driver, you've surely had the pleasure of observing countless drivers with their head up their ass. If you are an unconscious driver, maybe you don't even realize what you are doing, but please, for the rest of us, wake up! But if we investigate further, we might see that things aren't so black and white. They never are, actually. Instead, we will probably find that at times, all of us are unconscious drivers, and other times, we are conscious. There are many factors to attribute to whether or not we are acting consciously, so it's not always easy to identify the problem.
Even though there are a variety of valid excuses out there, the root problem seems to be that in general, we don't take others into consideration when we unintentionally affect them in negative ways. By simply asking ourselves, "How are my actions affecting others?" we can gain an additional level of awareness, and those that we share our lives with, either directly or indirectly, will be much better off for it. Oftentimes, as in the case of the dog-lady, it's a matter of body-awareness. Where is my body? Am I in someone's way? When I was visiting my brother in Chile, I found myself in a line of people trying to board a long-distance bus. The line wasn't moving, and I peeked inside to get a little insight into the problem. The problem was, there was a guy engaged in a phone call that, instead of finding his seat and sitting down, was standing in the middle of the aisle and blocking an entire line of 20 or more people that were trying to get in. Now, in previous years, I'd call this guy an asshole, which maybe he was, but I tend to believe that he just didn't realize what he was doing.
Although these things are usually quite unimportant in the grand scheme of things, they really can be the difference between life and death, especially when we look at unconscious drivers. If we all make an effort to be careful about how we are affecting others, the world will be a much better, and safer place. It's sort of like an area of personal refinement. If you don't polish this area in the back of your car, people will still say your car is clean and shiny. In other words, people will overlook this aspect of us, and they will still love us either way. But, from a personal standpoint, I really don't want to be "that guy" who is holding up traffic or always forgetting to close the door.
If we are always in our own little world, we won't even realize that we are doing these things, and oftentimes, others won't say anything to save us the embarrassment. That means that this is a place we have to inquire about and reflect upon ourselves. Throughout the day, whenever we are around other people, we can just call to mind this intention to be aware of how we are affecting others. Even though the changes might be so slight that others don't even notice, we can have those moments when we find ourselves becoming aware of what we are doing, and those are beautiful moments. In this way, we can invite more mindfulness and awareness into our daily lives in a very discreet, personal way, knowing that we are making a difference, but in a manner that doesn't call extra attention to what we are doing.
May all beings be willing to take an honest look at the ways in which they unintentionally make life harder for others.
May all beings be willing to set the intention to tread carefully, trying their best to not affect others in negative ways.
May all beings see that even the small changes brought about on the personal level make the world a better place.
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