Sometimes I have experiences that teach me something about humanity, and myself, in the strangest places.
Dateline: The Rum Jungle Buffet, in the Casino Fandango, Carson City, NV. Saturday, the middle of November. After a long day on the ski slopes teaching little kids, I'm itching - for some reason - for the typical Las Vegas casino buffet experience, and Carson City is the closest place. Carson City is the intersection of suburbia and the gambling economy. Nestled on the border of Nevada and California east of Lake Tahoe, it is both somewhere and nowhere at the same time, and this is also an apt description of the Casino Fandango. I drive through a strip mall into a deceptively large garage, park, and walk through the cold dry Nevada air into what could be a conference center except for the overly large neon sign advertising a cover band for a band I'd never heard of. Fandango is busy inside; wheels are spinning, lights are flashing. There's less smoke than you would expect and it's actually quieter than you would think, especially in the back towards the restaurant.
The Rum Jungle is tacky, overdone and garish, but for all of that it has a homey feel. I'm there late, about 8:30 PM, and the place is not very busy. A Hispanic man vacuums the floor. He has to keep moving the cord to find a new plug. Fake fans rotate - purely for show - above the extremely well lit containers of food. The food, incidentally, is surprisingly good. I chat with the chef about one dish, a shrimp dish he appears to have invented with cheese and bell peppers. He seems proud, and eager to discuss it.
I sit in a booth next to a family - 3 of them, an older woman, a younger woman and a younger man. I quickly assign them roles - she's the mother, then a daughter and the daughter's boyfriend or husband. I could be wrong, of course. All 3 are overweight. The mother is particularly obese. They are cheery; they're having a good time, and I quickly understand why these sorts of casinos are so ubiquitous. This family - this very normal American lower middle class family - is having a great time, at a cost they can afford.
At one point the mother comes back from the buffet with a full plate, beaming broadly at the other two. I can overhear their whole conversation. "Look," she says, "they have six kinds of falafel! Can you believe that?" The others nod and smile. The mood brightens even more.
This woman - this 50-something woman - is excited because the buffet has six kinds of falafel. This is a person who - I am quite certain - would not go into a falafel restaurant, were there one in Carson City. I would not be shocked if she wasn't entirely clear on what falafel was; this is not a commentary on her intelligence, more to bring up the question: Why is she so excited? What's so positive about the falafel that it should make her so happy?
It's clearly not the falafel. It's not even about food; she has plenty. She is not excited about eastern cuisine. I think the first clue is how excited she is to get back to the table and show the others. The falafel is exciting because she gets to share it with her family. She's actually in a hurry to show them. And they play their parts perfectly; they're excited because she is. This woman would not have been nearly as excited if she was on her own; in fact she most likely wouldn't have come to the buffet at all. And I realize something: she is excited *because she feels important*. The falafel isn't there to be eaten; it's there as a symbol; an indication that, in return for her $22.95, this particular casino at this particular time cares that she is there; in fact, cares so much that they are willing to create six kinds of this exotic dish *just to impress her*. She is impressed *because someone tried to impress her*, and for no other reason. What this woman wanted, and wants, is what we all want: not things, not food nor money, but acknowledgment that we are important, that we matter, that someone cares that we're here and that our opinion is important. She had gathered her family together - and paid - for precisely that feeling.
This, of course, is not big news. We all know this. And yet, we often strive for the falafel of life, confused about what it is we really want and why we want it. What we want is love, and empathy, and affection. Falafel is, at best, the means to an end, but it is that end that I want to strive for. And so, sitting alone in that buffet, I realized that this woman had me beat. She had family.
I only had the falafel.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Story Time - Empathy
I wanted to share an anecdote with all of you (whoever might be reading this) because I thought it was interesting and illuminating, and I hope it might resonate with some of you.
Recently, I've been reading a fantastic series of books by Bruce Perry, a PhD/MD child psychologist who specializes in working with children who have been through traumatic experiences. For example he worked with the kids who escaped the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, TX. His first book is called "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog", and as the name suggests there is a story about a child who was raised - actually with some affection, if you can believe that - by a misguided and lonely old man who was a dog kennel breeder and had no support structure. The child was brought up with plenty of food and medical care, and even loved in a certain way, but didn't get the sort of daily socializing that generally toddlers get. As Dr. Perry shows in the book, this lack of basic human connection; being held, being smiled at, having our toes counted - results in some drastic impairments, the most obvious of which is a lack of empathy.
Essentially, we now have the hard science to show that empathy begets empathy, and that a lack of empathy - particularly as a child - breeds a lack of empathy. For those who work in the softer disciplines, like social work or meditation, this is hardly surprising. But for many of us with more scientific backgrounds, it's pretty breathtaking to see the connection so vividly.
Which brings me to my story. Last week, I went to a therapy session which was being held out in Oakland, at a healing center. I won't mention what the therapy was, or where the healing center was, because I don't want to discredit them. I'd agreed to travel out to that center because it was easier for my therapist. She was bringing along another therapist friend to help with the session. I was paying a good deal for this hour therapy session. Unfortunately, her friend didn't text her to tell her where to pick her up until it was too late. That made my therapist late to our appointment (by 20 minutes). I didn't know this, so I showed up on time. I rang the doorbell and the woman who answered seemed wary. I mentioned the name of my therapist and she said "Oh, she's not here yet. Can you wait outside?" and pointed at a bench. Her body language made clear that I was not welcome inside. I should mention that it was quite cold, and there was a combination lock on the door.
Now, let's just stop the story there and think about this. I was getting *therapy*, at a *center for healing*. In fact, a temple of sorts. And yet, I was being asked to wait outside in the cold!
The point of this story is not that the woman who answered the door is mean, or was wrong. Nor that my therapist is a bad person. They live in an environment where their actions made sense. Undoubtedly the woman at the center had been told not to let customers wait inside without a host. She did not know my therapist personally, and in fact may even have been a competitor of sorts. They may even have had problems with crime, or people taking advantage of them. And my therapist was late because she, and her friend, are extremely busy people, travelling across town.
Imagine, for a moment, that this situation had taken place as little as 50 years ago. I wasn't born then, of course, but from my elders and books I get the sense that this wouldn't have happened. Likely, my therapist would not have been late, because she would have already been at her office (instead, my therapist, like many others, rents space at various places to make ends meet). Her friend would have arrived well in advance of the appointment (likely in her own car). The temple would most likely not have even been locked. If I had arrived early, the secretary (what a luxury!) would most likely have offered me coffee, and a comfortable chair to sit in while I waited. She might have even apologized for the inconvenience, even if it wasn't her fault.
The point is this: we live in an environment which has a serious empathy deficit. We are simply too busy, too self-focussed, and conditioned to respond to people without empathy, even in situations where empathy might be called for, such as a meditation center or a temple. We are trained to provide suspicion. We are rewarded for being so busy that we don't have time to help a friend or even say a kind word. People who are genuinely gentle and empathetic make us feel awkward, or even nervous. This is a self-perpetuating problem: being treated that way reinforces the cycle. Altruism is tenuous: once we no longer believe that others will selflessly help us, it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy.
I'm not saying I know the answer, but I think it's important to engage the problem. What do you think?
Recently, I've been reading a fantastic series of books by Bruce Perry, a PhD/MD child psychologist who specializes in working with children who have been through traumatic experiences. For example he worked with the kids who escaped the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, TX. His first book is called "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog", and as the name suggests there is a story about a child who was raised - actually with some affection, if you can believe that - by a misguided and lonely old man who was a dog kennel breeder and had no support structure. The child was brought up with plenty of food and medical care, and even loved in a certain way, but didn't get the sort of daily socializing that generally toddlers get. As Dr. Perry shows in the book, this lack of basic human connection; being held, being smiled at, having our toes counted - results in some drastic impairments, the most obvious of which is a lack of empathy.
Essentially, we now have the hard science to show that empathy begets empathy, and that a lack of empathy - particularly as a child - breeds a lack of empathy. For those who work in the softer disciplines, like social work or meditation, this is hardly surprising. But for many of us with more scientific backgrounds, it's pretty breathtaking to see the connection so vividly.
Which brings me to my story. Last week, I went to a therapy session which was being held out in Oakland, at a healing center. I won't mention what the therapy was, or where the healing center was, because I don't want to discredit them. I'd agreed to travel out to that center because it was easier for my therapist. She was bringing along another therapist friend to help with the session. I was paying a good deal for this hour therapy session. Unfortunately, her friend didn't text her to tell her where to pick her up until it was too late. That made my therapist late to our appointment (by 20 minutes). I didn't know this, so I showed up on time. I rang the doorbell and the woman who answered seemed wary. I mentioned the name of my therapist and she said "Oh, she's not here yet. Can you wait outside?" and pointed at a bench. Her body language made clear that I was not welcome inside. I should mention that it was quite cold, and there was a combination lock on the door.
Now, let's just stop the story there and think about this. I was getting *therapy*, at a *center for healing*. In fact, a temple of sorts. And yet, I was being asked to wait outside in the cold!
The point of this story is not that the woman who answered the door is mean, or was wrong. Nor that my therapist is a bad person. They live in an environment where their actions made sense. Undoubtedly the woman at the center had been told not to let customers wait inside without a host. She did not know my therapist personally, and in fact may even have been a competitor of sorts. They may even have had problems with crime, or people taking advantage of them. And my therapist was late because she, and her friend, are extremely busy people, travelling across town.
Imagine, for a moment, that this situation had taken place as little as 50 years ago. I wasn't born then, of course, but from my elders and books I get the sense that this wouldn't have happened. Likely, my therapist would not have been late, because she would have already been at her office (instead, my therapist, like many others, rents space at various places to make ends meet). Her friend would have arrived well in advance of the appointment (likely in her own car). The temple would most likely not have even been locked. If I had arrived early, the secretary (what a luxury!) would most likely have offered me coffee, and a comfortable chair to sit in while I waited. She might have even apologized for the inconvenience, even if it wasn't her fault.
The point is this: we live in an environment which has a serious empathy deficit. We are simply too busy, too self-focussed, and conditioned to respond to people without empathy, even in situations where empathy might be called for, such as a meditation center or a temple. We are trained to provide suspicion. We are rewarded for being so busy that we don't have time to help a friend or even say a kind word. People who are genuinely gentle and empathetic make us feel awkward, or even nervous. This is a self-perpetuating problem: being treated that way reinforces the cycle. Altruism is tenuous: once we no longer believe that others will selflessly help us, it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy.
I'm not saying I know the answer, but I think it's important to engage the problem. What do you think?
Dharma Leadership - Right Mindfulness
Dharma leadership - right mindfulness
Last week I taught a class on Right Mindfulness, or "Sati", to my youth class. Right Mindfulness is the seventh of the eightfold path to enlightenment. One translation of the concept into English is "bare attention", although that only captures one facet of mindfulness. In essence, the goal of one seeking mindfulness is to avoid letting the mind embellish the senses, in an effort to get at the "real" world of physical sensation. I will quote from The Noble Eightfold Path by Bhikku Bodhi: "All judgements and interpretations, if they occur, should be just registered and dropped."
One analogy that works well for me in understanding this concept is that of a "diagnostic" mode, like as for cars or computers. Understanding the raw sensations of the world is key to understanding our emotions, embellishments and ultimately our suffering, in the same way that knowledge of mechanical phenomena helps us fix our car, or knowing how to diagnose a computer virus can cure our desktop. Some of us, for example, may know nothing about cars; they are merely boxes which get us from Point a to b. And this works well, until something goes wrong. If we know nothing about cars, then we are at the mercy of a skilled mechanic (or worse). If he tells us that the problem with our turn signals is in the catalytic converter, we have no choice but to nod our heads and go along. But if we understand cars, then we have a chance of not only fixing the problem ourselves, but in understanding the advice of others. Similarly, if we know nothing about mindfulness, then when our mind tells us that we are upset or angry, we have no choice but to take its word for it. Of course in daily life we may not wish to constantly examine our emotions and thoughts any more than we wish to examine the inside of our car, but when it becomes critical, we must have already laid the foundation for mindfulness; "exercised" our mindfulness "muscle". Just as the wrong time to learn to change a tire is by the highway, so too the wrong time to understand our minds is when we are upset, or overly exuberant.
When we are mindful, we choose to see the world as it truly is. We experience sense phenomenon without embellishment. This is very hard. The mind wishes dearly to jump to interpretations and conclusions. I will quote again: "the mind perceives its object free from conceptualization only briefly. Immediately after grasping, it launches on a course of ideation...[it] posits concepts, joins the concepts into constructs...in the end the original direct experience has been overrun.".
It does not ring true to me that these concepts and constructs are not real, as some would say. Instead, I find that they are real, but they obey different laws than direct experience, and they cannot be confused with direct experience. To lump our thoughts together with our experience is profoundly misleading. It leads us to act as if they were solid and physical, when they are not. They are a guide, like the filing system at the library. They make sense, but we must be able to discard them. Becoming obsessed with them is like being obsessed with the call numbers on a book and never cracking the cover. I now quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama:
For all anxiety and fear,
And pain in boundless quantity,
Their source and wellspring is the mind itself,
As He who spoke the truth declared.
He continues: "one may, of course, have some vague wish to attain enlightenment, or feel it is something one ought to attain. But without having the certainty that enlightenment exists and is accessible, one will never accomplish it. It is therefore very important to know what enlightenment means...all phenomena are by nature empty, devoid of true existence...but what is our perception? What we experience is just the opposite...we see everything as existent and real...we have been ignorantly clinging to our mistaken way of seeing things. Moreover, this ignorance has been the root of desire and hatred. Ignorance, the belief that things are real, is extremely powerful. But we should remember that it is nothing more than a mistake...it's opposite is based on a consistent truth that stands up to all argument."
And so, I encourage you to add mindfulness to your bag of tricks, just like carrying a spare tire in your car. You may not need it right now, but when you do you'll be very glad you have it!!
Last week I taught a class on Right Mindfulness, or "Sati", to my youth class. Right Mindfulness is the seventh of the eightfold path to enlightenment. One translation of the concept into English is "bare attention", although that only captures one facet of mindfulness. In essence, the goal of one seeking mindfulness is to avoid letting the mind embellish the senses, in an effort to get at the "real" world of physical sensation. I will quote from The Noble Eightfold Path by Bhikku Bodhi: "All judgements and interpretations, if they occur, should be just registered and dropped."
One analogy that works well for me in understanding this concept is that of a "diagnostic" mode, like as for cars or computers. Understanding the raw sensations of the world is key to understanding our emotions, embellishments and ultimately our suffering, in the same way that knowledge of mechanical phenomena helps us fix our car, or knowing how to diagnose a computer virus can cure our desktop. Some of us, for example, may know nothing about cars; they are merely boxes which get us from Point a to b. And this works well, until something goes wrong. If we know nothing about cars, then we are at the mercy of a skilled mechanic (or worse). If he tells us that the problem with our turn signals is in the catalytic converter, we have no choice but to nod our heads and go along. But if we understand cars, then we have a chance of not only fixing the problem ourselves, but in understanding the advice of others. Similarly, if we know nothing about mindfulness, then when our mind tells us that we are upset or angry, we have no choice but to take its word for it. Of course in daily life we may not wish to constantly examine our emotions and thoughts any more than we wish to examine the inside of our car, but when it becomes critical, we must have already laid the foundation for mindfulness; "exercised" our mindfulness "muscle". Just as the wrong time to learn to change a tire is by the highway, so too the wrong time to understand our minds is when we are upset, or overly exuberant.
When we are mindful, we choose to see the world as it truly is. We experience sense phenomenon without embellishment. This is very hard. The mind wishes dearly to jump to interpretations and conclusions. I will quote again: "the mind perceives its object free from conceptualization only briefly. Immediately after grasping, it launches on a course of ideation...[it] posits concepts, joins the concepts into constructs...in the end the original direct experience has been overrun.".
It does not ring true to me that these concepts and constructs are not real, as some would say. Instead, I find that they are real, but they obey different laws than direct experience, and they cannot be confused with direct experience. To lump our thoughts together with our experience is profoundly misleading. It leads us to act as if they were solid and physical, when they are not. They are a guide, like the filing system at the library. They make sense, but we must be able to discard them. Becoming obsessed with them is like being obsessed with the call numbers on a book and never cracking the cover. I now quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama:
For all anxiety and fear,
And pain in boundless quantity,
Their source and wellspring is the mind itself,
As He who spoke the truth declared.
He continues: "one may, of course, have some vague wish to attain enlightenment, or feel it is something one ought to attain. But without having the certainty that enlightenment exists and is accessible, one will never accomplish it. It is therefore very important to know what enlightenment means...all phenomena are by nature empty, devoid of true existence...but what is our perception? What we experience is just the opposite...we see everything as existent and real...we have been ignorantly clinging to our mistaken way of seeing things. Moreover, this ignorance has been the root of desire and hatred. Ignorance, the belief that things are real, is extremely powerful. But we should remember that it is nothing more than a mistake...it's opposite is based on a consistent truth that stands up to all argument."
And so, I encourage you to add mindfulness to your bag of tricks, just like carrying a spare tire in your car. You may not need it right now, but when you do you'll be very glad you have it!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)