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February 1 - May 18, 2018
The point is to reconnect with the sun of goodness in our hearts and use speech to awaken naturally good qualities in ourselves and others. This approach is based on the path of the warrior, someone who is committed to helping others and who uses everyday life activity to foster awakening.
not all conversations need a point. Our conversations were not about making a deal, bargaining, or hearing a lecture. Nor was this meaningless chatter. It was a time to be present for each other, an opportunity for everyday intimacy. Talking and listening are essential pieces of a good and healthy relationship. By having this simple time to be together drinking tea—exchanging stories and thoughts and making each other laugh—we were celebrating our special connection. That connectivity is really the heart of all conversations and relationships.
some conversations can drag and at times you may find yourself thinking, Hurry up! Get to the point. If you’re just waiting for the dance to be over, it’s not really artful or appreciative. While the other person may be self-centered, the onus falls on you to slow down and remember to be patient.
When you’re not sure of your intention—or don’t have one—irrational thoughts, obstacles, and emotions sabotage your mind and vocal cords, and life is difficult.
word we utter indicates how fearful or brave we feel. Every word has the potential to lead to peace or war. With the bravery to be present in our lives, we use speech as a way to rise above aggression. Here we define aggression as wanting things to be anything but what they are. When we rise above it in conversation, speech is the warrior’s cry of fearlessness.
we breathe twenty-four thousand times a day.
If we can overcome the tendency to fixate on the negative emotion, it is possible to feel kindness again. This is leading life according to windhorse, which runs on virtue. Much of the time we can feel what is virtuous because it feels good. It nourishes us. Think of how you feel when you’re able to smile at a neighbor even though you’ve just received bad news. It uplifts your spirits. Now compare that to how you feel when you lose it and yell at your friend. It causes more pain, and brings you down. Acting out the negativity is a sign that we are pained by our seemingly deficient qualities,
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Kindness is empathetic, accepting, and affectionate. It is not as grasping as love or as distant and judgmental as sympathy or charity. It is the emotional sensitivity on which we thrive. When we tap into kindness, we can relax in our being—
Stress is often linked to emotional pressure that we put on ourselves in order to maintain our self-identity in the world.
Passion and aggression often meld into passive aggression, a push-pull style of manipulation or control. The mind-training slogan for this is “Don’t act with a twist.” We seem to be drawing someone to us, when in truth we’re pushing that person away. For example, saying “I’m sorry” to your neighbor when she tells you the music’s too loud is a way to mend fences, let go, and move on. But “I’m sorry you feel that way” sounds like you’re sorry for something she did and that there’s something wrong with her feelings. So it’s more like an insult than an apology. Conversely, you speak sharply to
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Instead of trying to attract, avoid, or manipulate what is happening, with a settled mind it is possible to genuinely feel kindness and speak clearly from the heart.
Next time you have a conversation, slow down and pay attention to the words that come out of your mouth. Where are they coming from? What is the intention behind them? What you’ll hear is the possibility of something beyond gossiping, complaining, insulting, and disagreeing. There will automatically be lots of gaps in your speech because just by paying attention to it, you’ll slow down and talk less. This is a way to interrupt deeply embedded habitual and reactive patterns, and at the same time build confidence. By strengthening confidence in our own worthiness, we engender confidence in the
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Nowness is related to self-respect. If you’re not present with what you say, you’re likely not going to say what you mean and mean what you say. Because you can’t be authentic, the conversation has no potency. When you don’t respect your own words, others don’t respect them, either. Conversely, when you respect yourself, you naturally respect others. Nowness is the convergence of these two things. It is simply showing up for your life. There is no other time but now. When two people show up for conversation, it becomes inspiring, interesting, and playful because we can just be there. No one
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First, nowness is nonnegotiable. You can’t impose what you’d like to be happening onto what is happening now. Second, nowness requires appreciation, which means being fully present. Third, you have to be daring and delightful at the same time, which means being free of attachment.
Just as in meditation, a good conversation is more about the journey than the goal. But it always starts with openness and kindness, which begins in your own heart.
Reflect on the character of your inner decorum. Do you have discretion in your thought process, or do your thoughts run wild? Are you patient, kind, and loving with yourself? Or are you impatient, judgmental, harsh, constantly taking yourself toward extreme feelings like depression or aggression? How does this inner decorum relate to the decorum you observe in your relationships with others?
In conversation, mindfulness means being present with your vocabulary, pronunciation, pace, and pitch. You can speak only one word at a time. The words should be enunciated properly, neither too fast nor too slowly, neither too loud nor too soft. When you make the effort to treat the words with respect, their potency makes a lasting impression. Through mindfulness you remember which words you have used. It is related to memory. If you overuse words, your stories and analogies lose the desired effect. Mindfulness also means listening to others, appreciating their word choices, and remembering
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The kind ears of others often make amends for deficiencies in the mindfulness of our speech. However, even with a kind listener, if we’re not mindful, the structure of our presentation is always weakened, for mindfulness is the foundation of our words. A speedy culture where there is lack of verbal mindfulness creates an atmosphere of stress for all. Mindfulness of speech reduces stress.
When we are paying attention, our decorum is more likely to be appropriate. Without awareness, we are in the dark, not knowing how we are behaving or how someone else is feeling. Half the time we are expressing our thoughts, and the other half we are trying to correct misunderstandings.
The art of conversation is constant mindfulness of war and peace. When someone says something offensive, we recognize immediately that we’re on the razor’s edge of how to handle ourselves. Will I create war or will I create peace? Often it is not about what the other is saying. It is more that he is trying to destabilize us with his words. Can we be strong, not lose our confidence, not fall into the trap of a word game? Can we see what is happening and conquer our own anger? By doing this, we disarm the aggression arising in others.
When you feel people getting angry at you, empathize with them before you react to the anger. This will take great control on your part, but it will help bring peace and equanimity to a situation. Try to see the cause of their emotion. Are they hurt by something you said? Perhaps they are just having a bad day. Whatever it is, first put yourself in their shoes and then respond to them. Make the connection. Engage in peace.
when we face or express negativities like criticism, rejection, or fear in conversation, our bodies produce higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that shuts down the thinking center of our brains and activates fight-or-flight behaviors. This also happens when we try to convince others about our opinions or when they try to convince us. We become defensive, reactive, and sensitive.
The fact that negative encounters have a greater impact than positive ones, with longer-lasting results, is a strong motivation to increase our awareness of how our conversational behavior affects ourselves and others. What if we were to double up on these positive behaviors? Mindfulness and awareness give us the ability to choose words that are truthful, show concern, and demonstrate that we are open to hearing others’ opinions—all skills that build connection and trust.
In a conversation, sometimes all varieties of thoughts and emotions come into your mind and you are simply overwhelmed. You might even blame your partner for your emotional state. In such a case, the best practice is to close your mouth and look at your thoughts. If you consider who is responsible for the thoughts in your mind, eventually you realize that they are not coming from the other person. You are creating those emotions yourself, and often they are coloring your mind so strongly that you are projecting them onto the other person.
Commit yourself to a ten-minute-daily meditation practice. How does it affect your body, your speech, your mind? At the end of a week, do you notice any differences in your relationships with others?
Obviously, we have varying degrees of relationships and trust. We may be able to be truthful about certain things and need to keep other things hidden. The balance will depend on life’s realities and our relationships. All these elements are felt within the flow of the conversation. The relation between truth, deception, and windhorse is based not on morality as such, but on the dynamic and intention between people. Bringing freshness and flexibility into conversation, we maintain energy through the continuum of our day and life. However, a conversation where you’re carrying the lion’s share
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All languages have a greeting: Hello, Bonjour, Namaste, Ni hao, Hola, Tashi delek. With these words, a line of communication has been opened. Even if we do not have much in common, that initial acknowledgment can be felt as a bond. Its importance lies within our own language as well. Conversely, by not acknowledging others, we are intentionally or unintentionally dismissing their existence. Those who are not acknowledged feel insecure, angry, and possibly vindictive. This can lead to misunderstanding, hurt feelings, discord, and even war.
Reflection Appreciate the beauty and expression of your clothing. Consider dressing to be your everyday art. Experiment with conveying lightness with colors. Tune in to their sensory qualities and match them to your intention and/or to the occasion. Consider how a proper fit feels. What effect does clothing have on your awareness when you talk to someone else?
Listening requires us to be on the spot, engaged and attentive. It also requires us to feel and to care. That’s where mindfulness comes in. When we don’t care and we’re inattentive—and thus we can’t hear—our minds are focused on ourselves. We care more about our thoughts than what the speaker is saying, allowing memories of past experiences to interfere with our present act of listening.
Another form of not listening is being self-absorbed with a tinge of aggression. In this type of antilistening, we simply disregard what the other person is saying and proceed with our own agenda. We barge ahead with what we’re going to say, ignoring the other person’s thoughts, feelings, insights, and emotions. Or perhaps we listen to her first few words and rush to our own conclusion. We may think simply, “Here she goes again.” “Knowing” what someone is about to say and not allowing her to say it is simply rude. You may think you’re saving someone time by pretending to read his mind and move
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A focused mind enhances any experience.
In the tradition of warriorship, to celebrate moment to moment is called discipline. Discipline is not a sense of oppression or being punished; it is freedom from our own self-perpetuating laziness.
At times we feel as if we fail more than we succeed, so appreciation is a welcome respite from life’s vicissitudes. Because people are often unaware of how far their accomplishments have reached, it helps when someone else shines the light on what they’ve done.
Remember, a compliment is a gift; to accept it with grace has the effect of pleasing the giver. If you become flustered when receiving positive feedback, see a compliment as a signal to stop and compose your mind before opening your mouth.
when you receive criticism about your actions, don’t mistake this for criticism about who you are as a person. Imagine that whoever is giving you feedback is talking about somebody else. If what they are saying sounds true, then simply agree and acknowledge it. Don’t waste time and energy creating convoluted ways of deflecting responsibility. At the same time, don’t be a martyr by becoming overly self-deprecating. Hold your dignity. After a critique you might say, “Thank you for that. I see what you mean, and I’ll definitely think about it.”
If you feel the critique was inaccurate or unjust, you might say, “Let me think about that. I’m not sure if it’s completely true.” Or “I can see why you brought that up, but I’m not sure I completely agree.” However, when replying, try not to provoke the situation by countercriticizing:
“How you act when you’re alone affects everything about the rest of your life.” Often when people are unable to take criticism, they act like children—undisciplined. They react without thinking first.
Sometimes we are completely closed off to feedback. We are too insecure to hear it, so we don’t. Instead, we turn back to a dependable habit that appears to be the most immediate and effective way of reestablishing familiar self-identity: I am right. Everyone else is wrong. But that is a way to close down. If instead we can think, I believe I was right, but clearly, by what others have said, I need to reevaluate, this moment of self-reflection will help us continue to open up and grow.
Unless you are a close friend or have been asked to advise, intruding into another’s life is not an act of kindness but a lack of self-restraint.
If we make promises we’re unable to fulfill, although initially we come across as helpful, eventually we appear to be unreliable. If you feel pressured by a request, learn to say no. If saying no is hard, practice it. If you remember that good conversation is grounded in sensitivity and respect toward others—including yourself—you are less likely to make mistakes.
Often what derails a conversation is when a moment of aggression arises and we are unable to handle it. That aggression can arise as anger or lack of patience. Or it can be camouflaged as pride or stinginess. When aggression assumes the mantle, our tongues become the weapon and our words become the soldiers. Naturally, when we start attacking our opponents, unless they are skilled at deflecting aggression, our words plant land mines of aggression in them and an argument inevitably ensues.
Saying yes can be a powerful tool in dealing with difficult people. We’re not necessarily agreeing with them, but by acknowledging and respecting what they say, we are not separating from them. It helps us make do with whatever the conversation presents. And the formulation “Yes, and” will carry a conversation further than “Yes, but,” which throws up a roadblock.
When feeling irritated in a conversation, instead of reacting, you can ask your partner, “How do others see that?” or “How do others feel about that?” to give yourself time to lessen your reactivity. It is rude to try to force your opinion on someone.
staying with a sense of respect for the other while not abandoning our own principles can bring such conversations to unexpected insights. An almost infectious openness arises around people who have the ability to be themselves and still respect those who are not like them. Cultivate equanimity and warmth.
assume for the moment that the person is making a sensible statement about the world, and then ask yourself, What would have to be true about the world for someone to say something like this? Try to imagine it from the other’s point of view.
If you think you’re always right, you might develop a verbal habit of needing to win every argument. This shows your own insecurity and fixity. If you can connect to your heart and breathe, you may become more flexible, and then you won’t be as destabilized by disagreements because you won’t perceive them as an attack on your character.
Think of a conversation where you insisted on your point of view and, in the middle of a heated disagreement, discovered that you’d misinterpreted what someone said and were completely wrong. At that moment, where did all those extreme emotions go?
when negotiations and jargon fall away, communication happens at a more human level. Ultimately, we are trying to see if the other individual is honest and therefore genuine. In this way, conversation is a truth serum that reveals a tremendous amount of information. If we lie or exaggerate or obscure the truth through jargon, it shows up in our posture and our confidence. Therefore, even in a professional setting, being honest and authentic builds trust that allows for a genuine connection.
Because a great deal of happiness is based on our relationships, it’s best to use jargon only occasionally, slang sparingly, and insults never.
One mind-training slogan says it simply: “Don’t ponder others.”
