Mindfulness, Compassion and Resilience, or making peace with why I didn't get a pony at age 12

I hadn’t realized how much I missed my yoga teacher training until I had a similar experience at Kripalu this weekend.  Kripalu is a “yoga center” in the Berkshires that used to be a monastery.  It consists of a huge brick building that looks like a college dorm and a modern annex on several hundred acres, including a large lakefront area.  The sleeping areas are Spartan, the food nutritious, organic, and delicious (yes, those three adjectives CAN go together), and the people mostly blissful.  No cell phones were allowed in public spaces, so instead of looking at hand-held screens, people conversed, read, or just gazed out the windows to see the changing leaves on the surrounding mountains.  As my friend Christine said the first time I went to Kripalu, it’s basically a weekend where you hang out in your pajamas (i.e., comfy yoga clothes) and don’t wear makeup.  In other words, paradise.    

Our session was led by Sharon Salzberg, one of the originators of bringing meditation and mindfulness to the United States in the 1970’s, and Stephen Cope, who directs a research institute that examines the benefits of yoga on the human brain.  We were in what must have been the main chapel at one time as it looked and felt like a church sanctuary with a soaring ceiling, altar area, and choir loft.  It was a sacred space, but not a solemn one, thanks to our leaders’ humor and authenticity. 

Here are two important things I learned this weekend:

1.      Mindfulness consists of two levels of awareness:

·         Seeing what is happening; and

·         Seeing my reaction to it. 

In other words, these are two separate and distinct actions.  The thing itself—an event, a person, a conversation—does not cause a specific reaction; my mind does.  Thus, I have the opportunity to respond skillfully; but that is predicated on being aware of what is happening in my mind before actually saying or doing something I might regret.  But, boy, the mind sure likes to create havoc in the meantime!

For example, earlier this week, I received a terse text from a friend. Apparently, I had awakened her by responding to a text she sent a few hours earlier.  In my mind, I was being polite by responding, albeit not immediately, because I had a meeting, then was driving, then had dinner, all of which I prioritize before non-emergency texting.  I read her response to my overture as irritable, and I reacted by getting defensive.  At first, my mind went something like this:  “Why would she keep her phone on when she’s asleep? Who does that?  She’s just asking for trouble.  I was just trying to be a little generous and humorous about a situation in which she was clearly pissed off, and now she’s even more upset about an opportunity I wanted to share with her, and this is how she reacts?  All I was trying to do was be a good friend.” 

That was my first reaction.  My second was to realize that, for her, having her phone on was necessary.  She was out of town.  Her parents are in ill health, and she is one of their caretakers. Of course her phone was on, and of course she was irritated that I woke her up to chat about something innocuous.  Then I felt guilty for my initial reaction, which continued the negative cycle.  “I suck.  I’m a bad friend.  I should have known better.” And so on. 

And this is what the mind (or my mind anyway—perhaps everyone else is enlightened) does.  It creates a story that makes me the victim so I can feel aggrieved and righteous, and thus justify my anger.  When that doesn’t work, it creates another story that makes me the jerk. In both cases, I am still the center of attention.  This self-centeredness is one of the inner “enemies” that Bob Thurman and Sharon Salzberg write about in their new book, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit and Be a Whole Lot Happier.

In her talk on Sunday, Salzberg told us that the Tibetan Buddhists say we pick up anger when we feel powerless because it makes us feel strong.  Anger is not just one emotion—it’s a bundle of fear, grief, and helplessness.  In our American culture especially, we like to feel in control, when in fact, we really have very little power over events or people.  But we do have control—when we choose to use it—over our own emotions. 

2.       Compassion is the source of resilience.   

Specifically, compassion for the self leads to resilience.  This is because compassion recognizes the vulnerability that we all share: it is a moving toward others—emotionally or physically—to see if we can lend support, but it also means that we accept our lack of control over events and people (see above).  Sharon said, “Resilience is the ability to start over.”  She was specifically referring to meditation, when over and over a meditator loses herself in thought, taking away from her focus on the object of concentration, whether it be the breath, a mantra, or something else.  Meditation is bringing oneself back to the object with compassion instead of negative judgment.  In my story above, once I took another perspective on my friend’s response, I could feel compassion toward her.  After my bout of guilt, I was able to feel compassion toward myself, and see that it was a tiny incident that my mind exploded into something larger.  That discernment dissolved my guilt.    

In life outside of meditation, resilience is the ability to accept change with equanimity and compassion even when things don’t happen the way we think they should.  Resilience offers us the energy to make a change, instead of stewing over what we can’t change.  For example, how we were brought up (why didn’t I get a pony?), how our colleagues act (how dare she talk to me that way!), and how people blame us for things that are not our fault (you didn’t get into that class because you didn’t make an advising appointment when I offered it).  Resilience is the opposite of apathy, because it allows us to know that what we see right in front of us is not the whole story; instead it’s the planting of a seed.  We may not know what the seed may grow into, but that’s okay.  It’s about giving up control of outcomes, and also taking responsibility for our actions and reactions.

That’s all fine and good you (I) say.  But what about the real world, when things happen and we instantly have shaming, blaming, angry thoughts?  What was so great about Sharon Salzberg is that she revealed that even though she has been meditating for over 40 years, her mind still offers those same negative stories.  This made her accessible and real, and also opened up the possibility for growing my own compassion and resilience.  Despite flunking compassion in yoga teacher training, it feels like there is hope for me now.