Habits and Hindrance |
Our sangha has four members sewing rakusu preparing for lay ordination next spring. In the ceremony they will vow to uphold the precepts. Starting last February, we and other community members began studying the precepts together by reading and discussing the book, Waking Up to What You Do by Diane Eshin Rizzetto. I think we all found her book to be a refreshing examination of all the nuances that practicing the precepts contain. One of the things she emphasizes throughout the book is to meet every situation with intelligence and compassion. To do this by recognizing we usually have automatic reactions to situations. She recommends that we try to notice and explore our underlying feelings in each situation that might cause a reaction out of habit instead of finding a new compassionate way to respond. What helps this process of awareness, I think, is that she presents the precepts not as a list of do not and should not, but as a list of aspirations, so that instead of tending to judge yourself every time you break a precept, you can meet each moment and situation with fresh clarity and compassion for yourself and others. Looking deeply at the precepts, we discovered that each one is like a multifaceted gem. If you just think of them as a list of “do not’s” it can limit your response. You might not know what to do. You might even do more harm than good. This is why Diane and her teacher Joko Beck began to teach precepts as aspirations to protect life, and be present. Then in the moment act in accord with supporting life. As she says,” this approach more accurately expresses the spirit of the precepts as pointers, directing us toward our natural propensity to take action out of love and concern for one another. Secondly, when voiced in the prohibitive form, it seems more likely that we will rely on them as an outer authority that judges and keeps score.” It seemed to those of us in class that the simplest precept has many layers and complexities. You really can’t rely on just “don’t do it.” If you do, the precepts are impossible not to break. When we take up just ‘do not kill or do not speak falsely’, that is not always the best action to take. We must be aware of the situation we are in at this moment, if we truly want to practice ‘do no harm but support life.’ The best thing to do or say is not necessarily simple or the same in one time as another. Getting through an hour or day without breaking one precept is challenging, maybe it’s impossible. It helps if you take a breath and a pause before speaking or acting. Then you have a better chance to respond considering this moment, and refrain from reacting in your habitual way. In reality you cannot live without breaking the precepts from a prohibitive form. Do not kill. We cannot feed ourselves without taking life. Sometimes you can’t tell the truth to protect life. The precepts are not a dead list of don’ts. Diane says, “They invite us to willingly grapple with the slipperiness of what’s the best action to take given the circumstances of any given situation. They direct and support us toward considering what conditions are present here and now.” She words the Precepts as aspirations in her book as:
Diane says, “The precepts in an aspirational form can help prevent us from using them as a yardstick to measure our worth. Because we may never measure up.” In addition, if you can pause before reacting in your habitual way, it can reveal all your underlying assumptions, opinions, and preferences that initiate or trigger your habitual response. Diane suggests working with one precept at a time to develop your awareness, and help you notice your habitual tendencies. Focus on one for a week or more. There are 3 precepts involving speech. They are a good starting place. To take up the way of speaking truthfully, if we pay close attention, we can see all the little ways we adjust the full truth. The truth can hurt. We might be uncomfortable that a truth will unnecessarily hurt someone’s feelings. Sometimes we omit the whole truth. Often, we shade the truth. There is a gray area of falsehoods where we speak partial truths. We also might by keeping silent when we witness harm, or be deceptive by omission. There are a lot of subtle ways not to speak truthfully. It’s so important to remember to be present enough to pause before speaking, before you gossip, say something unkind, or let your anger form your response. Sometimes the truth is admitting, “I don’t know what to say.” Diane says, “Begin practicing this precept by observing the ways in which you do not speak truthfully…finding yourself distorting the truth. You might be protecting yourself from an awkward or uncomfortable situation, but in some situations, you might be saving a life, as if you are hiding a person, to protect them from persecution. Every situation calls for awareness and clarity so you can offer the best response.” Another example is the precept, do not kill. The aspirational wording is. ‘I take up the way of supporting life.’ It took our class a long time to process all the aspects in this chapter. Diane says, “This precept takes us into the heart of working to meet the difficult questions and decisions of supporting and taking life that face us daily.” We noticed various examples of this such as, should I be a vegetarian or a vegan? How long do we prolong life with ventilators and life support? When is it time to continue to watch your pet suffer in old age, or offer your beloved pet the end of life? How does someone decide to end life in utero or keep an unborn child they fear they can’t support? There is no one right answer, it’s necessary to sit with and look deeply for the answer in the present. Someday it’s yes, someday it’s no, or not now. We also looked at war, it’s based on killing the other. Maybe war should never be an option. Diane heard it said, “Don’t be against war, be for peace.” But does that mean “that we just stand by when an aggressor threatens to annihilate a people and take their land?” How many little ways do we harm our family and friends by lashing out in anger? We have to wake up over and over. How do we support and embrace all life? We have to pay attention to our habitual responses and be present before acting and speaking. Diane says, “We do the best we can to be open to and to preserve life whenever possible, and to be clear and present in those times we cannot. If we engage in trying to understand our actions, then something begins to change…..There is no rule or formula that can tell you what to do…But one thing we can rely on is learning/remembering to be present in each situation, without getting caught in self-centered thinking, then our chances of taking action that best serves the situation will be far greater.” She continues, “This is where working with the precepts as an awareness practice can be of help. Sometimes the way will be clear and sometimes not. If it’s not, you just make the best choice you can and practice with the results.” What drives most of our responses is our habitual reactions. We respond without thinking. How good are you at being a habit catcher? Do you catch yourself at the beginning, middle of it, or in reflecting at the end of the day? A few months ago, I had covid for the second time. I was tired and not feeling great and took a rest in my room. After a while, one of my grandsons came into our house. He stomped about making an enormous amount of noise that was hard to identify, but his clatter went on for 30 minutes. As I lay there wanting to rest, I became very aware that my annoyance was increasing at this disruption, feeling and watching my irritation rise. Had I not already lost my temper just an hour earlier, over the important matter of when my husband should add the noodles to the soup, my irritation likely would have boiled over. But this time I was able to stay present, feel it, and breathe without acting. I remembered that soon it would be time for him to go to bed. This noise wasn’t permanent. So I lay still and let my breath comfort me. It didn’t help me enjoy the disturbance, but losing my temper again would have felt worse. I wasn’t feeding my anger with thoughts and so it didn’t grow. I think anger’s favorite food is our thoughts, our self-centered thinking about how we are suffering. On being present, Okumura Roshi said, “We don’t usually see reality itself, but only our preconceptions: things we like or dislike, something desirable or undesirable. Running after things we desire, trying to avoid those we detest. Our life becomes a matter of escaping from or chasing after something. There’s no time to rest, to just calm down and be right here. Letting go of thought in zazen is very precious.” We probably recognize that our habitual responses are well ingrained, and learned early in life. Our mind automatically reacts. Every day, especially at my age, most situations that arise are and feel familiar. The unpleasant ones especially can still trigger my emotions. Working with the precepts involving speech, in the morning, I can tell myself not to get mad today at what anyone says or does, and then be shocked a minute or an hour when something said or happens does trigger my anger. This is where the important value of the ‘pause’ comes in. Pausing before you respond isn’t to disguise or hide your feelings, but to feel what is coming up. Is your heart rate increasing, your palms getting sweaty, or your stomach tightening? Learning to notice your feelings, so you can respond takes the moment to pause, then recognize the emotion coming up, and then take another moment to consider your response. Diane says, “At that time or later it helps to try to trace those feelings back to their origin. Name them and importantly see what assumptions you were making. Are they true? Did you feel a need to defend your ‘self’?” Adding to the challenge, is that our opinions and assumptions will cloud our view. And on the other hand, we have our truth to speak. Diane says, “On reflection, some of us may find we meet whatever life brings our way with the same old reactions. Much of our life is spent in habitual swings…No matter how unhappy it makes us, no matter how much we know it affects others, it may seem to us the only way to go…Yet if we really want to experience the happiness and well-being that comes when we break loose of our habitual reactions of self-defense, then we need to take a much clearer look at our reactive thinking.” When practicing with the precepts as a guide, it helps to breathe before we react or respond. Diane says, “We may have no idea where our reaction stems from, but we continually react in the same way whenever our buttons get pushed. It is the ‘re’ part of our reaction into which we need to inquire. By observing ourselves through any of the precepts, we are quickly confronted with our reactionary patterns, and how they occur again and again.” To respond to each situation, takes practicing taking a breath, noticing any emotion bubbling forth right now. Diane says, “Being open is often very difficult unless we cultivate the ability to rest in what is.” (Or as Suzuki Roshi used to say, “Things as it is.” ) Try not to push the situation away as you feel your aversion to the moment. There is a lot to be learned from your reaction, “even in just 2 or 3 seconds if we are willing.” Taking a deep breath before speaking can almost always help you keep the precepts around speech, speaking truthfully, not speaking about the faults of others, and not putting others down. We can develop new habits, like not taking everything personally, or letting things define who we are. Take up a new habit, take up responding not reacting. Habituation means whatever you do, you strengthen the habit, and you will get really good at it. It’s an important point because our habits become who we think we are. Diane says, “For quite some time, you may find that you become aware of your reactions only after they’ve arisen and fallen away. This is quite normal, since our reactions are deeply ingrained patterns by which the brain and body process data. But there is a great deal of power in awareness. Trust it. The point is that at any moment you can note that you are about to engage or have engaged a precept. That is your point of entry into the practice. Over time, as awareness grows sharper, it will pick up on what’s going on deep inside, long before harsh words hit the tongue…. this is a journey of heart and mind.” I found an interesting perspective in the book Taming Your Gremlins, by author Richard Carson. He says, “Habits are cemented in place by fear. Fear is your gremlin’s primary tool. At the time, he talked you into forming a particular behavior into a habit, that behavior may have made very good sense. If, as a child, when you expressed anger, and your parents punished you, it would have made sense for you to develop a “happy face façade.” People who truly enjoy themselves don’t feel the need to smile all the time. Behavior that you incorporated as a child may still be appropriate in certain situations … But to the extent that that behavior is a habit, it will interfere with your excitement, your spontaneity, and your potential for creative living. As you directly experience how you are now and who you are now, the habits your gremlin has talked you into accepting fade, then there will occur an automatic adjustment upward in your enjoyment level. Simply stated it reads: I change not by trying to be something other than I am. I change by being fully aware of how I am. When you initiate the business of actualizing yourself instead of your act, you begin to feel better automatically.” Pema Chodron talks about learning to stay present so we can get unstuck from our habits. She says, “It is the simplest and most difficult thing to do. The urge to react, or to get away, or to reach for comfort. The ‘urge’ is the problem because it propels us to repeat our habits. Our body tightens with the urge.” She says that “the difficulty of staying present is the feeling of impermanence. It feels like uncertainty and groundlessness.” “Being human we like certainty, and we like being right. It can be hard to relax into ‘nothing to hold onto.’ We human beings scramble for something to hold onto. But the nature of existence is in flux. Can we learn to relax in the flow? Pema recommends ‘learning to stay.’ She says, “our habit of moving away from the present moment might be in our DNA, but whatever arises, try to meet it with an open mind, see it clearly, and allow the freshness of the present to respond.” Pema Chodron says, “Transforming your life is a long, slow journey. Learning to stay present in each situation is an essential ingredient. When something triggers you, and you feel annoyed or upset, try to create a little space for a new response. You have to catch the ‘urge’ to react and tell it, ‘to wait a minute.’” Pema strongly encourages us to bring warmth and kindness to this process of examining habits. She says, “Don’t use seeing your habits as another way to criticize yourself. When you notice a habit, you are present. When you are present, you are connected with your basic wisdom. We all have this wisdom and awareness. To resist our strong urges to react, please equate the process with helping yourself and those around you. Be kind to the whole situation. Take delight, you are waking up.” We all know, and have experienced, how hard it is to stay conscious. Pema offers a process for working with our habits called the 4 ‘R’s, Recognize, Refrain, Relax and Resolve. She says, “Recognize, this is always the first step. It is hard to interrupt the momentum of the urge to react. But if you are not present, you will be caught and triggered.” Too often, I recognize I’m triggered after I’ve reacted in a habitual way. When this happens to you, Pema says, “to take notice, review, make it conscious so the next time you can recognize it sooner.” I’ve come to realize that most of the times when I’m hurried, feel pressured, or distracted, my speech more often comes out angry or defensive. When I’m focused and present, and can pause, I can offer either an appropriate response or no response at all, then the whole situation diffuses. Pema says, “Your body usually signals you when you get triggered, it tightens. Feel it and use it like a red light. Then try to open and let go of that tightness.” Refrain: Pema says, “To refrain, try to interrupt the momentum of your thoughts arising. Sometimes they flood in with feelings, opinions and assumptions. Notice the urge to react habitually.” I find that I have to try to bring as much patience and presence as I can muster to some situations. When I’m aware, I can feel the feeling of a reaction come up. That’s the place or the moment when you have a choice to respond in accord with the precepts. Blanche Hartman once said, “When I began to recognize I was getting on the same train, going to the same station and I didn’t want to be there, I found the space to decide not to get on the train.” Relax; Pema says, “Try to relax, be present and open. Feel the underlying feelings coming up. Offer yourself loving kindness and warmth. Appreciate this moment of waking up. As this becomes your new habit, you will more often rely on your wisdom and basic goodness.” Having just been on a vacation I can attest to this truth. Recently I went to Okracoke Island with my family. All my kids and grandkids, my brother, his wife, about 16 of us all in one house, one kitchen. Every day we were trying to figure things out as a group, like where to go, what to eat, what to do and watching conflicts with the kids come and go. It’s family living. But the whole weekend I felt calm and felt a little space watching our drama. I was relaxed and felt really happy to be there with everyone, and that may have contributed to a settled mind that could watch and not feel the need to react. But I was aware of how different I felt being there, present, calm and watching the various storms blow through. Often at home I’m in the thick of the storm, of the daily pressures I feel when I’m working/running my sewing business, practice, coordinating caring for the grandkids, trying to find time for it all. The difference at Ocracoke was I was relaxed. The last is Resolve: Pema says, “Repeat endlessly!” We have already spent a lifetime acting out of habit. It takes a lot of willingness to stay present. Just like in zazen, you never finish. It is transformational work, and it is gradual. “If you like, try these exercises and see if they help. Our habits strengthen by repetition, so try these new habits.” This may be where the wisdom of sitting zazen first thing in the morning originated. It’s a very good time to, “Wake up to what you do” then take a long pause and let go. We just have to remember to bring it along with us during the rest of the day. Okumura Roshi says, “No matter what mistakes we make, we can start over because of impermanence. We can change the direction of our life. We transform our life, our thinking and our views. Sitting in zazen and letting go of everything is the key to shifting the basis of our life.” You might like to try to use Diane Rizzetto’s aspirational approach, practicing with the precepts, to develop your awareness. She says, “Used skillfully as a tool they wake us up from the self-centered dream. Don’t expect miracles. For quite some time, you may find that you become aware of your reactions only after they’ve arisen and fallen away. But there is a great power in awareness. Trust it.” She continues, “The point is that at any moment you can note that you are about to engage or have engaged a precept. That is your point of entry into the practice. This is a journey of the heart and mind……After some practice, you’ll begin to notice moments when you’re already observing your experience before you take action….This first step is important because the very act of stepping aside, even if it is only slightly, to observe our actions is a giant step toward putting those reactions into perspective…..finding a response instead of a reaction. A response that really engages a precept is the one that best meets the situation at that time. This is meeting life as it is.” She goes on, “Engaging in the precepts in our lives in the most ordinary way, can call us out of our hiding, but in truth, there is no hiding place. We cannot escape what we are…..The precepts can be the voice that jolts us awake…. The precepts can accompany us to places where we don’t want to go, but indeed are going. They bring us into the heart of wisdom and compassion; taking action out of this understanding is as simple and natural as drinking a glass of water.” Suzuki Roshi said, “All the teachings come from practicing zazen, where Buddha’s mind is transmitted to us. To sit, is to open up our transmitted mind. All the treasures we experience come from this mind…. We practice like a cow rather than a horse. Instead of galloping about, we walk slowly like a cow or an elephant. You cannot waste your time, even though your zazen is not so good. Good or bad does not matter. If you sit with this understanding, having conviction in your Buddha nature, then sooner or later, you will find yourself in the midst of the great Zen Masters.” Copyright © 2024 Jakuko Mo Ferrell |