Always Something to Learn

  The title of my entry refers to an idea or a reflection I have had over how one encounters adversity in others, and what orientation to use. I have always been quite interested in this topic, because I have wondered what principle one can use to approach it. It sort of reminds me of how I once talked to a naturopathic doctor about whether it's advantageous to wear some kind of night guard or brace to deal with sore or tight forehead and jaw muscles, to which he replied that the body is meant to move and not stay in once place. In other words, my even asking what's 'the correct approach' is perhaps demanding the very impossible: trying to find one technique that is going to be a cure-all for every situation one encounters is bound to get a person into a logical quandary.
     There are three ways of looking at it from my understanding. One is that there is no real opposition between people, since self and other exist or arise in the same mind. The other approach is to accept others but also to accept oneself and feelings at the same time. This approach is much trickier, because it involves allowing oneself to have the feelings that they have while simultaneously accepting the feelings of others. If I am respecting all emotional states equally, then this is possible. The third approach is more like a yielding orientation, seeing that there is always something that we can learn in yielding to others to harmonize with them. At the very least, learning to harmonize oneself with the movements of others is a way of learning gracefulness. Rather than jumping to the queue, I wait to see if anyone was ahead of me whom I had missed. Or, if there is only one box or Oreos left and five Dad's raisin cookie boxes, I might just let the other person have the last Oreos box and take the less popular raisin ones. Why? It's because in doing so, I am allowing others to have their happiness, rather than taking all happiness for myself.
   Harmonizing is a different orientation from the other two because it encourages people to see the totality of their socializing with others, rather than focusing only on one's emotional states. It is also action oriented: it doesn't take place only in the realms of feelings, but it's embodied in a social plane and connects with that plane rather than trying to avoid it. But cultivating patience is also something that happens emotionally within. As it is stated in the Lankavatara Sutra, "Patience will call for something more than forbearance with external circumstances and the temperaments of other people: it will now call for patience with oneself." (from Goddard, 1994, p.330).

Goddard, Dwight, ed. (1994). A Buddhist Bible. Boston: Beacon Press