Guest and Host

 Next week, I will be teaching my students about the theme of "hospitality" in Greek times, using the Greek myths as a signpost and a guide. I find it interesting to reflect, in preparation for such a topic, on how all cultures throughout the world have simple etiquette rules which seem to be designed to identify and establish the roles of "guest" and "host". If hosts and guests don't behave in certain more or less prescribed ways, they will run the danger of alienating and overturning certain felt modes of mutual interaction that preserve social status and harmony.
    Hospitality is not just about preserving the moral codes of a society; it's also about the delicate relationship between hosts and guests, and how the host is careful to know and acknowledge the guest without overturning the household. The tale of Odysseus relates how Penelope becomes the host to many decadent suitors in the absence of Odysseus, until Odysseus's return. What does this signify? To me, it suggests the idea that we have to learn to entertain the best intentions, even when conditions around us are not necessarily to the benefit of everyone involved. Just as Penelope must practice patience with the suitors until her partner's return, so also we learn to reside in the midst of difficult thoughts until we have become a master of knowing the process of thinking itself. This is a bit like a trick because it involves not "threatening" our thoughts by trying to replace them with some meditative method, but rather to be aware of the thoughts without giving rise to secondary ones. In meditative contexts, it involves allowing the thoughts to be in the house, but not serving those thoughts tea!
  A practical outcome of this is to think of one's mind in terms of the delicate balances of host and guest. If I am not following the thoughts yet not suppressing them at the same time, the thoughts have no way of getting the better of me or affecting me in any way. This is  because thoughts tend to pray on two weaknesses in a person: the first being the tendency to get caught up in one's thoughts, and the second to try to suppress thoughts altogether. Neither of these approaches is effective for the guest and host relationship, since attaching leads to overturning mindfulness in favor of indulging in the thoughts... while the second approach leads to an active attempt to suppress thoughts, which ends up being exhausting. The best way in meditation is to see the guests as dust,while the host is the light pervading those dust particles, illuminating them to see their real nature.