Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
A bunch of loose ends; call it "spagetti." Posted by Jack, John, Juanito, Keoni on March 28, 2002 at 22:32:18:
I like the way things are tying together around here lately. When I gave a scholastic description of Vipassana (not being an experienced practitioner)
Student John's sharings of his own *experiences* with Vipassana gave us all a deeper dimension of understanding of the things that I was trying to
explain.
Goes to show the wonderful resources that each of us have access to here, in the experiences of "the other members of our team." Every one of you
have enormously valuable experiences to contribute to the whole effort that is going on now in this class. — And, the idea of moving from the
scholastic to the experiential is fundamental to the coaching plan, in everything that we are attempting here.
To me, it seems like there is kind of "a critical mass" in our classroom now. And the time seems right to me, as we end this semester, to graduate into
the Sixth Grade for the next. The theme, as we go forth from here, will be "fluently seeing the dance of our human beingness under a mindful
microscope" . . . . . or, something like that. "Seeing the details of it All, and understanding more and more of what we see." "Following the play of the
awareness game as it unfolds, second by second."
>Well.. to be pushed to the back of the bus is a bit alarming when it is a basketball game that is eating up the time .. just kidding..
First—"Well, to be pushed to the back of the bus"—there is "the *impact* on Deirdre's body." And then, hee-hee, we can *actually see* the place where
score came up on Deirdre's scoreboard! It was "*alarming*." Bzzzzzzzzzzzz! The starting buzzer of the awareness game went off! (That time, it had
been unheard! But we all can hear that buzzer now, can't we, in looking back at that tape?) There was an emotional reaction in it there—but that was
undisclosed! Heh-heh. And, immediately a cognitive judgment—"a basketball game is *eating up the time*." The ego's scenario is implicit: "I want to
correct what's wrong about that." And personality explains it away. "Just kidding." Yeah, that's what you Judges always say, m'dear . . . after poking
us in the ribs with your elbow. Impact—anger—thinking—desire—behavior . . . . all in a matter of a few seconds.
And, Deirdre, you couldn't have given me better cues in this last post of yours—your timing is perfect!—for rounding out this discussion of human
emotional feelings before this semester runs out, by shining the light on the reciprocal side of our negative feelings, and studying *how* "joy" and the
positive feelings come in. I think I'm gonna do that tomorrow, as, ta-dah!, the grand finale of the Fifth Grade.
Oh yes, here's a good one. I'm glad I'm remembering this. Early this month, Pauline posted a list of great one-liners that she'd found—perceptively
healing little teachings that I thought would hit home again and again with different members of the class at that hectic time.
It was her title-bar that I thought was so revealing of the mindful warrior she is becoming.
>Read Each One Carefully and Think About It a Second or Two...if that suits you.
The "if that suits you" was the part that she added on to the original title that had come along with the list that she was posting. That little addition
speaks volumes! Do you all see what I mean? We can *see* Pauline waking up as she writes her own title-bar for that posting. We can *feel* her
awareness in the moment. The borrowed title is a *command*, a direct order. We can *see* her conscious experience of that original title happening.
We can *feel* her sensitivity towards the rest of us that she is addressing the posting to. We can appreciate the loving way that she amends the title to
"soften what she is saying," to awarely *not be manipulating*—consciously "giving us space," "letting us be free about it." We can feel her awakened
presence with us, her conscious companionship with us in the moment, in the very way she does it! She speaks up strongly, but she has the presence
of mind at the last moment not to put it on us. — "...if that suits you," she says. That's a beautiful example of the grace and sensitivity of a mindful
warrior.
Let's see, two days left. I also have some thoughts and feelings to share with you, Eddie, some of it about how close I feel with you, and how much I
empathize with your ambitions with writing. Oh yes, and Sally . . . I thought your piece on "creative apperception" was a *gem* . . . of clear writing, of
teaching, and of "showing the way." Well, there may be some other things I'll mention, too, before I'll feel at peace about letting this semester go at the
end of this week. I'm proud of each and every one of you in this class. You Folks give me a lot back, for what I give to you.
>What I would like to know Douglas, is WHY couldn't you have just said selective attention? Why make it incomprehensible instead of clear?
Aha, Sally. "Why?" is "the anger word!" Seems, in just that little part of your otherwise well-phrased piece, that you, too, have a habit of "undisclosed
emotions." Hee-hee. How about this?
"I got angry when I read your version of it, Douglas. Wouldn't "selective attention" have made it clearer and easier for the slower ones of us to
understand?"
"Selective attention" works *great* in tying in with this training, because the neat thing about mindfulness is that being in this awakened posture *
enables us*—for the first time!—to be consciously selective of where we place our attention, moment by moment. And in this conscious selectivity that
becomes possible with being awake and centered lies "creativity," itself. Otherwise, in ordinary consciousness, we are always being stuck with
whatever our attention is drawn to *automatically*, coming from our conditioning. And there's "no creativity" in that . . . only endless repetitions of
conditioned habits.
>All you needed to do was ask.
Ah, Douglas, you pussycat, you. Such gentle forebearance towards our (angry) Seestah Sally here! Never have I felt closer to you! But . . . ahem . . .
it's not as though that question never came up around here before.
>John's recent comments on my posts have not fallen on deaf ears; I may argue with his prescription of being "concise" . . . but I have no argument with his call for "clarity".
I don't mind if your posts are lengthy, Douglas, as long as I can understand them paragraph by paragraph. Even a long poem is okay with me, if it
isn't going straight over my head. But if you can take away from your experiences in this class an ability to teach and write with simple forthright
clarity, I'll feel I've gotten my money's worth out of my efforts with you in this experiment.
I'm glad when Student John and Sally and Suz and others have been forthright in expressing their experiences of difficulties in understanding you.
We're all telling you this for your own good! We're *on your side*, Man! Honest, candid feedback like that is *hard to find* in this world. And it's
worth it's weight in gold. What can help you more than that in realizing your fullest potentials while you've still got the time? Getting to find out the
reality of how you come across to your peers is one of the most valuable resources that can be offered to you here. Where can you turn in this world
to find others to talk to who won't bullshit you any more?
And, if we *do* slip into angry statements from time to time, that gives you more chances (as you just did!) to practice forgiving us while you're
around here. Get in as much practice finding contrition and being forgiving as you can—that's one of my top coaching tips for you. If you keep
jumping on your opportunities to practice that, your money won't be wasted here either.
I appreciate your seeming contrition on the issue of "clarity." I liked hearing that, very much! I only pleaded with you to be "concise" in explaining
"creative apperception" to the rest of us. Certainly (despite your arguments about the implausiblity of doing that), your valiant team-mate has shown,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, that *it can be done*.
Oh yes, and Student John did much the same sort of thing with you as Sally did, Douglas—speaking with undisclosed, and probably unrecognized
anger. He had previously mentioned difficulty in understanding a question you had for me. He said he looked over previous postings by you, still
scratching his head. And then, the next day:
>Okay, I'm still lost. Why be knowingly pedantic? Best regards,
Heh-heh. "Why?" There's that anger-word again, John! And "pedantic" (though you picked up on a word we'd all used before), is a judgment, of
course. It sounds like you were being angry about it. What do you think? "Best regards" indeed! Heh-heh. I don't think you cooled off about it
that quickly. ;-)
Pretty soon Douglas had a surprising idea to express back to you. It just "came to him" to say this, as if—hee-hee—"out of the blue."
>"Student John" is really quite an awkward handle.
Yes, it was an awkward situation, Douglas. There's a little judgment there too, a little anger maybe. — I thought John handled the selection of that
name well enough under the circumstances, in a rather unattached way. And again, when he sat with your suggestion for changing his name like a
brick in his lap, he came across as remarkably unattached to the name "John," as well. If it had to become "Jon," he'd have lived with it. Good show!
Most of us are highly attached to our names. It's a function of ego for all of us, no doubt. It can be a point of extreme sensitivity. (You remember
long ago, when I tried to call you "Doug." It didn't work. Heh-heh. I tried to call Pauline "Polly," but that went over like a lead balloon.)
But *something* had "rubbed you the wrong way." That's human. Perhaps you had felt John's "bristling." You did get "a fair hearing" from him about
the name-change idea, though. You *have to* admit that.
And you got a sincere confession of contrition.
>Douglas, I want to apologize for my last posting to you. It was a feeble attempt at manipulation.
Yes! Good eye, Student John! That *was* manipulative.
>I'm not clear from "whence" it comes but I suspect the Rebel side.
There may indeed have been Rebel rejection involved too, but it sounded more obviously like Judgely anger to me.
>I have definite feelings of inferiority when I read your postings which I wanted to put on you rather than deal with on my side.
Yes, good. And you did have a worthwhile point to get across. It was your real experience. As you have realized, the trick in sharing a possibly
useful observation like this would be to explain your experience without putting anything on him. For instance, "I noticed this reaction I had, for
whatever it might be worth." And leave off the "Why?" stuff, and judgments if you can. That only makes it hard for the other person to be able to *
hear* the possibly useful feedback that you are passing along. As you mentioned, there's no blame in the reaction you had. And sharing about it *did*
present an opportunity for your classmate to understand you better. It even provided an opportunity for him to understand his own Self better, as
well.
And you did become aware of what you had done, Student John. You were honest about it with Douglas.
>Anyway I was feeling bad and wanted to get this off to you. Sorry.
See that? That's a perfect example of contrition! It conveys the experience very vividly, in fact. We get a tangible sense of the living humanness of
you in expressing it this way. Contrition is when a person reflects on the way they have treated another person, and they *know*, after the fact, that
they feel bad about it later. — Good for you!
And I do all these same things too, for cryin' out loud—things that rub other people the wrong way! We all make these human mistakes. Remember
my reaction to "Tintern Abbey on the bank of the River Wye?" — "Wye, Douglas, Wye???" ;-) We can only do our best at having presence of mind
with these commonly abrasive behaviorisms. There is no "being perfect" in this world—that I know about, at least. We can only step aside from our
mistakes some of the time. Yet I say that's a whole lot better than never. It's always worth the practice in terms of group harmony.
Maybe it will take a little aware processing of anger for the three of us to be at peace with all this now.
My teacher Mits once explained that "the surrounding environment is always all-accomodating to our emotions." He meant that if a person is being
angry, for instance, they will always be able to find *something* in the environment to be angry about. "Too hot in here. Too cold. That curtain's
crooked. What an ugly chair! Does anybody dust the furniture around here? Grrrrr." Anger gives rise to judgments. The environment always
provides handy "targets of opportunity."
I used to think of that from time to time with things that you brought up in your early days in this class, Douglas. The high-heels clacking on your
ceiling. The noisy, smoking bus coming around the corner when you were out on your balcony enjoying the view. You often used to mention
something in the environment that you were being angry about. But the class wasn't ready for learning about "dealing with anger" back then. And
there was no doubt on my part that these things were truly aggravating, alright! Mits used to say, "There's always the dog."
These aggravations do keep coming up in all of our lives. The only defense we can have to it, is to keep waking up and processing the anger on
through. It doesn't change the noisy neighbors or the smoggy transit system, or many of the little things that rub us the wrong way. But it can give
us a little more peace.
I had an outrageous idea, Douglas—truly outrageous. And I feel contrite already, and I apologize in advance. But you might get a kick out of it,
anyway—hee-hee—if you can manage to forgive me for it. I thought of asking you if you would consider, when posting on the bulletin board,
adopting the nomenclature of "Student Douglas."
Oh, that is ba-a-a-a-d! I deserve a good kick in the butt! And I know just how you might give it to me, by insisting that I, in my turn, become "Jack." .
. . . . And no way, José, I'm not ready for that. So I'm just gonna drop this whole idea! Heh-heh. . . . . . Oh, the Devil made me do it, again!
And Douglas, you were the warrior gentleman with Student John about this matter.
>The last post was just a suggestion nothing more. I should have known better as I respond to nothing but Douglas, but that is a story.
Good for you. That kind of reflection shows up as contrition on your part. There's been a whole lot of contrition going on around here. Don't write
it off, Folks. Don't tell people not to do it. Don't deny other people their contrition. It's for their healing, as well as your own.
My, oh my! . . . . . . what a bowl of spagetti today. I've been all over the map. I have no idea whether any of all this has been followable. Clarity has
not been my gift on this day. Can contrition be far behind? And I'm tired. I'm not even gonna read this stuff over before posting it.
And I still haven't covered John's experiences with Vipassana, or mine with Eddie's last posting. And I still have to compose my opus on "joy" and the
positive emotional feelings around the wheel, following up on Deirdre's last cues.
But it's getting late. Forgive me, All!
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Uh, Jack, is it? Yeah. Goodnight, All.
Uncle Jack ;-)
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