Lojong Practice: Stop trying to figure him out!
Hamsaka
goosewhispererPolishing the 'just so' Veteran
I think it was @Karasti who mentioned this lojong practice earlier this week. I only know that lojong practice exists and there are many of them but otherwise I am clueless.
When Karasti wrote about this lojong I thought to myself OMG, I constantly do this. I do this more than I do just about any other unnecessary mental activity. I try to figure people out as a rule. I spend a LOT of time, literally, doing this. I do it in my sleep, probably.
So I'm examining this idea, that it is something discouraged. I 'get' it, it sounds truthful in that funny way 'truth' has a ring to it. But I have no idea why.
In examining myself, (lol trying to figure myself out here) I grew up doing this. My father is and was personality disordered, and he was abusive to the whole family. Chaos reigned. We often lived in terror, he would suddenly fly into violent rages. He was a bully and all the rest. Figuring him out was vital to our survival (or so it felt, we didn't want to get hurt or humiliated either). So it's like I have these very sensitive antennae tuned into the Emergency Station, it's just there, and it makes sense.
I was easily abused while younger, due to in part to not knowing what 'normal' behavior looks like, and suffered very much. "Figuring people out" was further reinforced. As I matured, this tendency diminished and I can confidently say I am difficult to bully effectively, though where there are human beings, there will be bullies and people just blindly stomping around violating boundaries and being controlling or manipulative.
It's been helpful to be able to detect this tendency in others. The Buddha often encourages vigilance in the Pali canon, as well as discernment in our human relationships.
At some point, 'figuring other people out' is unskillful, and I'm curious about that, and as several people on this forum use lojong practices, I thought I'd ask how you apply this to your life.
Is it a matter of degree? How much is too much?
I work with a few very difficult personalities, not just difficult to me personally, but well known to, like, the whole hospital. It is often necessary to be hyper alert around them, sad to say but it's a fact. I'm talking outbursts of rage and even meanness. Not often, but once or twice is too much amongst adults just working together. We're unionized and even discipline is difficult to obtain, not for lack of trying on management's part.
Going about a practice of paying no attention to what's going on with them SEEMS unwise, so I know the lojong practice is much more subtle, I hope that makes sense. I'd love to hear any and everyone's ideas and feedback.
Comments
Have you looked at a book about lojong practice? It has helped a lot of people.
Hi,@Hamsaka! Thank you for sharing your story with us.
The positive side is that you have been able to turn your experience of abuse into material for self-growth and a tool to help others.
Pema Chödrön says that the basic notion of lojong is that "we can make friends with what we reject, what we see as bad in ourselves and in other people."
The fifty-nine slogans help you develop bodhichitta. "When we work with the slogans, ordinary life becomes the path of awakening," she insists.
Books you might find useful on the subject are Chögyam Trungpa's "Training the mind," Pema Chödröm's "Start where you are" and Thupten Jinpa's book on mind training.
Ideally you should read one slogan a day to set the tone for reflection during that day. It's a mind and heart-opening practice.
And not to be forgotten, "Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves."
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I think it comes down to a matter of balance. We still have to have discriminating awareness, as I understand it. We still have to live in this world, and make use of the skills we have to do so, to keep us safe, and so on. But a lot of those skills that are helpful in certain situations, are way overblown in our lives today. It seems to me that because those instincts still exist, but we don't suffer the same kind of survival-based lifestyle, we are looking for ways to use those instincts because perhaps our evolution hasn't quite caught up with how fast our lifestyles have changed in even 200 years. Kind of like our stress responses are out of control contributing to chronic stress in a way stress was never meant to be used.
I try to figure out people a lot, too. Then it dawned on me recently that I hate it when people do it to me. Respect me enough to realize I can follow my path and make my decisions whether you think they agree with your way, or not, geez! (that is what I always think) but then I turn around and apply the same logic others use on me, on other people. Dur. I do think most of our figuring people out tends to be as a comparison to ourselves, the way we uphold ourselves over others and make ourselves think we are ok, since we aren't like THEM. Like watchin Hoarders or My Strange Addiction. Those shows are so popular, in large part, because they make the rest of us feel normal and ok when we compare ourselves to those people! "My house is spotless compared to that, whew, I'm doing better than I thought!" But there are definitely times those instincts are still important, like in the situation you spoke about. We just have to know when to let go of it, as with anything else.
Lojong is a wonderful practice, and you certainly don't have to be a Tibetan practitioner to make use of it. It is a series of 59 slogans. I personally wrote them on note cards, slogan on the front, brief summary on the back. And each day, I focus on a slogan, I read the commentaries from various people (there are several, from CTR, Pema Chodron, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and others I believe). Some of them are massive sticking points for me, and like you, have been for my entire life. So I laminated a few and I keep them with me all the time so I can pull them out and remind myself. Talking with one of the senior students of my teacher, over time, those slogans basically become memorized, and as you run into situations, or habitual patterns, you recall them as needed and can apply them, basically as antidotes, immediately.
I find it quite valuable.
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Thank goodness, I thought it was just me...!
@Karasti, when you mentioned how you hate it when others try to figure YOU out that really struck a cord. Um yeah, me too! But I didn't think of my own tendency to figure things out as doing the same thing to them.
What's worse is my eagerly unskillful tendency to take it a step further -- I'm trying to figure out what the other person figured out about me. THIS is a huge source of suffering. What with the gossip mill at work, it sucks pretty badly to know what I think you think I think is probably right on the money, considering what I've heard people say about each other in the gossip mill.
I've 'taught' my co-workers to not gossip at me. One gal even stopped herself and said "Oh, sorry, I know you don't like to listen to this crap"
which gave me huge validation, it's working!!
I end up overhearing what I do hear. People can be so cruel. Even knowing what I know about the VALUE of he said she said, it can hurt a lot, even overhearing stuff said about someone else
It's WISE to identify those who are most prone to carrying tales, and behave accordingly with them.
It's unwise to indulge further than what's necessary for discernment. It's a waste of time, it promotes mental impurity I have to deal with later.
I may be weird, but I love that there are so many lojong teachings LOL!! What a great idea, when I'm done doing my thing today, I'll do some search and study. I'll check out Pema Chodrons stuff, too, she's one I've resonated with for many years.
I understand why sometimes people say I am cryptic. I wish to write as plainly as a variety of possibilities allow. It is not possible to expose ourselves or others directly. It would be unkind.
However as we become more open and independent of our faults, defilements, virtues, attainments and baggage carrying, we become aware of what is Buddha Nature and what is Samsara with knobs on. The knots of our tangle becomes more unravelled.
Empathy, compassion, joy etc arise as we progress because we no longer run from or too our karma, practice, cushion, life, difficulties, death, progress, lamas etc.
In the words of the Buddha:
Have a nice day. Oh wait he never said that . . . ah well, back to Mr Cushion . . .
My father-in-law was a rather arrogant dapper with sophisticated tastes, and his presumptuous lifestyle invariably attracted the gossip of the biforked tongues of his little village. Even from those who very gladly accepted his treating them with a round of beer on him in the local pub. When I pointed that out to him, he carelessly said to me: "Even if you are the most endearing person in the world, whoever wants to find fault with you, always will."
There's no way you'll prevent people from gossiping about you. If they want to criticise you, they'll do it behind your back.
The important thing is your own attitude towards people forming an opinion about you. That can't be helped. We all form opinions about other people, biased and prejudiced as they could be. If you're entitled to your opinion about other people, they're entitled too.
What is really important here is to work with your own feelings to the point where you actually don't care a fig anymore what others think of you.
With a bit of luck, the more they get to know you, the closer their opinion to the real person you are (or think you are) will be.
Maybe there is also something for you to learn about yourself in those critics, a side to your personality you can't actually see.
An interesting example for you @dharmamom happened tonight. I'm cutting my hours back at work (two days per week) to diminish the unnecessary stress. I'm also looking at other jobs for the first time in six years. I've been very open about my work time reduction. One of the most persistent gossipers turned toward me (cornering me against the countertop lol) and said "I've heard that you are decreasing your work hours due to your health'.
Yeah, my MENTAL health, I told her, I've had enough of this gossipy back stabbing cesspool. I told her that. She was shivering in pure delight and probably told seventeen other people before lunch. Inside, it backfired on me . . . I imagined that I am looking very old for my age, not to mention limping around with plantar fasciitis from stepping on a nail three weeks ago. Then I thought it must be obvious all the work hours I'm giving away to the hourly staff. Maybe I LOOK sick? That is just the kind of gossip most prized.
Then for a second or two I wanted to strangle some people, wasn't I CLEAR about why I'm going down to fewer hours? I didn't say anything about my HEALTH!! Suddenly, I felt kind of heavy, short of breath, really really fat, on top of limping which I thought I was hiding but apparently not.
All this mental proliferation occurred in less than a second. Blammo.
A perfect example of "enter what others think about me". I'd say a huge majority of the time I couldn't find it within myself to piss on it. But these roots go deep and I am thanking this co-worker for the opportunity to pull up some more mental weeds WHILE having intrusive thoughts of strangling her because I knew she was lying, this is not a staff wide discussion. I know her style.
Tonight she was yet again a teacher of powerful lessons. She is one of the top 3 reasons I am cutting back my hours. She (and a few others) taught me how to not give a fig, and give me practice with my own stuff nearly every time I work with them. I really did not quit last year when I realized I'd had enough, because something in me was not 'finished' exploring it. I know that must sound crazy.
It may be @Hamsaka that Lojong is not ideal for you at the moment.
You might want to investigate the Brahma Viharas, and Samatha.
Teachers exist in part because they can point us to the particular Skillful Means that would benefit us most at that time.
We are not always objective about our own needs.
Thank you @Citta, did you intend to be oblique or is there something more specific? Each one of your sentences above sound like the beginning of a paragraph, and I'd like to hear more of what you have to say -- if there is more. If not, I get that too.
Not being objective about my needs is exactly right, and why I'd like to hear more if you have more to say.
Why would lojong not be useful or ideal for me, based upon what you understand?
As for the Brahama viharas, I get that and agree.
59 seems like an awful lot. How does it work in practice?
@SpinyNorman: you reflect on one slogan a day. To me, they're like the equivalent of a Zen koan.
Some of them are more intellectual, others are more practical. Food for thought, food for practice.
Edit: @Hamsaka: remember the Buddha's quote from the Visuddhi Magga:
"Suppose and enemy has hurt you in his own domain, why should you annoy yourself and hurt your mind in your own domain?"
You're letting those people into your mind, offering coffee and biscuits, the whole package.
Not only are they poaching your psyche, you're even in physical pain over a situation that is totally beyond your control. It's not them you can change, but you.
You can't choose your colleagues as much as you can't choose your family nor your neighbours.
Try to view the situation in a way that works for you. Rise above the gossip and back-stabbing. Not control but acceptance.
Just my experience, but if I have tried to force various practices, it was quickly obvious it was not the time for me to take on that practice. It was like hearing a foreign language, I might be able to pick up a little, but overall, it meant nothing to me and I knew it was not time to pick it up.
@SpinyNorman Most of them are simple ideas that lead to more profound moments in practice. It's a way of training to take practice into every day life, something to keep in mind all day. Today I am on the last of them. Once you work through them once, they start to stick with you, and when you go through your day and you are investigating your reactions and interactions, it becomes easy to apply them without having to just focus on the one for the day. They do kind of (at least some of them) build on each other.
It certainly isn't for everyone, I'm sure. It has been our sangha's focus this year, and I'm glad for that.
Cryptic? Who says you're cryptic?
You may be a lot of things, but cryptic isn't one of them.
James Joyce - now there's someone who was cryptic.
Check this site out:
http://lojongmindtraining.com/
It has commentaries by CTR, Pema Chodron, Dilgo Khyentse, and more.
Good stuff.
@dharmamom; what I'm describing is such an OLD situation in my life that at times I feel with what I 'know' I ought to have gotten way past bringing them in for tea and biscuits
In some ways I've come so far but apparently, not far enough.
What hangs me up is that I did go through a period of active alcoholism, ending over a year ago. The shame of that has me vulnerable, I see now how this is providing the opening. In fact WOW I see how it is. In just about all other ways, I honestly don't entertain this kind of behavior. Gossip about other people -- they know I don't want to hear it, and I've trained them.
@karasti; I got the impression it IS timely for me because this lojong jumped out at me and got my attention so to speak. Without getting too nutty sounding, recent events support that further. But I do understand what you are saying about being 'not ready'. The conditions within do not support the teaching, for instance. The teaching falls on infertile soil. This is a phenomena I'm well aware of, for instance, there are wisdom teachings (from wherever) I simply could not comprehend nor utilize a year ago, that now I can -- the conditions within now support the teaching.
I'm seeing my therapist on Tuesday, she's Buddhism friendly (her recommendations began my serious practice in fact). This period of shame is not something we've worked on.
I still hope to hear from @Citta.
You did hear from @Citta .
FWIW, @Hamsaka, your experience mirrors my own point of entry into lojong: I caught myself acting in a pretty hurtful and resentful way towards someone close to me, and I was suddenly filled with a lot of remorse. As I looked at my heart/mind, it became apparent that I was doing much inner violence, towards myself and towards others. I forget which phrase caught my eye initially, but when it did, it cut through the hateful, jealous, resentful, angry confusion and offered me an opening into something wiser, more compassionate, and more spacious. I think this is as good a time as any for you to look into lojong.
But I recommend that you take up the slogans in order and go through them one-by-one. There is a logical progression, and the very first slogan is: "First, train in the preliminaries." The preliminaries are an awareness of the inevitability and unpredictability of death, an appreciation for having been born into the human realm, and a keen appreciation of the truth of suffering for yourself and for every living being. Although this is obviously a very wearying and trying situation for you, it's important to remember that lojong practice is embedded in the path of the bodhisattva: when you take up this practice, you are doing so not just for your own liberation, but also out of compassion for others, and for their liberation as well.
The slogan you cite in your OP is translated by Chogyam Trungpa as "Don't ponder others", which has a slightly different implication to me than "Don't try to figure people out" although the latter is perhaps a more idiomatic translation. Pema Chodron writes in her book on lojong, Start Where You Are, that this slogan "[is] about putting down other people to build yourself up." Chogyam Trungpa writes:
It's not so much about analyzing people or figuring out what makes them "tick." That can be a useful strategy at times. It's about not dwelling on people's "faults." After all, what we deem a fault in another person is usually simply their means of trying to mediate the universal experience of dukkha. So these people arrived at toxic gossiping as a means of mediating whatever discontent they experience in their lives. Others, through their life experiences, arrive at anxiety/depression, addiction, overeating, anger, overintellectualizing, etc. Lojong is intended to awaken us to our similarities with the very people who annoy the living crap out of us -- it's about finding connection and becoming more deeply intimate with the web of karma and samsara in which we all are embedded. From there, a really vivid, alive sort of compassion can arise, and eventually, the ability to transform the world's toxic poisons into the antidote.
A relevant paraphrase of Charlotte Joko-Beck's Everyday Zen:
Perhaps you misunderstood. First I asked for some clarification on your first post on this thread. There was some interesting stuff I wanted to hear more about. Maybe there is nothing more to hear, that's fine. It gave me much food for thought, I wanted to get as much out of what you said as is possible. If there is nothing else, that is fine too.
@Glow; wow, thanks so much!!
It didn't seem 'right' that the slogan meant stop any discernment, it's too damn important. The distinction between that and ruminating about another's noxious behavior was very helpful.
And that story of the boat . . . that must be a goal because I've been utterly convinced it had itself a rower
As to becoming more compassionate for the individual 'methods' we use to mitigate dukkha, I get that loud and clear. I also forget it quite easily because I'm attached to the idea that people should behave themselves in the appropriate manner I have figured out for them 
Very timely story, that really hit home.
Citta mentioned metta and the Brahma viharas. In all honesty, I don't wanna. I'm taking a long look at that, too. That's exactly what I wanted, these kind of responses. Thanks again to everyone who has posted
Nothing to add really @Hamsaka.
There are tides and times in our lives when certain practices are more beneficial than others.
Reading those signs is between us and our teacher, if we have one...
Good wishes...
(All suttas were designed for oral recitation.....)
One part of doing lojong is practicing tonglen meditation, which is essentially a form of compassion/karuna meditation. The brahmaviharas have actually been my main meditation practice for about four, going on five, years now. They are very helpful, but can become a bit artificial or forced without the "juice" of life's garbage to fertilize them. This has been something Jack Kornfield and Ezra Bayda warn about: it can be easy to try to force yourself to feel what you think metta or karuna should feel like, and it can turn into a form of "spiritual bypass" where you cover up your own feelings. Lojong (like most good awakening practices, including Joko-Beck-style Zen) really puts you in touch with life's messiness -- the mess both inside ourselves and outside ourselves. I've found it has revitalized my practice of all four of the brahmaviharas because I can bring all the messy bits (the confusion, the jealousy, the anger, etc.) to the table when I say "In happiness and safety, may we live with ease." When we are in touch with how painful life can be when we aren't safe, happy, or when life is difficult, the kindness and compassion phrases take on a new urgency and vividness.
(for a little good-natured humour, see here....