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Keeping the Channels of Communication Open
Nirvana
aka BUBBA ` ` South Carolina, USA Veteran
My guru taught me that the most important thing in life is to keep the channels of communication open. I think he meant not to close them due to hard knocks or insults received or through fear, dislike, or loathing.
However, sometimes I think the best way to keep the channels of communication open is not to respond to people who are trying to suck you into a vicious circle of argument from which there can be no escape. I'll simply wait for occasions in which meaningful exchanges can be made. There's no accounting for another's mentality and no way to deal with it on their home turf, as it were, anyway.
Sometimes it's just better to say nothing or not to respond to certain posts.
What do you think?
May the whole world be blissful!
However, sometimes I think the best way to keep the channels of communication open is not to respond to people who are trying to suck you into a vicious circle of argument from which there can be no escape. I'll simply wait for occasions in which meaningful exchanges can be made. There's no accounting for another's mentality and no way to deal with it on their home turf, as it were, anyway.
Sometimes it's just better to say nothing or not to respond to certain posts.
What do you think?
May the whole world be blissful!
0
Comments
Yeah I often find it that I can get caught up in arguments for the need to be heard. I guess you just have to boil it down to the simple question to "does it all really matter???".
If we can see that they are intent on boxing or throwing darts at us, then we can darn well see enough to not do it back. The rest is just discipline to do what we know is right.
Thanks for the reminder Nirvana.
Matt
Yep, There are some subjects that push our "buttons". The buttons that seem to put us in motion including our communicating abilities. Most of the time, when a subject comes along that we "care" about, we just have to respond. Like i am doing with this particular subject.
The internet is fairly new in the big picture of human communication. It is an relatively "open" format for airing one's viewpoints. Everyone dislikes being misunderstood, unless your a saint. For the sake of argument or a different perspective we often throw in our 2 cents worth, thinking that what we type on our keyboards will somehow "change" the current direction of the subject. I am personally "guilty" of this. Often times i read into a post what i want to understand, not what is being communicated. Then I get all worked up, with my special take on the subject, to balance the perceived skewed post. It really is counter to my practice of remembering to remember that all people have Buddha nature, and what they communicate comes from that very nature.
I have likened this "getting caught up" in a dialectic rock throwing contest to fishing. I can fish a whole pond for a couple hours and get no bites, but there is usually one hungry fish ( out of the multitude that the bait passes by )that will take the bait and get hooked. That is what it fells like to me. Taking the bait. Eating the illusion. Responding to innocent bait passing by, and the results is like being hooked and not being able to get off ( clinging ). Oh well, live and learn....It really seems true that the core of suffering springs from "desire".
If something someone writes or says sets off some reactive process within us (whether positive or negative), perhaps we must be more watchful to make sure that we are really still listening to the actual source, rather than being siderailed into our own interpretation of what is being attempted to be communicated. In addition, strong reactions, whether positive or negative, can cloud our judgment of what the communicator is really saying or trying to say. In my own experience, I have known nurses with whom I could communicate only in writing because if that communication were verbal they'd be listening to their own thoughts and hear details exactly opposite to what I had said. This phenomenon is analogous in some measure to a hearing-impaired person hearing something radically different from what his companion says.
Look,
If you don't walk a mile in another's shoes,
you gotta give his words time to make a few laps around your head before you jump in after them.
One major cause of people being rude and insulting to each other is resentment. If ever there were a divine spark in us (Freude, schöne Götterfunken!), resentment would cause it to flicker out.
I guess we resent people missing our points and, completely misunderstanding them, coming back against us with something to which we object. Perhaps then we should just try to stop in our tracks, if not personally accused of something we cannot tolerate. There justice might very well trump charity.
How unloving can people be that they should let resentment like a cancer grow within them, making real communication with others impossible? Some people allow themselves to become so neurotic that this resentment poisons their every waking moment.
Muhammed said that no one was a true follower of his who did not desire for his brother what he desired for himself. You either love your fellow human beings or do not. You cannot both love them and resent them. No, you must accept them with their limitations and just roll your eyeballs when you must.