How Not to Be a Hot Mess - A Survival Guide for Modern Life - Craig Hase Page 0,12

spiritual progress is a bumpy road. Not so much an ever-upward line of transcendent growth. More like a series of peaks and valleys. In which you fall flat on your face in the valley. In a swamp. With mosquitoes. And no bug spray. Then dust yourself off and keep working at it.

BE A BLOCK OF WOOD

So what should we do when we want to take somebody’s head off? Well, step one, as mentioned above, is don’t literally take their head off. There are laws against that. Step two is what the Dalai Lama calls “the ethic of restraint.”5 In other words, you take a breath. You don’t fire off that email. You don’t spit out the brilliant zinger. You don’t kill—not even with words. Instead, you talk to a friend—and you choose a cool-headed friend who’ll give you good advice. Or you go for a walk. And then you don’t say or do a damn thing until you’re ready to say something…if not productive, then at least not destructive.

As Shantideva, the great sixth-century Buddhist pundit, put it, until you get back your composure, “remain like a block of wood.”

Sounds easy enough, right? It’s not easy. Not at all. First, because you’ll have to sit with a tremendous swirling discomfort. And second, because sometimes stuff needs to get said.

Let’s start with discomfort. This is where mindfulness comes in. Let’s say, just as an example, that you’re a cis-hetero guy like me and you’re married to a cis-hetero woman (you know, like Devon). And you really like each other. It’s a good relationship. But there are things that your wonderful life partner does that make you a little bonkers. Who cares what. Let’s say it’s the way she drives. She’s a speed freak, and you grew up with your grandmother and think everyone should drive 53 miles per hour on the highway. Now you’re in the car with her, and she’s driving. She’s weaving her way between tractor trailers, gracefully threading traffic like a skier in the Super-G finals at the Winter Olympics. Your blood starts to boil. She’s doing all the wrong things. You’re not scared, mind you. Just annoyed.

This would be a moment, perhaps, to remain like a block of wood. To shut your mouth, take a breath, and get a little internal. If you can do this without your partner even knowing, that’s ninja territory. Otherwise, you might want to let them know you’re going to take a minute. This sounds cheesy and artificial—and it is—but once your loved ones start to associate this weirdly mindful behavior with fewer temper tantrums from your side, they’ll often get on board in a big way.

BUILD KINDNESS

So to recap: restraint is good when you’re flipping out and it would be better to hold your tongue. But not everything is restraint. You can’t walk around all day like a block of wood. That’s just for those moments when you’re about to fire off a shot at your boss who just fired off a shot at you—knowing full well you’re about to lose your job. Those are the moments when it’s cool to be a little woody.

But what about those times when you can’t just remain like a block of wood? Times when things just need to get said. For example, a while back I wrote a blog post that made some ill-informed generalizations about the differences between Asian and Western Buddhist teachers. I got the following email from Dr. Bonnie Duran, who is a professor of social work and public health at the University of Washington, an indigenous scholar, and a kickass meditation teacher:

Hello Craig,

Hope you are both well and happy.

Just read your post. Wow—Really? Why?

As I read your essay, I hear strong echoes of a Eurocentric, patriarchal, commodified “view.” The huge sweeping racial generalizations and comparisons of your essay are major tools of a settler colonial system that is still alive and well in the US. I’m sure you didn’t mean to cause harm, but harm there is. Plenty of reading on decolonizing in the drop boxes below.

Wishing us all much peace and ease, (big hug to Devon)

Bonnie

So should Dr. Duran have “remained like a block of wood?” Should she have held her tongue and kept the peace? Of course not. What I wrote actually was Eurocentric, patriarchal, and commodified, and she was kind enough to point it out. She didn’t mince words in her email to me. She said exactly what she saw. But what I notice when