How Not to Be a Hot Mess - A Survival Guide for Modern Life - Craig Hase Page 0,27

by the way, I know I’m highly biased), I’m hoping you’re inspired to try following the Buddha’s guidelines for speech: True, Kind, Timely, Helpful. But if you’re anything like me, you’re probably also wondering, Am I just going to have to try to walk around with a buttery smile all over my face like I’ve had some kind of a ketamine lobotomy? What about when people do stupid stuff, dangerous stuff, mean stuff? Am I supposed to let them walk all over me and just be Zen about it?

As we’ve mentioned already: of course not. Some of the kindest people I know can also be the fiercest. Remember Dr. Bonnie Duran back in chapter 2. Remember our whole disquisition about setting boundaries in chapter 3. And, just for kicks, let me describe another example of a preternaturally kind and compassionate human being who also engages in some serious straight talk.

There is a Tibetan teacher we studied with in Hawai’i named Lama Rinchen. In the year that we were with him, Lama Rinchen was eighty-eight years old, a small, quiet man with a quiet voice who was always smiling and calm. As an ordained Buddhist monk, he wore his same red robes every day, day after day. He ate simple food, lived in the temple where we all came to study, and spoke to whomever showed up in the same calm, even tone. Lama Rinchen is, as far as I am concerned, a true Buddhist adept, a master of his own mind who seems to never lose his cool and, unlike me, never wavers from the sort of kind, lighthearted presence that we might think of as saintly.

Until one day. Because in the center where Lama Rinchen teaches there was a longtime student, whom I’ll call William. And William was always making trouble. He was disdainful of other students, haughty about his Buddhist textual knowledge, and above all, very, very confident in his high levels of spiritual attainment.

So on this one fresh summer Sunday morning in the hills above Honolulu, we all did our ninety-minute group practice together, as we did every Sunday. And after the practice, Lama Rinchen asked if anyone had questions, as he did every Sunday. And a student raised her hand and asked a question about the unborn nature—a very high-level question about our experiential knowing of absolute reality.

Lama Rinchen paused. As he was gathering his thoughts to answer in his quiet, kind, somewhat broken English, William turned around and began to unfurl a haughty disquisition on the unborn nature. On and on he went. Lama Rinchen simply watched him go. The room full of students simply watched him go. If people were upset, no one seemed to show it. When William took a breath, the student who had asked the question gently interrupted him, in a way that I found both skillful and firm. She said, “Thank you, William, but I was actually asking Lama Rinchen to answer this question.”

William shrugged, as if to say, Well, I can answer it faster and better. Then he was quiet for a moment.

The whole room turned to Lama Rinchen, who began, slowly, meticulously, to give an extraordinarily subtle explanation of the unborn nature, based entirely on textual reference, but shot through with his own deep, decades-long meditation experience. Things were going great, until, again, he stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts, and William jumped in again. And this time he corrected Lama Rinchen! Never mind that Lama Rinchen ordained at the age of twelve and studied with the greatest masters of Tibet before coming to the West. Never mind that Lama Rinchen has spent years in cloistered meditation retreat. And never mind that William’s correction was technically inaccurate—he just launched into his own explanation, all over again, of the unborn nature.

Now the room was getting tense. Someone interrupted William and asked him, “Why don’t you let Lama Rinchen finish?”

Again, William shrugged, as if to say, Sure, but I know this stuff better.

“Or maybe you want to teach us all today?” Lama Rinchen said, smiling quietly.

William didn’t get the joke. He began to launch once more into his lecture.

But this time Lama Rinchen had had enough. “William,” he said. And when William looked up, Lama Rinchen said, very slowly, in the same calm, kind, quiet voice he always uses, “you know nothing about the dharma,” the Buddha’s teachings.

William began to protest, but now Lama Rinchen interrupted him. “Books,” he said, “books, books, books, you know all the books.