Working with meanness (from ATPII05: A Trackless Path II (retreat) 00:29:22.40 - 00:36:11.30)(download into iTunes)
Christy: What do you do about meanness in yourself?
Ken: It's very interesting you should ask this Christy, because there's a wonderful quote from Rumi right on this. Perfect. I've actually put it in an article that I've just submitted to Tricycle. But I haven't memorized the quote so I have to look it up. Okay. [Ken searches on his computer] Here you are.
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all.
Do you want me to read it again?
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all.
Now, from the tone of your question I'm implying that you regard meanness as an enemy.
Christy: Well, in that it can certainly harm others, yes.
Ken: Okay. So when's the last time you can recall being mean, or feeling mean?
Christy: Today.
Ken: Good, so just recall that right now. And there's probably a hardening and tightening in the body a little bit?
Christy: I go more through grief recalling it.
Ken: Because it's an unpleasant memory or?
Christy: Yeah.
Ken: I want you to do it anyway. And I want you to imagine welcoming the meanness with open arms and tell me what happens.
Yes, what's happened? It's very fast. Everybody can try this. Take anger or meanness, you can take greed and just open your heart to it. What happens? Christy? I'm inviting you all to do it but this is Christy's.
Christy: It feels like a child. And what do you do with that child?
Christy: Embrace it.
Ken: And then what happens?
Christy: [pitch of voice rises considerably] Well.
Ken: You get my point. Now like the hope and fear that we were discussing with Joan, this is a very, very demanding instruction. It's a very, very profound one. It's exactly what Rumi's talking about. You receive this. And it can't hold the way that it usually does. It holds when we resist it. When we regard it as, "No, this is not me, this is something other." But when you open your heart to it, then as you described, it's like a child, it's something young that's very, very upset. And this is that the heart of Thich Nhat Hanh's technique, which I've named Seeing from the Inside, where you're holding just those feelings tenderly in attention.
