Bringing attention into action: the Toltec way

In this clip from Ken's talks on the eightfold path he draws on Don Miguel Ruiz' The Four Agreements...

Bringing attention into action (from 8FP02 00:17:25.07 - 00:20:58.04)

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The other one comes from the Toltec tradition and I have no idea how it's worded in the original language, so these are translations.

Be impeccable with your word.

Now that's going to happen quite naturally when you listen, when you bring attention into speaking.

Just a little question for you, How many of you talk to yourselves? Okay. When you talk to yourselves, do you bring attention to what you're actually saying to yourself? Most of us don't. There's this voice that natters at us and says all of these horrible things and judgmental things. Or if they aren't saying horrible things then they're saying quite ridiculously arrogant things. It just goes on and on and we call it thinking.

So be impeccable with your word certainly in our interactions with others but also start paying attention to how you're speaking with yourself. Might be a good idea. That's the first one.

Second one is: Don't take things personally.

I'm working with a business owner right now and he's a good guy, but he has this tendency to take everything terribly personally. So a lot of the coaching I'm doing with him is just about, "You know, that wasn't actually about you. This is what was going on there." And he went , "Really? Oh."

And things happen and people do things but a friend of mine says, "Ninety eight percent of what people say is about themselves." You may think they are criticizing you but they aren't. They' re actually on their own case and they're just projecting that on to you.

The third one is: Don't make assumptions.

This is closely related to get the facts. We make all kinds of assumptions about things. Rather than make assumptions, ask questions.

Bryon Katie has a very nice formulation here: Is this true? How do you know it is true? She got a couple of other ones but those are the first two. And that is usually sufficient to work though an awful lot of projections right there.

And the fourth one is: Always do your best.

Suzuki Roshi makes a very similar statement in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind when he says, "Whenever you do anything burn up completely so there aren't even any ashes." Now the idea here is very simple. When you know that you have done your best then you'rre able to receive whatever happens.