Can Victory Lead To Hate?

What could be more natural than that exultant feeling of victory? I love it, even if I've learned to hide my triumph. Athletes do that really well. Mostly baseball players don't pump their fists when they hit a home run, they just jog the bases and pretend it's all nothing. I always wonder what they're really thinking. Or what we're all really thinking. Because another way of thinking about victory is to wonder what it does to the mind.

Transcript

Good morning,

Everyone.

This is Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Calm 334.

Sorry for that bell.

It was backed up against my monitor.

So today,

Yeah,

Well,

The whole world is suffering from another onslaught of COVID.

And I hope you don't have it,

But I'm kind of losing track of how many people I know do.

Although at least not super seriously because of vaccinations.

So anyway,

Today,

With all of that,

I want to talk about chapter 15 of the Dhammapada,

Which is called happiness.

And yeah,

It's called happiness and it offers a number of really beautiful prescriptions for happiness,

Ways of thinking about happiness.

It talks about living without hate among those who hate and living without misery among those in misery and living without attachments.

And it also reminds us there's no happiness like peace.

And I guess in a moment like this,

It's maybe it's more essential than ever to remember that.

And not only peace as an antidote to war or peace while the world is on fire,

But also peace in each moment.

The way that in any moment we can take one breath and feel our feet on the ground and relax into whatever is happening.

So the peace that's here right now,

That there's no happiness like that kind of peace.

But those lovely reminders are not the whole chapter.

There's also one verse in the chapter that seems to be almost like a standalone verse and it's verse 201.

And when I read it,

I had one of those moments,

Not because it's so shocking,

But maybe because it was shocking,

But also because it's almost like the teaching is speaking directly to lawyers.

So verse 201 says,

Victory gives birth to hate,

The defeated sleep in anguish,

Giving up both victory and defeat.

Those who have attained peace,

Sleep happily.

So victory gives birth to hate.

Let's break it down.

First victory itself,

Right?

The law is an adversary system.

It's about victory and defeat.

And sure,

I was a real estate transactional attorney.

Here's our victory slide.

It's pretty alarming.

Sorry for that,

But trying to make a point here.

So as a real estate transactional lawyer,

Some of my work wasn't technically about victory and defeat,

But it was.

And in at least maybe there were two dozen consequential points and I was either winning them or I was losing them.

And even if I soften the rhetoric,

I always had a sense of having done well or not,

Which if I'm being honest,

Translated into victory or defeat.

Small victories,

Some were small,

Sure,

And some were small defeats,

But still it felt like victory and defeat.

And many of you are explicitly inside that crucible of victory and defeat.

Public defenders,

Family law lawyers,

Litigators of all kinds,

Trial lawyers.

Even in academia,

I'm just a lecturer,

So I sit outside the spray that looks a lot like combat in there.

And so does the hazing we put our students through,

Or at least in my students' journals,

Which is a very small sampling.

But they say their days feel a lot like victory and defeat.

And really,

If you think about it,

Even when we're doing something collaborative like restorative justice or mediation,

The situation is rising out of a conflict that was pointing towards victory or defeat,

Or someone is threatening to head back into victory or defeat.

So if we work surrounded by conflict,

Which is one of the four perils,

And I really believe we do,

Then still the question,

How does victory give birth to hate?

Because if we win,

Theoretically,

Aren't we full of love and feeling all generous and wonderful?

Maybe not.

So first,

Let's start with the word hate,

Because I think it would be easy to get tripped up here.

And really,

I think it's a stand-in.

Hate in the mindfulness teachings generally doesn't mean only hate that we might think of in terms of that kind of really hateful demeanor,

But it means everything in the hate tent.

So it covers disgust and derision and cynicism and fear and frustration and anger and all the aversive emotions.

So the question is,

Does victory give rise to any of those emotions?

Or maybe all of those emotions.

And yeah,

It might.

I was thinking about this.

If I win,

Maybe I feel like I deserve to win.

And in that case,

Very naturally,

I have the view that the other side did not deserve to win.

Because if I don't,

Then there's some cognitive dissonance,

Right?

And it's hard for me to be exultant,

To be in my win.

So in my mind,

Maybe the thought arises,

Oh,

They were ridiculous or they were dangerous or more simply,

More benignly,

They were just wrong.

They were flat out wrong.

There are any number of thoughts I might have to have a more consonant set of thoughts or of sensations in the body around my win,

Around having deserved to win,

All of which place the other side in that category of other.

Right?

I'm glad they're behind bars.

I'm glad they lost custody.

I'm glad they have to pay my clients so much.

They're bad people.

They're not like me.

So othering,

This forgetting by the mind creating more consonant experience,

Forgetting that we belong to one another.

Right?

That they're not different from me,

That I'm not different from them.

Yeah.

Feels like a form of hatred.

If I'm looking inside the big hate tent.

And on a more subtle level,

Maybe I don't entirely feel I deserved to win.

I'm glad.

And I'm glad for my client,

But maybe there's doubt.

Maybe deep down,

But accessible to me.

I feel like the other side had a point,

But to be victorious,

I needed to overcome that point or steamroller over the point.

I couldn't afford to allow for the possibility that the point was valid because I might have gotten distracted or softened up when I needed to be tough.

And then I might have lost.

So I stuffed Monk out,

But it's there and it comes out as,

I don't know,

Derision maybe.

They're so dumb.

They had a decent hand and they didn't play it.

Too bad for them,

Suckers.

So that feels like it fits inside the big tent of hate.

And then what about when I really did care about the other side?

I really cared.

And now I've won.

And in winning and being victorious,

I made sure they won't get out for a decade or they won't see their kids much or they'll lose everything or be humiliated.

How do I deal with knowing I didn't follow my compassion?

I didn't follow my conscience.

Now do I hate myself?

So it seems like victory really can give birth to hate,

Really does give birth to hate.

And is it just as obvious that the defeated sleep in anguish or maybe that wasn't obvious,

But is it obvious that the defeated sleep in anguish?

When I lost a point or a case,

I felt anguish.

On a bigger scale,

I was once non-suited as a baby lawyer in my 20s,

Right in front of the client,

Beginning of a trial.

And I thank God in my car,

I seriously considered just keeping driving straight out of town,

Never going back to my office.

I was in so much anguish.

But that's not all for our tribe,

For the lawyers.

What about persistent defeat?

I don't mean somebody who always loses their cases or their points in a deal because that person is probably finding a new job.

But persistent defeat in the sense of this incredibly strong,

Perfectionist tendency that I know I have,

And maybe you can relate to,

That's born of the requirement that we get everything absolutely right all the time.

And it seeps into the bones so that no matter how much I do,

No matter how well I do it,

And it's not just in my work,

I feel like I could have done more.

I could have done a little bit better.

And I feel defeated by that.

Right.

And to this day,

And I'm sad to report,

But truthfully,

It can keep me up.

It can keep me in anguish.

And at the same time,

The teachings are not telling us to set our sights low or beings are numberless,

I vow to save them all,

The Zen chant.

There is so much to do.

The world is on fire.

And as Jerry Sometfeld says,

We are the only ones who've read the instructions on the inside of the box.

So we have to step up.

We have to be part of the solution.

We have to at least plan on saving every client,

Winning every battle,

Going all out every day.

But can we do it without characterizing it as victory and defeat in our minds,

In our hearts?

Because we are going to be victorious.

We're going to do what we can for as long as we can,

And then we're going to pass the baton.

And can that be enough?

My dear friend and colleague and teacher,

Elisa Gray,

Is always reminding me that the Bhagavad Gita says,

Do your duty and let go of outcome.

Not victory,

Not defeat,

Just our duty,

Our job,

The best we can possibly do,

And then let go.

If we can do that,

Then the verse says we will have attained peace and we can sleep happily.

And there's no happiness like peace.

So let's sit.

So finding a comfortable posture,

Stable posture,

Sitting,

Standing,

Lying down,

Walking.

Finding the breath or finding the sound in the environment and just pointing it one of those two as a kind of base for that awareness,

For the attention.

And just letting the attention settle,

Either on the sensation of the breath as it flows in and out,

Or sound as it arises and fades away.

Peace in this moment.

If that's available,

And of course,

That might not be what's happening right now.

Yeah.

Seeing if you can relate to whatever is happening right now with a sense of peace,

Even if there's turmoil.

So seeing if whatever arises,

You can just turn to it and say,

Yeah,

This too.

This too is here.

This too shall pass.

Thanks,

Everyone,

For coming to the wake up call today.

Great to see you all.

Have a good Thursday and a good weekend.

Stay safe out there.

See you next week.