Conquering Ourselves

All day long, as lawyers, we strategize, plan, scheme.How do we win this one? How do we show that DA/PD to the door? Whom do we need to step on, to climb just a little bit higher?(Is that an exaggeration? Maybe, maybe not.) What about a strange idea: that "greater in combat than a person who conquers a thousand times a thousand people, is the person who conquers herself." Yes? No? Maybe? See what you think.

Transcript

Hi everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 321 on October 14th,

And I'm back in Sonoma.

So New York was really,

Really fun and it's good to be home.

Let's turn back to the Dhammapada,

And we were on chapter 8 thousands,

And we looked at the first three verses which are,

Better than a thousand meaningless statements is one meaningful word,

Which having been heard brings peace.

Better than a thousand meaningless verses is one meaningful line of verse which having been heard brings peace.

Better than reciting a hundred meaningless verses is one line of teaching which having been heard brings peace.

So one meaningful word or line of verse or of teaching brings peace,

Brings clarity,

Which brings up the question,

How do we do the not easy work of letting go of the extra 999 words or verses or teachings,

And of whatever is sitting behind or underneath our words and our actions and that doesn't point towards peace.

The next lines speak in terms of conquering ourselves,

And since as legal professionals were surrounded by conflict,

It seems like an appropriate metaphor.

Here are those next lines.

Greater in combat than a person who conquers a thousand times a thousand people is the person who conquers herself.

Certainly,

It is better to conquer oneself than others.

For someone who is self-restrained and always lives with mastery,

No one,

And it goes into not even the most powerful or destructive of the gods and the devas,

No one could turn conquest into defeat.

So at first I read those lines and I thought,

No one is going to buy that.

Greater in combat is the person who conquers herself.

Certainly it is better to conquer oneself than others.

I mean,

If that were true,

How would we do our jobs?

But of course the lines,

The verses,

They're metaphoric.

They're not speaking to our caseload.

They're speaking about conquering our own minds and hearts.

And in fact,

You can see this because in the next two verses,

The languaging shifts from conquering to cultivating.

When it says better than a thousand ritual sacrifices offered every month for a hundred years is one moment's homage offered to one who has cultivated herself.

Better than a hundred years in the forest tending a ritual fire is one moment's homage offered to one who has cultivated himself.

So here's our warrior and first take a moment and think about this idea,

Maybe this practice of conquering.

When I did that,

I could see,

And this is something I've been seeing for a long time and maybe you have too.

I do need to conquer myself.

I'm 62,

I was born to a certain family with certain prejudices and biases and proclivities and blind spots and privileges and wisdom.

And then I received a good education,

Classical,

Pretty straight laced,

But good.

And I've been influenced by friends and family and colleagues.

And I spent years and years of training in the law,

Training to be a combatant,

Maybe an enemy combatant,

Maybe a frenemy combatant.

And I've been studying mindfulness for just shy of 30 years.

And I realized this in the middle of a down dog the other day I've been practicing yoga for,

Well,

Since I was 26,

So 36 years.

So it's all in there.

And think for a minute about what's in you.

You know,

The family influences,

The influences of your city or town or country,

Your friends,

Your schools,

Your teachers,

The law,

Maybe another profession.

Your mindfulness or yoga or other practices,

Or just these wild amalgamations,

These giant kaleidoscopes with the pieces coming together in beautiful patterns and turning and falling apart and coming together in a new pattern and falling apart over and over and over.

So given all this,

What do we conquer and how do we cultivate it?

What do we cultivate?

Starting from the middle outwards,

We cultivate through awareness.

We sit,

We study,

We reflect,

We move our bodies through a series of movements focusing on our breath.

And as we do all of this,

We see because everything will oblige.

Everything will arise for us if we pay attention.

Our ill will will arise in its many,

Sometimes sneaky forms,

Frustration,

Aversion,

Criticism,

Derision.

Tell me if any of these resonate,

Exasperation,

Wanting to be right,

Jealousy,

Skepticism,

Mistrust,

Sadness,

Grief,

Hopelessness.

The deepest sorrow as Naomi Shihab Nye says,

So we can see the size of the cloth.

We let it arise.

Our greed,

The way we want more,

The way we believe more is better.

The way we believe that if we could just increase our drawers,

Replace our couch,

Buy that little cab and afford those boots.

And the way we know none of this is true and over and over again,

We bend down to the root,

To the earth.

We uproot this belief system only to discover there are still weeds growing just where we thought we'd cleared the ground.

And our delusion,

The way we forget over and over that we belong to one another,

That everything we say and everything we do matters,

That when we snap at our partner,

Our kids,

Our dog,

When even if they can't see us,

We roll our eyes at an associate,

A partner,

An assistant,

A server as if we're different from them,

We're forgetting.

We're forgetting that we're all just exactly the same.

We all just want to be happy and healthy and safe and free.

So we pay attention and then it's pretty easy to see what cultivating ourselves means.

It means conquering all of this.

Conquering but not by using the same qualities we're trying to conquer.

That's the thing.

Not conquering with derision or frustration.

Not conquering by efforting and grasping.

Not conquering by shame.

Not conquering by embarrassment and not conquering by forgetting that we belong to one another.

Conquering through the counterintuitive process of loving.

Conquering all the messiest parts of ourselves and of everyone else.

Conquering through deep and sustained compassion for ourselves and for everyone else.

Conquering by appreciating the good fortune of others out loud and with an open heart by showcasing our love as a La Jan participant once said.

Conquering by standing in the messiness of everything,

Our own messy minds,

Our own messy hearts,

Everyone else's messy minds and hearts,

The world's messy minds and hearts.

Conquering by staying steady and loving anyway.

When Dr.

King and Mr.

Mandela and Mr.

Gandhi and Mother Teresa and Gautama Buddha all said hate never conquers hate.

Only love can do that.

I don't think they were only talking about our interpersonal experiences,

Our systemic situations.

I think they were also talking about our own hearts.

So the verse says greater in combat than a person who conquers a thousand times a thousand people is the person who conquers herself.

Greater than 100 years in the forest tending a ritual fire is one moment's homage offered to one who has cultivated himself.

Conquering and cultivating.

It's hard work.

And because we are humans,

We're uniquely situated to be able to do this.

And because we're legal professionals,

We're equipped for it,

So we can do it.

And frankly,

At this point in the world,

What otherwise and compassionate choice is there?

So let's sit.

Finding your seat in the middle of all this.

Finding your seat.

Feeling in,

Really letting the nervous system settle down.

Lion.

Locating your home base,

The breath or sound,

The place where you can return to when the mind wanders,

Which it will.

Things will become an experience,

AP And that's really the only thing I can do.

That's really the only instruction,

And then everything else will arise.

Just watch for it.

See what arises.

And whatever comes up.

The only instruction is to love it.

Love whatever comes up in this kaleidoscopic mind body.

Love whatever comes up in this kaleidoscopic mind body.

Love whatever comes up in this kaleidoscopic mind body.

And if the mind slides away,

Whether it's just distraction or whether it's seeing something that is difficult to see,

Just remember to be very loving and very compassionate and gently invite your attention back to seeing and to being with.

And that's really the only thing I can do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As Gil Fronsdale says,

Coming back to the task at hand.

This investigation,

This being with.

You.

You.

Thanks,

Everyone,

For joining me on the wake up call today.

Great to see you all.

Take good care.

Have a good Thursday.

Have a good weekend.

Safe.

See you next week.