Enduring An Attack

When I'm attacked, my impulse is to attack back. I know it's my legal training, and maybe it's also my nature. At the very least it's a lifelong habit. Can you relate, or are you in the "flight" more than "fight" camp? Either way, what if the more effective thing to do is to learn to endure the attack? Not to give anything up or fail to be zealous, but also not to go straight for the jugular, or the exit door, at the first sign of trouble? Train the mind to be less reactive.

Transcript

Hi everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 346.

Last week was about how we have the perfect ability to create these very difficult states of mind all by ourselves,

Getting into a verse of states and then perpetuating them into what are sometimes called hell realms in mindfulness parlance.

And the topic was from chapter 22 of the Dhammapada,

Which is called hell.

Chapter 23,

Which is called the elephant,

Is about the virtues of taming the mind so that we don't fall into hell realms,

Or at least not too often,

Or even react in the first place.

It begins with the verse,

As an elephant in battle endures an arrow shot from a bow,

So will I endure verbal abuse.

Many people indeed lack virtue.

And then the rest of the chapter is devoted to the importance of cultivating that virtue,

Which is the virtue of a tamed mind.

Tamed to not be reactive,

To be non-reactive,

Like an elephant who can endure being shot by an arrow and not attack back.

And the point is,

You know,

How useful on the battlefield of life.

So this seems pretty perfect for us on the battlefield of life and also on the battlefield of the law.

But it raises the question,

What is an attack?

So that was the first thing I was curious about.

You know,

Someone says or does something obvious like shouting at us in a conference or making it personal at a courtroom and that's an attack.

Sometimes it's smaller,

Less easy to point at,

Like refusal to grant an extension or a snide remark or some other slight.

Most of these are what my friend Charity Stott calls paper tigers.

They're not like a live tiger on the savanna,

Where millions of years ago our conditioning was to fight or flee when we feel attacked.

And that's really in our bodies now.

And that's what makes these constant aggressions feel like they are threats to our lives or at least to our livelihoods.

And even the most flimsy of paper tigers,

Bad news,

Can do this.

So I got bad news yesterday.

In my small family business,

We got a report that means some work,

A big expense,

Putting a deal at risk.

And when I heard it to my body,

It might as well have been an outright attack.

It didn't feel like a paper tiger.

It wasn't the news itself.

And so I was trying to figure out like,

What was it?

It was the threat that my client,

Which is my own family,

Would shoot the messenger,

Me.

And so I felt attacked because I was anticipating being blamed,

Disappointing people.

And in the case of if this had been not my family,

Even losing the client.

So a kind of a foreshadowing of an attack that was coming.

And I think that this is a part of practicing law as well.

And I don't know if anybody else is familiar with this.

So these big attacks,

These smaller attacks,

And then just bad news that feels like there's going to be an attack.

Also to our elephant,

Our brave elephant,

When the attack comes,

We're really highly trained to attack back.

And you know,

It's reasonable.

Think about our early beginnings,

You know,

Sparring in the classroom and the intellectual job being in study groups and then attacking from both sides,

Learning how to do both sides in moot court and orienting our writing to persuade,

To win.

It's a mark of the law.

Maybe it has to be.

Maybe it doesn't have to be.

But our system is an adversary system.

And it says when two or more sides have their say in the most vigorous way possible,

The truth will out,

You know.

It's a whole profession.

And even in transactional realms,

Which is played by attack and counterattack.

So I was curious how this would play out for me,

My own experience,

To see if I could track some solutions.

And then voila,

You know,

The universe is always conspiring to support a dream,

As Paulo Coelho said.

So I got my chance yesterday with that bad news.

And of course,

I didn't recognize it as my chance right away.

The first thing that happened,

Looking back at the moment,

Was that my whole body just tightened up.

My breath got really short.

And I really felt like I'd been pounced on,

You know,

By that proverbial tiger.

And I'm guessing if I were to understand the neuroscience,

That my amygdala bypassed my prefrontal cortex and any modicum of judgment that the PFC,

The prefrontal cortex,

Might have had to offer was just completely subsumed by the signal to pounce back.

Because right away I could feel adrenaline.

Before I knew it,

I'd reached for my phone to text the person who sent the bad news.

And I got as far as a text asking if they could talk when I looked.

And so that was the first moment of mindfulness.

And maybe it's a good beginning in terms of starting a sort of a mindfulness tools progression that could help us to avoid attacking back.

So look up.

So I looked up and guess what?

I was at Berkeley.

I was about to teach a class.

I was literally 10 minutes from walking into the classroom and the class was on emptiness.

So pretty funny,

Right?

I sort of saw the irony,

But it wasn't like a huge moment of awareness.

My body was still wrapped really tightly around that bad news.

So then the thought arose,

Oh,

Breathe.

So I looked up and I breathed,

But that still only helped a little.

And but still I think,

Look up,

Breathe.

That's good.

And then next what happened?

Frustration showed up right in the form of,

Wait,

Why isn't this practice working?

And so I took a moment to be self-compassionate,

Which was not easy.

You know,

I was kind of forcing myself.

But still I thought like a lot of teachers say,

You have to fake it till you make it.

So that's what I was doing.

I was just faking self-compassion until it actually kicked in.

So that took a minute or two.

But I was still super activated.

I was still thinking the mind was going attack.

Right?

So next I did a quick body scan and I noticed the places that were tighter.

It was my intention to notice the places that were tight,

Which of course was pretty much all the places.

So here's the progression so far.

Look up,

Breathe,

Self-compassion,

Body scan,

Still in attack mode.

Okay.

So I recognized anger,

Right?

I started raining the emotion,

Recognize it,

Allowing it,

Investigating it,

Not taking it personally.

Still felt activated.

Ten minutes to class,

Five minutes to class.

I considered the idea of doing some mindfulness out loud in the classroom and kind of abandoning my lesson plan,

But that felt really self-indulgent.

So finally,

This is going to sound like pulling a rabbit out of a hat,

But I happen to have the copy of the Don LaPatto with me because a lot of times I'll be working on the wake-up call the day before.

And since Berkeley is the day before this semester,

I've been doing that at a cafe.

So I had it.

And so it was unusual.

I was lucky.

And skepticism immediately arose of like,

Okay,

How's that going to help?

But it's one of those little tiny books with the ribbon.

And so I pulled it out and the ribbon kind of opened on today's chapter.

As an elephant in battle endures an arrow shot from a bow,

So will I endure verbal abuse.

Many people indeed lack virtue.

And I can only tell you,

I read it and I was right back in my body and it was such a relief.

So the progression for me yesterday was look up,

Breathe,

Self-compassion,

Body scan,

And then study.

And I can't say whether or not the decision to turn to the Don LaPatto was what we grounded me or if it was a kind of a combination or compilation.

But study is one of the three pillars of mindfulness.

Study reflection and practice.

And I can say that reading the chapter made the difference for me between attacking back and being able to endure that arrow.

And it made me wonder,

You know,

With all the studying we do,

Studying cases,

Studying statues,

Studying treatises,

Studying what the other side is sending us,

Studying documents.

If we added just a touch of mindfulness study into that,

Might it support us even better?

You know,

We're already giving our students and one another the gifts of our own practice and probably our reflections on our practice.

So what if we offered one another the opportunity to study a little bit also?

You know,

Maybe it would be even better able to endure those arrows,

That verbal abuse without attacking back and be more likely to be,

As the Dhammapada says,

People of virtue.

And I was just thinking at least it would give us one more tool besides our practice and reflection,

Which are already powerful tools,

And then the attack,

Which is the primary legal tool that we use.

And I was thinking about this,

That Abraham Maslow didn't just create that familiar hierarchy of needs,

He also famously said,

If the only tool you have is a hammer,

You tend to see every problem as a nail.

So let's say.

.

.

I hope that top wasn't activating,

But in case it was,

Just maybe looking up at your surroundings,

Locating yourself.

And then finding the breath and the body.

That sense of breathing and just breathing.

Okay.

And if any of that resonated or is continuing to reverberate,

Maybe a little self-compassion.

You recognize yourself in any of that,

Not saying you do,

But if you do,

A little self-compassion,

Maybe tapping the heart.

Something that activation happens and that it too passes.

Coming back to the body,

Either the breath in the body or the body scan,

If that would support you.

Thank you everyone for being on the Wake Up Call.

Really nice to sit with you all,

Study a little bit with you all.

Have a good week,

Be safe.

See you next time.