The Wake Up Call @499

Ten years ago, the Wake Up Call was an unlikely dream, of a place for those of us who were practicing both law and mindfulness, to be together. And here we are, at Wake Up Call #499.

Ten years plus, of exploring how these highly trained legal minds, and those of us who have them, can be different with, and benefit from, mindfulness. Howe we can be more effective. How we can be happier. How we can be of greater service to the world: more compassionate, wiser, more connected (especially more connected). How we can (maybe) inspire others to practice, and in doing that, change the cultures of our law firms and legal organizations. And in doing that, maybe, just maybe, slowly, change the world.  

I feel so fortunate to be engaged in this lifelong endeavor with all of you, and grateful, too, for your company. And not just company, but courage and perseverance, in this endeavor and also in an unwavering commitment to change.

Transcript

So,

Hello,

Hello,

Hello.

It's Judy Cohen,

And this is Wake Up Call 499,

Which is super fun to say.

So,

Of course,

I had to do the math,

So I divided 499 by 52 to see how many years the Wake Up Call's been happening.

And then I remembered I also have notes,

So I went back and looked,

And the earliest notes I have are for the third Wake Up Call,

Which was on May 7th,

2015,

Which means the first Wake Up Call was two weeks earlier,

On April 23rd,

2015.

And I looked back at my calendar,

And it was interesting because a bunch of other things happened around then,

Too.

So,

The first law and social change jam happened a week later,

And we began accepting students into the very first mindfulness and law teacher training,

MLTT 2016,

Right after that.

So,

The Wake Up Call emerged from an idea that Elisa Gray and I had.

So,

Shout out to Elisa.

I don't know if you're here or not,

Honey.

Which was to offer a phone call where Elisa would talk about yoga and the law,

And I'd talk about mindfulness and the law.

And we did the call a few times,

It had its run,

And then I thought of doing the Wake Up Call,

And Elisa and I went on to imagine and create and teach MLTT.

And I had just accepted a lecturer position at Berkeley,

At Berkeley Law to teach mindfulness for the legal mind,

Which is another amazing thing that this is 10 years.

So,

One thought for the Wake Up Call was,

You know,

There's a few of us teaching mindfulness in law schools in 2015,

And a few of us offering mindfulness at firms and in legal organizations.

So,

Why not have a place where everybody could also sit together in a kind of ongoing way?

And I knew it would have to be a quick hop-on,

Hop-off offering since we're all so busy,

And it would have to be relevant to the law.

And there's this mindfulness teaching for anyone offering the Dharma,

Which are the teachings of mindfulness,

Which is teach in the vernacular of the people,

Right?

So,

It couldn't have a lot of Pali or Sanskrit,

It would have to be English plus our language,

Right?

The language of the law.

And maybe a little Pali thrown in for good measure,

So kind of a mash-up.

And that mash-up was actually one of the inspirations for Warrior One.

So,

I'd done a workshop with Joanna Macy,

Joanna Macy,

Who just passed last month,

Great teacher,

Where she had recounted the Shambhala warrior legend.

And that legend,

Which is on my website,

Essentially says that when the world is a mess,

A warrior class will emerge wearing no uniforms or insignia,

And they'll heal the world with two weapons,

Wisdom and compassion.

And when I heard that legend,

I thought,

You know,

That's us.

And here we are with so much knowledge and power,

Which are often not different.

In fact,

Maybe they're the same.

Yesterday,

I was listening to my husband talk with a lawyer about an issue he's solving for his family company,

And the lawyer was just so bright,

Just cut right to the heart of the issue,

Showed my husband the way forward,

And reminded me how true it is,

Right,

That knowledge is power.

And not power in the sense of power over,

Right?

Although it does give us that if we take that,

But a different kind of power,

Power in the mindfulness sense.

So,

Power as in knowledge of the law combined with mindfulness practice means the power to choose what states of mind and what states of heart to bring into the room,

Right?

And this is an incredible power,

The power to choose skillful states like wisdom over greed and hatred and compassion over confusion and peace over war,

Even in the context of these legitimate legal battles that we find ourselves in.

And when we forget to make the choice,

Right,

Which we will or I will,

Or when we remember but fail,

Which I also do,

Right,

The power to know we can begin again,

You know,

Begin again the practice of skillfulness,

Of mindful lawyering.

I mean,

I can definitely say that I am more effective full stop when I do that,

When I choose and re-choose over and over compassion and wisdom and peace,

You know,

Remembering and forgetting and remembering to begin again.

And I've seen the truth with my own eyes of Adrienne Marie Brown's point,

Which I often share here,

That what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system.

That practicing wisdom,

Practicing compassion,

Practicing peace at the small scale with,

You know,

Human after human after human,

Even or especially when they're the other side,

Or even or especially if they're our nemesis,

Can reset the patterns for the whole system,

Whether it's the system of the firm or the organization or the legal system or the larger political system or the family system,

Right,

Skillful moment-by-moment choices,

Wisdom,

Compassion,

And peace.

They have this immediate effect and they have a long-term effect.

So in that third wake-up call,

Which is the first one I have the notes for,

I was working with Joseph Goldstein's book,

Mindfulness,

A great book if you don't have it in your library.

And I was looking at something from the teachings that were invited to develop called Clearly Knowing.

And the definition of clearly knowing is knowing in each moment what we're doing and why.

So that means knowing whether the words I'm choosing are intended to foster peace or war.

And only once we can clearly look and see can we know this,

Right?

So it's our mindfulness practice that helps us to remember to look and see.

And then once we know,

We can continue to orient towards wisdom and compassion and peace,

Right?

Once I know what my motivation is,

Then I know what I can do.

And I know that I can orient towards wisdom.

I know that I can orient towards peace,

Even if it's a pitched battle.

And then reorient towards those skillful qualities of heart and mind.

When I discover that,

Oh,

Wait a minute,

Those words that I just used right there or that I was about to use,

Those are going to start a war in the room,

In the courtroom,

In the living room,

Right?

So clearly knowing is about seeing and really having the courage to look so that we can reset,

You know,

Understanding so we can choose what's best and doing this over and over and over,

Resetting the patterns for the legal and maybe the larger system.

So at first there were only two or three people on the wake-up call each week.

And one was Elisa.

And one was my husband,

Sometimes,

Who was being supportive.

And some weeks,

Especially if one of them or both of them were busy,

No one came.

But for me,

This has been and continues to be such a labor of love,

No matter how it goes down or who shows up,

Because it's a way of practicing over and over whatever it is that I'm sharing.

It's like a reminder,

Right?

And I will also say that a few times I've sat down and knocked out the note for the wake-up call in an hour,

But more often this little 10-minute talk takes me most of the day before to write.

So it could only be a labor of love.

And yeah,

I just want to say how grateful I am to all of you for being here and for coming back,

For continuing to come back,

Because it tells me that we have work to do and that we want to do it together,

Right?

Setting these new patterns and learning to fight our battles with wisdom and compassion and peace,

And maybe over time,

Creating some kind of meaningful or even systemic change.

So let's sit and just do an ordinary paying attention to the breath kind of sit,

Okay?

And your seat,

That's just like,

What posture can I settle into right now for what?

Eight and a half minutes.

And just completely settle into,

And closing the eyes if that's available to you,

Or casting the eyes down so that there's no like peeking at email or at the clock or at anything else.

And just really the gift of silence and quiet and stillness.

And with all that silence and stillness,

Sometimes the mind will wander.

Unless it's very,

Very settled.

So we give the mind this anchor,

This refuge,

This home base,

The breath.

And we just issue this super kind invitation to follow the breath.

And when the mind wanders off anyway,

Yeah,

We don't make it a problem.

We just come right back to it.

Just like when the mind forgets about compassion and wisdom and peace,

We don't make it a problem.

We just come right back to it.

Staying with the breath or returning to the breath.

And really with this very kind,

Even grateful attitude.

Oh,

That's right.

I have this refuge.

I can come back.

Thanks everyone for being here and for being here for all these years.

And have a good Labor Day weekend and be safe out there.