Working With Our Enemies

I want to be loving. I want to not separate people into camps: worthy of my love, not worthy of my love.

Because who am I to decide? No matter what someone has done, no matter their views or even their actions, why would I want to hate them? All that does is create a hole in my heart.

And yet so often, I parse. This person is good, this person is not. This person is giving me what I need, or want, this person is not. This person – in my estimation – is contributing to the world. This person is not.

What if my own heart were big enough to see the humanity in each person, and bow just to that? Not to their mistakes, their selfishness, their crimes. Just to their humanity. What if we could all do that? What would the law look like? How about the world?

Transcript

Hey,

Everybody,

Welcome to The Wake Up Call.

It's Judy Cohen,

And this is Wake Up Call 430.

Okay.

All right,

Everybody,

So I want to talk about Chapter 13 of Pema Chodron's book,

The Places That Scare You.

And it's going to take more than one wake up call because Pema is so remarkable in her ability to take the teachings and just nail them in a few sentences.

And I wish I could do that,

But I cannot.

And plus,

I want to take what's here and relate it to the practice of law.

So in this chapter,

Pema shares what are called the near and far enemies of the four limitless qualities,

Which in the tradition that I've studied most in are also called the four brahmaviharas.

And these are the qualities that either masquerade for or are the opposite of the brahmaviharas.

So metta,

Or loving kindness,

And then compassion,

And then empathic joy,

And then equanimity.

And she calls,

Pema calls the chapter meeting the enemy and begins by saying,

You know,

The more we get to know these enemies,

The more they lose their power.

For me,

That's a powerful reminder.

No matter how long or intensively I've practiced,

When I see these enemies in myself,

And the enemies are attachment,

Aversion,

Pity,

Envy,

Other kind of unsavory qualities,

I flinch.

And so there's a sense of these being not only the enemies of the brahmaviharas,

But also my personal enemies.

I take it on.

And of course,

Pema says,

Look at it differently.

She says,

Look at it as if we're lugging around unnecessary baggage.

And we can open up the bags and look closely at what we're carrying and understand that much of it isn't needed anymore.

So there's this gentleness,

This kindness,

And yet this is another warrior practice.

So just like with so much else in the book,

Pema reminds us that this work is not for the faint of heart.

It requires commitment and intensity and being okay with knowing the work will never be complete.

Because as we now know,

The very nature of bodhisattva work is that it's never done.

But this is where the law comes in.

We're used to that,

Right?

Because neither is legal work ever done.

There's always more to do,

More people to help,

More causes to fight for,

More justice that we can imagine and maybe even bring to bear.

Our work will never end.

We may retire,

But the work will go on.

And so knowing that,

Even knowing that it will always go on,

We remain committed.

So we're always giving 200%.

So I feel like as lawyers,

We're familiar with the level of commitment and perseverance that Pema is inviting us into when she talks about the path of the warrior,

Including in relationship to meeting the enemy,

Right?

And more than that,

We're probably familiar with the practice of getting to know our enemies so that they no longer hold power over us.

Maybe 20 years ago,

I was negotiating this big lease,

Industrial lease.

And I have a real terror of flying.

I've had it for many years.

And the woman I was negotiating with was in Detroit and it was the middle of winter,

Right?

And this woman and I got stuck.

Looking back,

I can see how I could have solved the problem much sooner by not being so positional,

Not seeing her and her client as the enemy and,

You know,

Not trying to be such a big hero for my client,

But I didn't see that then.

I was dug in,

So was she.

And then I got a call from the client,

Get the lease signed by close of business or get on a red eye to Detroit.

You know,

They'd already bought the ticket.

So I found a way I got the lease signed.

And a lot of it was realizing that the client saw something that I'd missed,

You know,

That by getting both lawyers in one room,

We would realize we weren't enemies and we wouldn't hold so much power over one another or try to hold so much power over one another.

And so we were able to do that over the phone.

This was long before anything like Zoom.

Okay,

So let's look at those enemies.

Let's start with the near and far enemies of Metta,

Which is loving kindness or unconditional friendliness,

A quality,

And we've been talking about that.

And I love the way that the great meditation teacher,

Ruth King,

Talks about Metta.

She says it's,

It's about growing fat with friendliness,

Growing fat with friendliness.

I just love that.

I love that.

So the near enemy of Metta is attachment.

It's transactional love.

I love you,

But only because of what you have done for me or can do for me.

I appreciate you.

I'll be friendly towards you if you reciprocate.

If you don't,

I'll cancel you.

And I'm making it sound kind of funny and I'm making it sound kind of harsh.

But I will say that unless I'm really paying attention,

I,

I see that in myself,

You know,

I'm counting,

Hmm,

How many times have I washed the dishes?

Or I'm ever so subtly checking,

Checking to make sure that,

You know,

I get what I need.

I get mine.

So Metta or growing fat with friendliness,

It's,

It's so much simpler.

Not always easy,

But it's simpler.

It's just appreciation for someone else,

You know,

Not because they're adding value to us or in our estimation to the world,

Right?

But simply because they're another human.

And Pema suggests that we think of a person like we might think of a flower,

Perfect,

Even though it might be poisonous.

We used to have incredible nerium bushes on our property.

Also my partner treated a woman in the ER who used nerium to make tea,

Thinking it was something else from her homeland and he couldn't save her.

She died.

So we loved those bushes and we knew their capacity,

But we loved those bushes.

The far enemy of Metta,

Its opposite is of course hate or aversion.

And you know,

Pema just in her incredibly succinct and clear way reminds us that the simple drawback to hate and aversion is that it makes us feel isolated.

When I had aversion towards that opposing counsel,

I couldn't connect with her.

I couldn't get anything done.

When I hate someone for their politics,

I'm walling myself off.

But the good news is all is not lost.

And here's what Pema says about it.

She says,

Right in the tightness and heat of hatred is the soft spot of bodhicitta.

It's our vulnerability in difficult encounters that causes us to shut down.

When a relationship brings up old memories and ancient discomforts,

We become afraid and harden our hearts.

And of course we can do this in many ways.

We can be hard or we can just be completely self-sufficient.

And she says,

Just at the moment when tears could come to our eyes,

We pull back and do something mean.

And I would say,

Or for me anyway,

I pull back and do something competent.

Right?

I've got this.

And then she tells a story,

If you've looked at the chapter,

That sounds like it's almost like she wrote it for us,

For us lawyers.

She has this friend on death row and he receives news of the death of his grandma and he loved his grandma and he just starts swinging.

And he does it because he's inside and he doesn't want his pain to show.

He feels like he can't afford to let his pain show.

So he starts swinging and the guards start shouting and the guards start aiming their guns and his friends are shouting and grabbing him and they tackle him to the ground and they surround his body to protect him.

And so all of them,

All the prisoners,

All of these men on death row,

Throwing their bodies around their friend and they're all crying.

Every single one of them is crying.

So imagine if we could do that.

Imagine if we could hold people,

Our colleagues,

Our clients,

The other side,

Hold them and cry with them and let it be okay to be sad and torn up and devastated.

Because we are,

We just are.

Calling in the sadness instead of calling out one another.

So let's sit.

Finding a comfortable posture,

A way that is supportive of yourself,

Support yourself,

Give yourself a few minutes.

And let's just do a little metta practice for ourselves.

So taking,

Maybe putting the hand on the heart,

Taking a couple of deep and conscious breaths and then calling into this moment,

Someone in your life you adore and they adore you and there's no issue,

There's no problem.

So it could be a pet,

Could be a dog or a cat or a rabbit or any fur companion.

I did a day long retreat with my Berkeley students on Saturday and one student brought her stuffy.

So if it's a stuffy,

It can be a stuffy,

Could be a religious figure,

A saint,

Mother Mary,

Jesus,

Could be a grandma,

Sibling.

And just let yourself relax into that field of love that is between you and this other being.

Seeing them before you,

Loving you and seeing yourself in their eyes,

You loving them.

And let that love create a kind of force field around you,

Around your body,

A field of love and let it seep in through your pores into the inside of the body,

Like a sense of warmth or like a gentle rain.

And then with the hand at the heart or the belly or whatever is best for you right now,

Just saying to yourself,

May I be safe.

May I be safe from inner and outer harm.

This is my birthright as a human,

As another being on the planet to be safe from inner and outer harm.

And may I have well-being,

Physical well-being.

Even if I'm struggling with a health issue,

Dealing with a health issue,

Still may I have well-being.

In my body,

In my mind,

In my heart,

Mental,

Physical,

Emotional well-being,

They're all the same.

May I have well-being and may I be happy.

May I have happiness in each moment,

May I have happiness in my day,

May I have happiness in my life.

May I be happy and may I live with ease.

May I live with ease.

Thank you everyone for being here today and yeah,

Take that metta with you out into your day.

Love to you all,

I'll see you next week.