Attunement

When we engage suffering with a sense of agency: “Oh, I have the ability to do something here" – to question, to wonder, to look at suffering, by rising to the occasion to meet suffering, we start to bring a kind of personal care and freedom that is different than simply being impacted by the suffering or trying to fix the suffering.

Transcript

I want to start out with a story.

It's called the Bricklayer's Accident Report.

And so the bricklayer who had the accident is writing to the insurance company.

And he says,

Dear sir,

I'm writing in response to your request for additional information in the block number three of the accident report form.

I put poor planning as the cause of my accident.

You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient.

I am a bricklayer by trade.

On the day of the accident,

I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building.

When I completed my work,

I found I had some bricks left over,

Which when the weighed later were found to weigh 240 pounds.

Rather than carrying the bricks down by hand,

I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley,

Which was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor.

Securing the rope at ground level,

I went to the roof,

Swung the barrel out,

And loaded the bricks onto it.

Then I went down and untied the rope,

Holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 240 pounds of bricks.

You will note on the accident report form that my weight is 135 pounds.

Due to my surprise of being jerked off the ground so suddenly,

I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope.

Needless to say,

I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor,

I met the barrel,

Which was now proceeding downward at equal impressive speed.

This explains for the fractured skull,

Minor abrasions,

And the broken collarbone as listed in section three of the accident report form.

Slowed only slightly,

I continued my rapid ascent,

Not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley,

Which I mentioned in paragraph two of this correspondence.

Fortunately,

By the time I regained my presence of mind and was able to hold the rope in spite of the excruciating pain,

I was now beginning to experience my descent.

At approximately the same time,

However,

The barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel.

Now devoid of the weight of the bricks,

The barrel weighed approximately 50 pounds.

I refer you again to my weight.

As you might imagine,

I began a rapid descent down the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor,

I met the barrel coming up.

This accounts for the two fractured ankles,

The broken tooth,

And severe lacerations of my legs and lower body.

Here,

My luck began to change slightly.

The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks,

And unfortunately,

Only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report,

However,

That as I lay there on the pile of bricks in pain,

Unable to move,

And watching the empty barrel six stories above me,

I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope.

So,

I read this story because it's about letting go.

All you had to do was let go of the rope,

Right?

There are many ways that we can relate to our suffering,

And this accident report could be pretty familiar to some of us here in this room.

We all have a story to tell.

It's pretty familiar to some of us here in this room.

We don't let go of the rope.

So,

We either get severe lacerations or we get rope burn.

We don't let go.

And some of the ways of relating to our suffering are not very healthy,

As this story represents,

And some of them are.

And sometimes we relate too much to our suffering.

We identify with it,

And then we become it.

We become it.

So,

As we learn more and more about ourselves and the way that we suffer in our lives,

We are also learning to understand the different building blocks and aspects of compassion.

And this practice that we're doing together,

It's really about having some agency,

Some agency in working with our minds and our hearts,

So that we can be with our suffering in a more useful and healthy way.

More useful for ourselves and ultimately more useful for others.

And so,

One of the ways we do this,

Being with our suffering in a healthy way,

Is attunement.

We take time to attune ourselves to the suffering that we're encountering in ourselves,

Or that we're encountering outside of ourselves with others.

And we're meeting it.

How we meet our difficulties is we engage with this practice and these ideas and these tools that we're learning to address,

To address whatever it is that we're suffering with.

You know,

We're not just feeling the suffering in the old way,

Where we're sort of identifying with it,

Like,

Oh yeah,

This is what's happening.

And we're strongly identifying this,

Like,

This is mine,

It's me.

We're putting that down.

We're beginning to engage with it with a sense of urgency,

Like,

Oh,

I have the ability to do something with this here.

To question it,

To look at it.

Kind of,

We rise to the occasion.

When we're suffering,

We rise to the occasion to meet it.

And we start to bring a kind of presence and care and freedom,

Instead of being impacted by it.

Instead of holding onto the rope and being thrown up and down the building,

Right?

Thrown up and down the building,

Right?

Or trying to fix it.

That's a typical way that we try to meet our suffering,

Is trying to fix it.

So there's this quality of investigation that we engage with.

It's kind of a sense of power.

Like,

When we're engaging with our agency,

We're engaging with our,

I guess,

Wherewithal.

It's kind of like,

Okay,

Right now,

I'm encountering difficulty.

Or I'm encountering some form of suffering.

And maybe I feel it deeply,

Or maybe I just feel it in a moderate way,

But I'm experiencing it in some way.

How am I experiencing this?

What's the impact?

A lot of times the impact when we're feeling difficulty or suffering is a tightness.

We get tight and closed.

We feel isolated and alone.

We get small.

We feel we can't relate to anyone around us.

How is this impacting me?

Asking that question,

How am I impacted right now?

And what's useful for me to be present?

Like,

What would be useful for me to be present with this suffering right now?

What would be useful?

And I offered a couple weeks ago,

What else is here?

What else is here?

That's a useful way of working with suffering.

Like,

What else is around me in this moment?

Oh,

The wind is moving in the trees.

That could be useful in the heart of my suffering.

Or the sun is shining and it feels good on my face.

That could be useful.

And what's our habit pattern?

Like,

This is the investigative quality.

What's the habit pattern when we have difficulty?

You know,

For some people it could be that you're carrying around responsibility for everyone in the family,

For everyone in the neighborhood.

Like,

It's your responsibility to make sure everybody's okay.

And so you carry around this responsibility,

Like you have to fix it.

Like,

You have to be a particular way so that everyone else will respond to that way.

Like,

You have to solve the problem of all these broken people around you.

Maybe it's like that for you.

Like,

Maybe that's where your mind goes.

Maybe that's the habit pattern.

And it doesn't have to be the habit pattern,

As long as you see it.

You're like,

Oh,

There's the habit.

Oh,

I don't have to do anything with this.

I don't have to do anything with this.

So what's a balanced way of being present for difficulty?

Present for difficulty.

In harmony with the way things are.

Like,

Rushing to judgment about our difficulties,

That's not harmony.

Rushing to fix it,

That's not harmony.

Like,

Immediately feeling it and then reacting to it and getting preoccupied with it.

That's not harmony either.

What's a harmonious way to meet difficulty?

And just asking the question,

What would be a harmonious way to meet this?

That can be the doorway.

That's the doorway in,

Just asking the question.

And it's challenging.

It's challenging to attune to suffering.

Like,

Attunement is about having the right level of connection to being present for suffering or difficulty.

So that we don't let it impact us.

And it doesn't close us down.

So when something happens,

We might automatically close down and resist what's happening.

That might be our pattern.

And I like to think of attunement as more like,

Like when I'm tuning my guitar,

I'm tuning my guitar,

I'm tuning my guitar,

I'm tuning my guitar.

Attunement is more like,

Like when I'm tuning my guitar,

I'm a guitar player.

And so when I,

When I tune my guitar,

I'm adjusting the strings so that the different strings are attuned to each other.

And when I play them all together,

There's a harmony.

So somehow each string exists in right relationship to the other strings.

So when we're encountering suffering,

If we have enough presence of mind,

Right,

Presence of mind,

We can ask ourselves,

How do I attune?

How do I,

What's a useful way of being present for what's here?

How do I attune to this?

And that can be challenging.

Because every encounter that we have with difficulty requires a different attunement.

There's that adjustment,

Right?

When you're tuning the guitar,

You have to adjust the strings and you can't just tune it once.

You have to tune it over and over again.

So each time that we encounter something difficult,

It's like,

Oh,

Let me try to attune to this.

So the first question that you ask yourself,

If you,

Again,

Presence of mind is,

What is this?

What is this that I'm experiencing right now?

Like,

What's the difficulty?

And it start in like,

When we can ask that,

Then we can start to look and think about attunement.

And sometimes we have to remove ourselves from the situation of what's happening,

What is this,

In order to see a little bit broadly,

A little bit more broadly.

Especially if it's relational difficulty,

You're in relation with somebody and there's a conflict.

Sometimes you have to step back to see what is this.

And the stepping back,

You know,

As soon as we think about attunement,

Attuning to it,

About getting in harmony with difficulty,

What we're doing is,

It's really significant.

It's a really significant act.

It's completely counter what we normally do,

Right?

We're more like the bricklayer,

Holding on,

Getting jerked around by our suffering,

By whatever's happening in front of us.

So we're not a victim to our suffering,

Or just receiving it,

Like passively receiving it.

But we have some agency by asking simple questions.

Part of us,

When we ask the question,

Like,

What's happening here?

When we ask that,

We're not caught in it.

Some part of us is not caught in it.

We're looking at it,

We're engaged in it.

We're not in it.

Some part of us is not caught in it.

We're looking at it,

We're engaged with it.

What's the right balance here?

How can I be present with what's happening?

And attuning to suffering,

Like,

That's a practice.

That's hard to do.

It requires being opened.

And what do we want to do when we feel like there's difficulty?

We close down.

We close down.

So all of a sudden,

You're doing it.

It's this counter move.

It's a complete pivot.

You open to it.

How can I be open to this?

And what openness means,

It's not like you approve it.

Like,

You don't have to be like,

Okay,

I'm open to what's happening.

You're not offering approval.

It might be something that you can't approve of.

Open doesn't mean that you don't care.

Open means that you're not responding first with your habit pattern,

The pattern of resistance.

It could be there.

You could be like,

Oh,

This is so uncomfortable,

And you're just going to keep asking,

What else is here?

What is this that's going on for me?

It's a kind of non-resistance.

How can I not resist this difficulty?

And as we learn to do this,

What we're doing is we're learning to expand our capacity to be with the uncomfortable,

To expand our capacity and make room for what is actually happening.

Not so that we can suffer more.

Like,

We're not about like suffering more,

But actually we suffer less when we can expand our capacity to be with it,

To be with difficulty.

And then we start to see what's happening in a deeper way.

A powerful concept that we don't talk about much,

But comes from the Buddha,

Is to be undefeated.

Not to be defeated by our circumstances.

Not to sink down and be a victim of our circumstances,

But rather rise up to the occasion.

Be strong in our resolve.

Like that's a place to meet our difficulties,

To actually step up and meet them.

Rise to the occasion,

Because our intention is to be free.

So kind of arising to the occasion to be someone who's going to apply mindfulness and practice to whatever is happening.

And when mindfulness,

When we cultivate enough presence of mind through practice,

When mindfulness is the home in which we live in the world,

We're attentive and we're strong and we're present,

Regardless of circumstances.

Another important tool is in practicing with attunement,

In practicing with difficulty,

Is in the field of communication.

In the field of communication.

Sometimes our suffering involves other people.

I think one of the philosophers said that suffering is in fact other people.

So communication is important,

And it's a profound place to practice.

One of my teachers calls it sacred communication,

When we're engaged in communication,

Implying that when we are communicating from a place of practice,

When there's mindfulness and stillness from the depths of who we are,

Then the communication,

Whatever the communication is,

It goes better.

Because we're communicating from this place of ground,

From our strength that we cultivate and develop and practice.

That's why meditation is so useful.

It's where we learn to listen deeply to ourselves.

And we're listening to all of,

Like,

When we first sit,

All of the brokenness of us shows up,

And it's uncomfortable.

And we learn to care for it and let it be there,

And let it have a home in this body that we live in.

And then when we care for ourselves,

Then we're able to listen and care for others.

And we can listen in a way where we're not trying to change people or fix them or fix situations with them.

We're not trying to be a helper,

First and foremost.

I have to reel myself in a lot with that,

Always wanting to be the helper,

First and foremost.

But it has to come from the ground of the practice.

Because if it doesn't,

Then it's just a train wreck.

That's what I found,

Anyway.

So we have to first learn and connect with our own suffering,

Understand our own difficulty.

Because when we can understand it,

Chances are that I'm going to understand yours a little bit better.

Because it's probably a whole lot like mine.

Circumstances are different,

But it's probably a whole lot like mine.

And then the deeper that we can understand our own suffering,

The more compassion we can bring to others.

So it starts with us,

Always.

So this approach of communication is kind of like seeing first our own and learning more.

Like that's essential,

To be able to see and learn more from the person in front of us.

So that we can find a way to speak and listen that's about seeing and learning,

Not about asserting our view as right.

Does that relate?

No one in this room does that,

Right?

So first we start with,

What is this?

What is this?

Even in communication.

Like,

What is going on here?

And then being able to communicate clearly what is going on for us in that moment.

We get to really start to see our habit patterns.

And it's hard to start seeing habit patterns,

But so much of the practice is about seeing them and pivoting and moving away from the habit pattern.

And as we start seeing,

This becomes faster.

We see and we redirect.

We see and we change our ways of meeting things.

But we first have to see.

We have to see the muck that is our mind.

And then once we start to,

Then we start to balance and attune to ourselves and to our suffering.

My teacher,

Gil Franzdal,

Taught me about moving at the speed of harmony.

The speed of harmony.

I really,

Really like to move slowly in my life.

It's like,

It's the best.

When I move really slow.

And when I'm stressed,

I move really slow.

To the annoyance of many people in my life.

And I have an active 12-year-old,

So it doesn't always lend itself to slow movement.

So,

Oftentimes I have to kind of keep up with his pace.

Either on the bike or on skis or driving him to this activity or that activity.

So moving at the speed of harmony doesn't,

It's not in conflict with moving quickly or slowly.

It's like,

Harmony is like being in the flow.

Sometimes,

You know,

The rivers are really high right now and they're moving really fast.

And so if you get down to the river,

You see how quickly the water is moving.

There's still a lot of harmony in that river.

And then when it gets slower,

There's also that ease,

That harmony.

So when we're in harmony with the way things are,

We're naturally more present,

More concentrated.

And whatever the activity,

We can be more grounded.

So whatever may be coming,

It's sort of like,

Oh,

This is what I'm working with now,

Okay?

So for me,

When difficulty happens,

I just,

I tend to slow it all down,

Even though my body wants to race and fix it.

I just like,

Can't respond right now.

I can't respond to this right now.

I often say this a lot in relationship.

I can't respond right now.

It's too much input.

I need time to ask the question,

What is this?

And not look to you to tell me what this is,

But to actually look within and be like,

What is this?

This is old.

This is feeling isolated.

This is feeling alone.

This is feeling whatever it is.

This is my pattern.

Let me see what this is for myself.

Not for you.

This is for myself.

Not in relation.

It may be in relation to you,

But I got to look inward here first.

It always is about us.

It always is about us.

So cultivating attunement in our daily life.

You know,

It,

We do it here formally on the cushion,

In our chairs,

In our practice,

Attuning with our breath,

Attuning with the noise that is our mind,

The stories,

The memories,

The top 10 tunes that are just on repeat,

On repeat.

We attune with it.

We practice quieting the mind,

Collecting ourselves in our body,

Collecting ourselves around the breath,

Letting the stream flow,

And then the mind and the thinking become the background noise,

And the breath and the body and the here and the now with this becomes the foreground.

And then we get up and we leave and we grab a cookie before we go so you don't leave me with all of them.

And then we go into our life and we take what we learned here about attunement,

About,

Okay,

Here's our life.

Can I be like the river?

Can I be like the river?

There's the obstacle.

Can I move around it?

Can we let life flow like a river?

It's the same mind,

The same mind that's sitting here concentrating on the breath is the same mind that leaves the room and goes into our life.

It's the same mind.

You just have to keep accessing that place that's quiet and still and grounded and here with this.

One reference point that people often use for attunement in this practice is asking the question,

How would you like other people to attune to you?

How would you like them to attune to you?

How would you like people to be in harmony with you?

How would you like that?

Because maybe then you can kind of get a sense what attunement's about.

It's not a common word that we use.

And so maybe I'll stop here and we can discover from each other what it means to attune.

Like what is your sense of attunement?

How do you attune?

What is attunement for you?

So thank you for your attention I'll stop recording so that we can explore this together.

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