So last week we were exploring spiritual friendship and one teacher who really emphasizes the importance of spiritual friendship and community is the teacher Thich Nhat Hanh who once said that the next Buddha will be the Sangha,
The next Buddha will be the community and so perhaps it's time for us to wake up as a community as much as it is for us to wake up individually.
If the next Buddha to come along will be all of us together then we support each other to wake up together.
We're all kind of heading in the same direction.
I think because meditation is somewhat individualistic it can be easy to just close your eyes and go internal and to kind of stay alone but part of the function of our meditation practice is to calm down enough so that we can actually discover in some way and the way in which we're connected to each other.
When we realize our connection to each other,
When we start to feel it,
Then there are ways in which there's a nourishment that happens in community and I think we've experienced that to some extent in this support of each other in the Zoom group.
So as we all know relationships,
All of our relationships take effort and that's what I'd like to explore with you this week,
Effort.
It's said that the Buddha gave something like 60,
000 different types of meditation or strategies to waking up and this was with the understanding that one type of practice doesn't fit everybody but in all of these different ways the one element that all of them included was effort,
Wise effort and I'm going to swing out a little bit here and suggest that effort has something to do with the cultivation of belonging.
A sense of belonging is one of humanity's basic needs.
To have a sense of belonging is so important.
We're members of our families and of different sporting teams or hobbies or spiritual groups and political parties and we're members of our towns and our country.
Some of you know the teacher,
She's a researcher and teacher,
Brene Brown.
This is what she has to say about belonging.
Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us.
Because this yearning is so primal we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging but often barriers to it.
Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic imperfect selves to the world.
Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.
Our sense of belonging can never be greater than the level of our self-acceptance.
So in the truest sense belonging is belonging to ourselves.
And for some of us this is not easy work you know.
Ongoingly you know it's an ongoing process of accepting ourselves,
Belonging to ourselves.
And the most crucial ingredient to this is effort.
It takes effort.
We have to be willing to see and to feel and to some way you know in some way be able to bear the ways in which we don't experience belonging in our body.
It can be really uncomfortable to sit with the ways in which we don't experience belonging.
It can bring tears sometimes.
It can have us shrink and feel small.
Go inward and get silent.
But when we can bring a sense of belonging or at least care to these fractured parts of ourselves.
Caring about these wounded places.
Just a little bit of care.
Then it's as Brene Brown points out,
True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are.
It requires you to be who you are.
And so we allow ourselves to be who we are.
And just to say that you know in my own experience of belonging I really I really see this in new relationships.
You know I I tend to want to put my best foot forward.
And I find myself quite unconsciously building up a sense of self.
Where I want the other person to like me and some part of me is kind of looking for validation.
So I'm building this sense of what I want like how I want to be perceived.
And usually I don't see it until a few minutes later or maybe a few hours later.
And you know my first response is kind of being mortified by it.
Because I see that I'm trying so hard to get approval of somebody that is not me.
And so that first it's like the first arrow like yuck.
Pushing that away.
But then the practice is to fold it in.
Like wow you know oh gosh that conditioning to belong and be accepted is so strong.
And then just to sort of be kind to myself.
Allow like okay this is really old and I just need to let it be.
Care for it.
For many many people our effort in relationship is often kind of controlling.
It's tense and it's tight.
And we move in a way where we're trying to prove ourselves or prove our worth or get approval.
Trying to prove our value.
Trying to please our friends or please our family or meet everybody's needs.
So what happens is we present what we want them to see and we're not really able to to mobilize our authentic self.
We actually kind of disassociate and cut ourselves off and see our separateness.
I think that's hmm that's what I've observed in myself and I've observed with others.
So this story that I'm going to share it actually is the way in.
There's a story this this man went to therapy.
He went to a therapist and said you know my spouse is always angry and it's so difficult to live with my spouse.
And we tried to deal with this but I think we need some help here.
And so the therapist said well have you ever tried listening to your spouse?
And the man said well no.
So the therapist suggested that he go home and listen.
And so when he came back he said to the therapist like I've been listening but it doesn't seem to change anything.
So then the therapist said well okay I'm glad you're listening.
Now go back home and listen to what's behind the words that your house your spouse is speaking.
Where are the words coming from?
So the man went back and spent another week listening and listening with the intent on listening for what was behind the words.
And he came back to the therapist and he said that made all the difference.
And there's actually peace now in the home because he realized that when his spouse was angry like when his spouse was expressing anger for him he felt attacked and kind of assumed the position of attacking back.
And that would generally lead to an argument.
So this was his way of protecting himself.
But when he listened for what was behind the words what he realized was his spouse was afraid.
And when he realized there was fear there and he asked if they could talk about it that changed everything.
And they had a whole different conversation.
So what this illustrates the story illustrates is to learn to listen to ourselves in this way.
What's behind the words that we're speaking relationally with others?
What's behind the words?
So now it's our turn your turn to to kind of look at the effort or the lack of effort that you express in relationship.
The effort you know that we express in community or not.
And as we explore this the encouragement is to to explore it dharmically.
And that as we look at how we express effort or we don't put forward effort.
You know we we enter it from the standpoint of learning with curiosity and self-compassion.
So with the time that we have left I'll turn it over to you and I thank you for your kind attention.
I appreciate it.
