This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Respectfulness Enoughness Suchness

Wow, this is twisty. Okie dokie. How's the volume? Is it too quiet or is it good? It's good? Okay. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, it might be a little quiet. Maybe also I can check and see on the stage—how well do you hear me up there? Well, okay. Everybody else, thumbs up?

[Laughter]

Yay. Okay. We'll see what happens. We'll demonstrate.

[Laughter]

It's nice to be back. Glad to see you here again. Some of you were here last week, so I look forward to giving my talk again.

If you are on the floor or in the back and want to come forward, feel free to move so I can see you if you wish. There are some seats up here. Nice to be back here. Who was here last week? All right. We get a redo.

Maybe in the spirit of the talk I was giving last week, and will give in maybe a new way tonight, we can look at this idea of allowing the suchness of what happens tonight to become known. Even though you may hear a repeat of some words, I think it'll be a different talk in some ways as well.

I'm going to start by framing that I really care very deeply. It's maybe the primary focus of my practice about how we meet our experience. How are we meeting it? What is arising, and how are we letting it come into contact with us? What are we bringing to that connection? There's a lot that influences that.

The attitude that we bring, the energy that we bring, the receptivity that we bring, the respect that we bring, and the care that we bring impacts deeply what we experience and how we perceive what's arising. The way we attend matters. And really caring attention for me is an act of love. Bringing true care and receptivity into what we're connecting with, I feel like, is an act of love.

The focus tonight is on how the three forces of greed, hatred, and delusion tend to really affect how we relate to things. They're tremendous influences in how we come into contact with what's going on. I'm not going to talk as much about those forces as I am about some alternative approaches to relating. The emphasis is on a verb, using action—to meet experience in a way that is respectful, that treats it as if it's enough, and recognizes the suchness, the uniqueness, and the preciousness of what is present.

We'll start with respectfulness. Being respectful actually supports our capacity—feel into yourself the level of willingness we have to let what we meet matter. The more respect we have, the more likely we are to have what we're encountering matter. Does that feel in alignment with your experience? When we don't have respect, the inverse is going to be true. If we don't have a sense of innate respectfulness for what we're going to come into contact with—maybe because we don't like it, maybe because we judge it or don't value it—we're probably not going to relate to it as if it matters in a way that sees its preciousness, sees its enoughness.

Maria Popova^[1] is a writer. I quite love her writing. She creates this newsletter and does this beautiful collage of collecting other writers' writing, doing a beautiful weave of reflecting on topics. One of her newsletters was about attention. She writes, "The aperture of our attention is constricted by myriad conditionings and focused by a brain honed on a million years of evolutionary necessities, many of which we've long outgrown."

Our attention is very deeply influenced by how we've evolved and what our brains have evolved to believe is important to pay attention to. Given the Buddhist teaching 2,500 or 2,600 years ago, we know that the forces of greed, hatred, and delusion were alive and well and have been a part of our evolutionary history.

Maya Angelou emphasized the importance of opening up the aperture of our attention. Biologically, imperatively, we tend to narrow, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in different ways as I move through. But she wanted us to really recognize and connect with the dignity, belonging, and what it really means to be human. A way of addressing this is that she said, "If we lose love and respect for each other, this is how we finally die."

Maybe literally and maybe figuratively. What happens to our attention, what happens to our interest, when we lose love and respect? Do we attend? Do we carefully show up for what is our life? As we diminish and lose that sense of preciousness for what's around us and respect, what happens to us in our lives and as a species? What happens to us?

I think respect is something that we actually have to help ourselves relearn. Over time, it sort of fades. We get accustomed to things. We're used to things. We become expert in things. We become wise in things. We become an elder in things. There are all these ways that the newness of life gets replaced by familiarity and a sense of personal expertise or knowledge. These are all ways of eroding a sense of respectfulness.

As we do this externally, you can be sure it's already been happening internally. We've already been showing less interest, less respect for parts of ourselves, for parts of our experience. As the lights dim in terms of how we're connecting with others, it's going to be reflected internally. The way we meet others and the way we meet ourselves are intimately linked.

Here's a quote from Iain McGilchrist^[2]. He's a British psychiatrist. He says, "The whole is never the same as the sum of its parts. And there are in fact no parts as such, but that they are an artifact of a certain way of looking at the world." We see others, but it's an artifact that there's "others," and it's all connected to how we are seeing. Notice the way you're seeing others and consider that's how you're seeing yourselves, too.

I have another quote from George Washington Carver^[3]. He was a pretty amazing human and spent his life caring for land and people. He talked about meeting each stage of life with tenderness and compassion, recognizing and seeing each phase as something that is deserving of respect and care. He actually says, "How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong, because someday you will have been all of these."

Just as easily as these things that he listed, we could add a lot of other things to this list. We could add having a mind that is psychotic. We could add things about being able-bodied. We could add things about gender. We could add things about any aspect of our identities, and even about what we think we could succumb to or not.

I've found in my life that the things I think I'm immune to, I'm not immune to. Even if I have built safeguards around myself in some ways, thinking I'm doing all these things so that shouldn't be a problem that comes my way—there's nothing to protect. There are no magic lines that protect anyone from anything befalling us. Anything can happen. We could become anything. There's just such a fine line between wellness and illness, between clear-minded and confused-minded, between being perhaps quite bright and smart and perhaps not. It could happen like this, that things can switch.

Can we treat everything, everyone, and all kinds of conditions with a sense of dignity? How far you go in life depends on your being tender, caring, and compassionate with all these ways that being human manifests. Maybe another way of saying this is that respect begins with understanding that the lines that separate us are thin, and that at any moment things can flip.

This also requires us to appreciate and have gratitude for what we do have, which will support our capacity to feel like there's enough. Interestingly enough, there's this research that says far worse than being shamed and rejected is being ignored. Being dismissed is far worse than being shunned, because at least you're getting acknowledged in some kind of way.

Being respectful is what allows the conditions to be there that are necessary for us to be really seen and heard. When we're seen and heard, our nervous system shifts completely. When we don't feel seen and heard, our nervous system is going to shift into a state of threat, of fear. So, when we can take the space and time to recognize, respect, see, and hear ourselves and others, we are helping bring everyone into a space of mutuality, of belonging.

Suffering is another term for pain. Emotional and physical pain share similar neural pathways. When we are shunned, when we aren't seen, and when we aren't heard, it is painful. So, it feels really good to be seen. We feel okay. And to me, that's good. Feeling okay is really good. Feeling like it's okay to be here and I belong is huge.

From this perspective, it might feel like a stretch, but for me, respect is not just ethical; it's biological. We're affecting the biology of ourselves and those around us. It's relational, it's foundational. It sets the stage for us to see what is enough as enough. For us to shift from a mind filled with greed, a mind wanting more, a mind of comparing—the mind that walks around leading the way as it's thinking about all the projects it can do, and the ways it can perform better at work, or whatever we're doing most often. It leads to a lot of comparison, a lot of evaluation, and that also gets turned inward.

As we compare others, or other ideas or platforms, we are practicing the art of comparison and judging. As we grow that capacity, we are growing it in a non-discriminatory way. It gets exercised internally and externally. Even when we've arrived at that place, at that job, at that position, at that title, at that relationship status, at that family—even when we arrive at what we thought we wanted, there's something more. There's something else needed. It's relentless.

There's a reason for this. You could simply follow the Buddhist teachings and say this is the operating force of greed. And if you're like me, a therapist who likes to look at interpretations or neuropsychological, biological reasons and conditioning, you might consider the brain is not designed to be satisfied. If we were satisfied, what would we do? If we are hunters and gatherers and we're satisfied, are we going to hunt? Are we going to gather? There's no drive in satisfaction to survive. This mind has been finely attuned. Even anxiety has probably been a prominent feature in our survival because it kept us alert, anxious, nervous, and attending, instead of content and calm.

There's also another explanation for how this dynamic gets reinforced and in play, which is what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill, where we get on this quest for what would feel better and better and better. More pleasure, more adventure. What's the next great thing I can do? What's the next great feat or accomplishment or mountain peak?

This really taps into the dopamine reward system in the brain, which is fascinating. When they look at studies and they look at dopamine—this neurochemical that gets released that is a very strong motivation for action—people love and get hooked on dopamine. Dopamine Nation is the name of a book, look it up, it's great. They measure how much dopamine is being released as somebody goes to buy something. They've got this object, and they're coming up and they're going to pay for it and hand their credit card over. The dopamine peaks right before you hand your credit card over. Nasty trick! How many times have you seen people then go, "What else do I need?" [Laughter] Like, before they walk out the door. It's like, okay, we're going to keep you going.

Dopamine is linked to wanting, not to liking. It's wanting. Craving. Dukkha^[4]. The mind in this state, when it's not contented, when things aren't enough, it's: "Not enough. Not yet. Don't stop yet. Not quite right." It's always this leading edge, leading onward. And we believe it. It's very convinced.

In contrast, there's actually another way of being. It's called eudaimonic happiness^[5]. It comes from Aristotle and it means a life of flourishing through virtue and alignment with one's deeper nature. The Buddhist way, really—a life where we're living generosity, non-harming, where we're being kind, getting satisfied and contented by our acts and contributions in the world. Eudaimonic happiness is not about getting more, but about living in alignment.

This means we need to know ourselves well enough to know what alignment is for ourselves. We're not all going to get the same happiness out of the same acts. The same act of generosity is not the same for everyone. This is the model of dana^[6]. Dana is an act of generosity. These teachings are offered by dana. There's no fee. We don't tell you how much to pay. There's no paying. It's: how are you moved? What are you moved to offer, if anything? There's no requirement. Only you can know.

It's so important for you to know what feels right for you to live in alignment, so that when you give, you're giving in a way that brings joy to the heart. It brings a sense of inspiration or care. It can be an act of service in return. It can be a smile, a thank you. There are so many ways to express a sense of gratitude, dana. But we need to know ourselves well enough to know what feels like it's in true alignment with what's possible and available and the right expression for ourselves.

What is enough? When we see things and can live as if things are enough, it really can interrupt the trance of "could be, should be, more, better." That hedonic happiness that's seeking more, that wants more, that isn't content just as soon as we hand over the credit card. Where's the meaning? Where's the purpose?

Living a life of purpose is a life of respect. It's a life of seeing what is enough in the moment. What is enough in what I'm receiving. What is enough in what I'm giving.

And the suchness of things. This one is really, for me, quite profound because it's so easy to not see. There's so much that we don't see because the mind is filtering out what isn't necessary, what isn't a threat. It's happening at such a subconscious level because the brain is getting too much information for us to possibly process consciously all at one time.

I'm noticing I've been leisurely talking here and I think I'm going to have to sum up quickly to give you a chance to ask some questions. I wanted to read another quote that I didn't bring up last week: "Attention is not just another cognitive function. It is the disposition adopted by one's consciousness toward the world—absent, present, detached, engaged, alienated, empathic, broad or narrow, sustained or piecemeal. It therefore has the power to alter whatever it meets. Since our consciousness plays some part in what comes into being, the play of attention can both create and destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged."

How you attend to something, or don't attend to it, matters a very great deal. Another way to say this, which is very different but maybe means the same thing: Everything is beautiful when it's free of greed, hatred, and delusion. Everything can be perceived of as beautiful when it is perceived without the presence of greed, hatred, and delusion.

So much of our perception is being influenced by these forces of greed, hatred, and delusion. Couple this with this automaticity that happens in the brain's narrowing of what we're actually seeing—what we have stopped respecting, what we have stopped seeing as worthy of our attention.

There's a term called adaptive ignorance, where we adapt and become ignorant to things over time. We actually tend to celebrate this because we see it as concentration or focus or being productive. It makes us more efficient in our goal-oriented day-to-day lives, but it also really impacts how much we're actually living and remembering our lives.

There's a book, if you're interested in being challenged in these areas of how we're perceiving, by Alexandra Horowitz^[7] called On Looking: 11 Walks with Expert Eyes. It's a record of her quest to walk around a city block with 11 different experts—from an artist to a geologist to a dog to her infant son—and just really experiencing this block from all of these perspectives, and how unique each perspective was. She says, "Together we became investigators of the ordinary, considering the block, the street, and everything on it as a living being that could be observed. In this way the familiar becomes unfamiliar and the old the new."

I think that's where I'll stop, and open it up and see if anybody has any comments to bring forward, to add to these reflections, or questions that I can respond to.

Q&A

Question: Could you read the Alexandra Horowitz quote again?

Tanya Wiser: Yeah, I'd be happy to. The Alexandra Horowitz quote: "Together we became investigators of the ordinary, considering the block, the street, and everything on it as a living being that could be observed. In this way the familiar becomes unfamiliar and the old the new."

Question: How does delusion fit in with this?

Tanya Wiser: Delusion fits in to me with ignorance or with ignoring. A lot of delusion is like a daydream kind of thing. We just kind of detach from reality. We detach from what is actually here. We get lost in a story, imagination, in what the mind maybe is weaving. The result is not seeing. The result is a lack of clarity and a lack of connection.

The classic way to describe personality types in Buddhism are the greed type, the aversive type, and the deluded type. The greed type goes into the party and they're like, "Did you see this? And did you see that? It was so cool over there!" The aversive type walks into the party and they say, "Oh my god, can you believe they'd use that color? And could you believe that taste with this taste? I mean, come on." And the deluded type is like, "Oh. What? They did what? Oh, I didn't notice that. Who was there?" Like completely disconnected from everything that was going on, kind of in their own worlds. In this way, delusion disconnects us, and so we don't see the suchness. We don't see it.

Question: Thanks for the talk, Tanya. I want to share an observation. In the beginning of the talk, you mentioned the amount of respect that you give something is proportional maybe to how much attention you'll ultimately give it. I agreed with that, and one of my reactions was, "Oh, maybe I should get better at how I respect things, or the list of things I respect, or how to optimize." I started narrowing on narrowing. [Laughter] And I realized after a while, "Oh, a prior teaching of how to be with what is arising is kind of the opposite tendency." Maybe I shouldn't try and pick or get better at what we're paying respect to, and just be with what is arising. There'll be a constant tension, but that's something that came up.

Tanya Wiser: Nice job. [Laughter] Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, it's like a—how do we just care? How do we care?

Question: You gave a great example of greed, delusion, and aversion, and how they would walk into a party. So, for someone that wasn't greedy, deluded, or averse, what would they say when they walked into the party?

Tanya Wiser: That's a great question. I'll cheat a little bit and reference something I talked about last week. After the Buddha awakened and he ran into some people, they asked him who he was. The Buddha introduced himself as the Tathagata^[8], which means "the one who is thus." He didn't give an identity. He didn't give a name. He didn't describe his powers. He just said he's one who's thus. "I'm the suchness." He didn't compare himself, he just simply was this.

Maybe somebody who walked into a party, who is completely free of greed, hatred, and delusion, would be able to just see the full explosion of the suchness of themselves and everything around them. And that it's beyond words.

Maybe in a non-glorified way, you could simply say we walk away not wanting what somebody else has, but happy for what they have. We walk away not judging and being critical, but rather caring. We walk away having taken in everything we can, done that in the best way we can, and knowing that we did. Maybe that would be going to the party. And maybe that's enough.

Thank you all. Have a good night.