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Mindfulness In Relationships

Introduction

So, good morning everyone. Can you hear me? All right, great. It's nice to see you nodding your heads. And good morning to those of you who are online, watching on YouTube. I appreciate all the ways in which people attend these Sunday morning sittings, and I appreciate all of you being here.

Walking down here today, I reflected a little bit on how special it is to have a group of people arrive together to meditate. To have some kind of shared interest in meditating, perhaps, and an interest in the kind of space, the ambiance, or the mutual support that comes when meditating together in a group. Some people find it hard to meditate alone, and being in a group is really inspiring. Some of you might be here because of the shared values. There might be some kind of values that are shared here that are very different from what you'd find if you go to the mall. You might feel a different set of values operating there.

Some of you are here because you're interested in hearing some teachings, and maybe because there's something important going on for you in your life. You're suffering in some way, or challenged in some way, and you want to address it. You hope that the teachings will somehow touch something that you're struggling or working with. So this is kind of what's in the room here. I'm reflecting on a lot of different things and the many different backgrounds of the people coming here. Maybe some of you bring particular things from your background, and maybe some of you feel particularly safe coming into an environment like this—which is different from many other places. Some people maybe don't feel so safe coming here, looking around and wondering, "Is this okay for me to be here? Maybe it's my first time, or I'm a little different than what I think other people are like." And it's okay.

Many years ago, there was a woman who came, and she was really concerned about coming here. She didn't quite feel like it was okay, and wondered, "Am I on the right track if I'm here?" because so many of the women here have gray hair. Maybe not today, but there are some! [Laughter] In her culture, you didn't let your hair go gray. So that was a big deal for her, just wondering, "Do I have to be like that?"

So, what is here in the room? The question for me in speaking to all of you is, as a Dharma^[1] teacher, I could just read an encyclopedia entry on some Buddhist topic, and there—that's the teaching, you got it. But you're not here just for me to read an encyclopedia entry^[2] on what mindfulness is. There are also things like the way we're attuned to each other. Are we attuned to this? Did the meditation do something with the attunement that we share, the quiet, the peacefulness? What's here? You've sat, being mindful, for a period of time. So what is the connection that you feel now to the room and the people, that is different than when you came in here? And maybe some of you have never been in this community before—has it changed at all?

When I teach on YouTube, I usually have the screen in front of me. It made such a big difference for me when I started teaching on YouTube. At first, before the pandemic, I would have said, "No way, that can't be done." But it immediately changed because there were all these chats. Not everyone chats, but there was a representation in those chats, and they were so friendly and so appreciative. Something was conveyed of a connection to people through those chats that made them come alive for me. There was much more than just providing information; there was an exchange, a feeling of a community and a connection. Maybe some of you watching on YouTube today are already chatting with each other, or you will be, saying hello.

To be attuned: what is here? What are you here for, in all the different ways? I'm sure some of you have heavy things on your hearts. Some of you have incurable diseases. Some people have recent losses and griefs. Some of you are really troubled by current events of different kinds. The anti-Semitism in this country that's seemingly growing. The racism in this country, which is maybe not growing but becoming more public and prominent to see. The violence that's becoming stronger and stronger, seemingly. The mass shootings of Black people and LGBTQ people in Colorado Springs, Black people in Buffalo, New York, and in synagogues.

So, is this in the room at all? Is this in the background, or did you come here for a respite from all that? Did you not want to have these things named here, because finally, this is a place where we don't do that, and we can put it all down? How do I, as a Dharma teacher, take all this into account? Should I take it into account, or should I just read this encyclopedia entry on mindfulness, close the book, and we can go home? There is much more going on here than just the bare teaching; there's a connection that we have.

Part of that connection for me is that I'm conveying something that I find incredibly valuable, and I'm delighted and grateful that I have this opportunity to share it with a group of people. I'd like to support you. I value you and feel like I don't take it for granted that you've chosen to come here. You're doing this practice, so I think it's quite a beautiful thing you're doing, and I have a lot of respect for what brought you here in all the different ways. So, thank you, and I hope that what I do today here will have some bearing.

Non-Reactive Awareness and Attunement

What I want to do today is partly inspired by taking this time at the beginning to establish, or to explain, or to say all this. And that is: what does it mean to be mindful, to practice mindfulness, in our relationship with other people? Is mindfulness enough? Is it enough just to show up and be with people mindfully?

The answer to that depends a lot on what you mean by mindfulness—what you think it is. Lately, I've been thinking the heart of mindfulness practice is non-reactive awareness. We might react, but the awareness itself is not caught in our own reactivity. We can bring a kind of attention that is not being influenced by our reactivity. We can bring a kind of presence, an attention, to whatever is happening to ourselves—the challenges we have internally and externally—where we can be present and see it clearly. But the seeing is non-reactive; the seeing stays clear, balanced, maybe centered, and available to see clearly and say, "This is what's happening."

If that is one definition of mindfulness—non-reactive awareness—some people get the idea and impression that that's enough. It's enough just to be mindful, but it's a little bit passive, this non-reactive awareness. Is it enough just to be passively aware, non-reactively, and look at someone and be silent? Just being mindful with you?

Once, many years ago—maybe when I was more foolish as a teacher—I wanted to give people an experience. I was teaching a weekend on mindful speaking, and I wanted to give them the experience of what it's like with all the different communication that goes on between us that is not words. So I asked them to go into dyads. One person was to talk about something really important in their life, and the other person was to just listen and look, without any expressions on their face, without any nodding. Just kind of be fully present, but not nodding or reacting to anything. You could imagine how that went! [Laughter] It felt pretty strange. The group got a very clear sense very quickly that there's much more going on in being present than just being non-reactively aware. There are other factors happening in it.

What are those other things that are useful, that are important? One of the things is attunement—to be attuned to the other person. Attunement means that we have a sense, an understanding, of who the person is, what's going on with the individual or the group that we're with. How do we become attuned? How do we have a bigger sense, a richer sense of who this person is and what they're saying, what they're feeling, what they're expressing, what they're hoping for, what their life is about? We do this so that they feel seen, not just heard. Not just seen with this non-reactive awareness where we don't nod, but so they really feel like we're with them in some ways.

That takes a little bit of time. Being willing to learn about them, find out about them, take time to take them in and understand how they are. Maybe, if you're just meeting someone, it's their posture, or maybe their emotional tone, or maybe their demeanor that we take in and really feel connected to, to somehow attune to what's happening here with this person.

Many years ago, I had an experience that was a little turning point in my social life and in caring and being attentive to people. I was working at a restaurant, and I was in the changing room. There was a changing of shifts, and I was getting ready to leave. A friend of mine walked in, and I just blurted out something very quick and fun, maybe an offhand remark that I think was innocent and fine in and of itself. It was a way of making a connection. But what I hadn't done is taken the time to attune myself, to know and recognize what was going on for my friend—where they were at. Because I was so spontaneous as soon as I saw my friend, I missed that another friend of his had just died. He was coming to work carrying that with him, and I had missed that. In some ways, I caused distress and harm because I hadn't taken the time to get attuned, to understand and see. I probably could have picked it up quickly if I had just taken two seconds to wonder what was going on here for this person.

To be attuned with someone means having an interest in the person. One of the things I think that is really helpful for a proper attunement is to respect others. To respect their value, their importance. To respect their humanity. To really be attuned, to pay attention, to listen, to learn. "I want to find out who this person is with respect. You're important. Respect means you're valuable; I see you as being important enough to get to know."

How many times do we not do that, just like me with my friend, blurting things out? I've been in situations where I was caught up in some concern and I just really wanted to get my latest opinion out, not really finding out whether the person wanted my opinion about something or wanted to hear a five-minute story about something that had happened to me that day. I've talked to people sometimes, just caught up in my own thing, and then eventually, halfway through, noticed the person's eyes had glazed over. "Uh-oh. Why didn't I notice this earlier? Did they just glaze over, or how long were they glazed over?" To talk as if the other person is not there.

I've been on the receiving end of this where people have talked to me—not a lot, but a few times over the many years. I kind of felt they must be high on something! [Laughter] I don't think they were on any drugs, but they were so intense. I could have waved my hand in front of their eyes and they wouldn't have seen me. Their eyes were locked into their concern, and it was a little bit—I don't know if 'possessed' is the right word—but really in their thing with such an intensity that I kind of felt like I didn't exist in listening to them.

So, to be attuned, to be interested in being attuned. Mindfulness in relationship to other people, I'd propose, is more than non-reactive awareness. It's an awareness that searches for an attunement. What is here? What's going on here? And that's also true for ourselves. The non-reactive awareness that we bring to ourselves is also an awareness that's doing something deeper than just matter-of-factly seeing things as they are. It's a vehicle for a deeper attunement to ourselves, to get to know ourselves in a deeper and fuller way.

Caring for the Connection

With attunement, there's also the connection, the rapport that we have with someone. What is that connection? What is going on between us? Is there friendliness? Is there resistance? Is there hostility? Is there disinterest? Why does this person keep looking at the door, not looking at me? There's something going on here. What's happening here in the connection?

I would like to suggest that when we bring mindfulness practice—if we really want to be mindful and get the most out of it—it means we're also being attuned to how we're connected and being careful with that. Perhaps being conscientious about a connection which is healthy, that is nourishing, that's supportive, that helps us feel more connected to each other rather than more separate.

One of the reflections that I often do during and also after being with someone is: "Did what I say, and how we were together, make me feel more connected with them, or do I feel more disconnected?" I've said things, certainly, where at the moment or sometimes afterwards, I could feel that the person kind of pulled back a little bit, or shut down a little bit, or that it made everyone quiet. And so there was a disconnect. For example, some emotional expressions like anger will sever a connection. Some people have been angry very quickly on short notice, and the connection to someone has been severed for decades. It doesn't take much sometimes for a really dramatic severing of connections to happen.

You can feel: is that what you want? Do you want to cut people off or pull back, or do you want to create a possibility for deeper connection? What's of value? What's important to you? In your attunement to it all, do you recognize in yourself that you're afraid? What happens if your anxiety is there in the relationship, and maybe there's good reason for it? How do you then establish connection, or how do you care for that connection with your anxiety? Do you tell someone, "You know, I feel anxious right now, but I still want to go for a walk with you and maybe we'll just talk. Just know that I feel anxious, that's how I am." Or do you somehow adjust the situation so you can feel more at ease with your anxiety? Maybe it's better if you go for a walk. Maybe it's better if you say, "Let's go get some tea," just something to break it up, because it seems a little bit too intense otherwise. Just having a cup of tea between you—that can be a great protection. You don't have to be completely connected, because you're drinking.

This is a little private thing I'll tell you. I don't know how far I want to go [Laughter] on YouTube, the world is... So, I teach retreats a lot, and I love teaching these retreats. They're wonderful. But the most difficult part of the retreat for me is when it's finally over. We're in this big room at our retreat center, and we're sitting in a circle, and it's finally over. Everyone gets up and they can talk to each other and everything. That's the hardest part for me because, for good reasons, people feel grateful or feel like they've really shared something deep during the retreat. I'm the teacher for the retreat, kind of the point person for what happened, maybe. So people come up to me, and they have important things they want to say. They say it with all this week-long retreat energy, and I have a little bit more value in that context than just someone they met at the mall.

If we're standing, I feel like I have to offer a lot of attention, to really be there and receive them and acknowledge it. That's fine in and of itself, but there's a series of people like that. So at the end, I'm exhausted. That's the most tiring part of the whole retreat. What I've learned to do with the closing circle is I sit in a chair. Everyone gets up and talks, but I don't leave the chair. By not leaving the chair, there's a very different way that people relate, or what they expect from me. If I'm sitting in a chair and they come up to me, they kind of don't expect me to be fully, intensely there. I can be casually there from sitting in a chair. It works really well for me. I appreciate talking to them, it's nice, and I can be there, and it's somehow easier. The whole thing is more relaxed.

So here's a connection that didn't work for me, I recognized it, and I found another way to be with people in a way that worked. What is the connection? How do we establish the connection? What are we doing with that connection? Are we losing connection? Are we severing connection? Are we healing connection? Are we making connection? Are we finding a way to be together that's nice? That's all part of the art of being mindful in relationship.

What Else is Present Here?

Attunement, connection. And then there's also a connection where we connect to something that's other, different than just who we are together as a group or individually one-on-one. What else is here? For example, here at the IMC^[3] today, we're not just meeting at the cafeteria at the mall to talk. We're here at a meditation center after having meditated together as a group. There's something about this room with a high ceiling that calls people to meditate. We've been here for 20 years. Before those 20 years, there was almost 40 years where there were Christians here, because this was a Christian church. They were Christian Mystics, and they sat in silence here in this room. Part of the reason they wanted us to have this church was because we sat in silence; they wanted to have that continue.

So we have this history of the place. There's something here that we're sitting in. There's the Dharma, we have the Buddha statue. So what do these Dharma symbols^[4] mean for you? What are the associations, the values, the background? Some of you might have been born into a Buddhist family, and so there's a deep family connection, a family history and associations with being here and with Buddhism. For some people, it's other things that you associate with it, that maybe even touch onto the sacred. Coming to a place like this, perhaps you feel and sense something spiritual here. What's going on here?

That's part of this picture too. What else is going on when you're mindful of being with another person, mindful of being with a group of people? Is there an ambiance? Is there an environment? Is there a wider kind of association or feeling of what's here, and how do we take that into account? How do we care for that?

This question, "What is present?" is one way of stating the core question of mindfulness. What is present here? If you ask the question "What is present here?" opening yourself up to discover something, taking the time to feel and sense—if you only ask the question once, you probably only get one answer. If you ask the question twelve times, you'll get twelve different answers. There's so much here in any situation. Not that you have to ask this all the time, but mindfulness is also entering into situations available, ready to let yourself be informed. A kind of way of paying attention where you're available to feel, discover, and learn what else is here in the fullness of things, which you can't do if you're completely preoccupied with your own concerns. There's a dropping of self-concern enough that you can ask, "What is present here?"

Everything I'm talking about regarding how to do this with other people is something we do to ourselves as well. What is present here in me? If you're caught up in thoughts of self-concern—me, myself, and mine—ruminating about something about yourself, it's difficult to have this kind of "What is present here?" question. What's really here to be attuned to yourself to discover? It's the same thing: if you ask yourself those 12 questions in meditation, you might get 12 different answers, but you might be living in only one of them. What happens if you keep opening up? What else is here?

One way that people in the wider world, outside the Buddhist insight world, refer to what I'm talking about here is not "mindfulness"; they use the word "presence." Practicing presence. Practicing presence to the present moment. Practicing presence means being mindful, but you're being mindful with more than just the cognitive mind that knows. You're being present with all your faculties: in your body, hearing, listening, smelling, feeling, emoting, the resonance—all the ways in which we resonate and feel what's going on. Presence means so much more than just non-reactive awareness, I think. It puts fullness into what non-reactive awareness might be.

What's fascinating for me about this word "presence" is that it can be something we do, but it's also asking, "What's the presence here?" Some people say what's present here is many things. There's a presence here of calm. There's a presence here of attentiveness. There's a presence here of certain values. Many people, when they come into a Buddhist community, have a heightened value of kindness, friendliness, compassion. What's the presence of a kind community, or the presence of a space where there's an openness, attentiveness, and awareness?

In some circles, non-Buddhist circles, people are also practicing mindfulness, but they call it the presence of God, or the presence of the Divine, or the presence of the sacred. Or in Buddhism, people might say the presence of emptiness, or the presence of compassion. What is it? Is there something here? Some of you might prefer not to use this language, this way of talking, but if you want to understand a little bit how our practice of mindfulness overlaps with so many different practices in other religions and other ways, you need to appreciate that they have other language than we have, and one of them is presence.

So when you show up, what's the presence you bring? Not just what awareness do you bring, but what more do you bring to the table, to the situation? Sometimes I go home and I bring exhaustion after a seven-day retreat. After that closing circle, I bring exhaustion. Sometimes I can come home from retreat and bring in a lot of calmness; I feel very quiet. Sometimes I bring all kinds of different things home. Sometimes I bring grumpiness home. What kind of presence do we bring into a situation, and how do we bring awareness to how we are and what we're bringing to it? We hold it with this non-reactive awareness.

The bottom line for mindfulness practitioners, I would suggest, is that the first approach is to really learn well what non-reactive awareness is. That's really key to everything else. Without non-reactive awareness, self-awareness can be bad news for a few of us! [Laughter] People discover all kinds of things about themselves which you don't necessarily want projected onto the walls for everyone to see what's going on in your mind. Or when we're grumpy or something, it's like, "Oh no, not again." Or other people are being grumpy, and you feel like, "Last time I was with this person they were grumpy, and I think I'm going to recede into the background or shut down a little bit because this is too much for me."

What I'm trying to get across is if we can learn to practice non-reactive awareness, if that can be the foundation, the fundamental thing we're doing, then all the other things we pay attention to are a little bit safer, a little bit wiser. It works better, because then we don't get caught in our reactivity in the way that we're present and aware. So I might be grumpy, but I'm not then afraid or angry with myself, or self-conscious or embarrassed. "Oh, I'm just grumpy. That's how it is now." It's very different than if I'm embarrassed or upset with myself.

The same thing with other people. Occasionally people in the world don't behave very well, and it might happen. If we can have non-reactive awareness of it, then maybe there's a whole different way in which the situation could unfold. What if the person is misbehaving, and you ask, "What else is present here? What can I be attuned to in this person?" This person is certainly angry, but as I take the time to attune myself to the person, I see the person is also very afraid. That seems to be the background for this anger. Is there fear and insecurity? Does that make a difference in how you relate to them, and how you connect then because of it? So this non-reactive awareness is the foundation.

But non-reactive awareness maybe is not enough. The fullness of mindfulness practice has all these different dimensions to it that do involve intentionality of some kind, some sense of purpose. Let's practice non-reactive awareness to become better attuned, better connected, better aware of the context, the atmosphere, and what else is present here. Let's enter into this world more fully so that we can be wise and caring for this world in a way that we can't if we are not really aware, attuned, connected, and respectful of everyone.

At the end of retreats, people often ask, "This mindfulness is fine, but how do I bring it into my life?" And some of you maybe got more than you wanted today! "Wow, that's a lot of work. That's a lot to do." So maybe we can take a couple of minutes. If some of you have a comment or a question you'd like to make about any of this, we have a few minutes here.

[Laughter] A little bit like a rock star. Thank you.

Q&A

Question: Hi, thank you so much. With the non-reactive awareness and just being aware of sort of where other people are at and where you're at—I've had situations, and I've heard a lot of teachers say the way people behave towards you has more to do with them than you. I try to bring that into my awareness, but sometimes if there's so much of someone's anger coming towards you... I can't always be present with that and work with it. It's very upsetting in relationships because I feel like there have been situations where I didn't feel like I did anything, but I'm bringing up something in someone else and then it just wasn't savable, even with the awareness of what's going on in that other person. In that situation, I can only work with my reactions to it, and it can be very painful.

Gil Fronsdal: Yeah. It's a huge topic, but what you raised has so many variables, so many different ways that this plays itself out, so I'll say a few words. One is that there is something to be said about being prepared for those events. Not to kind of just show up and think you're supposed to take care of it then and there. If it's a regular thing, prepare yourself. One of the ways is to meditate—not necessarily just before the event, but just a regular practice, because it gives you the presence of mind, the calmness, the attentiveness so that you're not excessively reactive when someone's angry with you. Then you can be calm enough to find your bearings and know what you should do.

The other is in preparing, if it's someone you know well and this happens regularly enough, wait for a time when it's not happening and everything is cool and nice, and say, "Can we have a little conversation? It would be helpful for me. I get really afraid or challenged when you're angry, and it's probably going to happen again. Could we have some understanding of how we navigate that next time it happens? Like, can I just raise my hand and wait to pause and breathe deeply for three breaths? Would that be okay with you?" See if you can make some kind of arrangement ahead of time. It might work, might not.

And sometimes in certain circumstances it's helpful to let people know the impact their anger has on you. There are some people where, if you tell them, "Boy, I feel really afraid right now," they are surprised by that, and it kind of changes the context. They think, "Well, what do I do now with my anger if they're afraid? Do I just keep going, or hold back?" So for some people, that's a powerful thing to say. "Boy, I'm really afraid right now." And then it might change the context of the conversation.

It happened here in this building for me once, where we were doing renovation on the building and there was a lot of noise. One of the neighbors, who had a tendency to complain about any noise that came out of this building—I mean, imagine this, what do we do here? But occasionally there's noise coming out. There was renovation work, and the person came over and was furious. I was the recipient of this fury, and I just stood there receiving all this fury. It was quite something. The person finally paused, and I said this: "You know, I feel really afraid right now." The person immediately calmed down. It was dramatic. I don't think the person wanted to have that impact, and realizing how big the impact had been, they backed down dramatically from it, and the whole thing kind of de-escalated.

I don't know, that doesn't always work, but it's a whole art. I don't want to suggest it's a simple and easy thing to do. And sometimes, in certain situations, the best thing to do is get out of there. Stand behind someone else! [Laughter] It's so many different scenarios where this plays out. But the study of preparing yourself, developing capacity for mindfulness and calm awareness, gives you the best chance to figure out what to do. Thank you.

Maybe one more, all the way in the back. If you don't mind taking the microphone there, and then we'll stop here.

Question: Well, I noticed in myself that I became reactive when I heard that this was being broadcast on YouTube. And I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on how we can mindfully relate with YouTube and social media, because YouTube... the politics, the economics, the capitalism... there are so many problems with YouTube and social media and all these things. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that.

Gil Fronsdal: Yeah, that's a big topic, and I think it's reasonable to have your concern. I wish I was as well-informed maybe as you are about how all this works. I'm remiss in not being fully educated about the impact and how it all works. But what I understand is that we're using the social media, or YouTube, for a greater good. We're taking something and we're putting a positive spin on it, so it's being used in a good, healthy way. One piece of evidence that maybe it's a healthy place on YouTube was that at some point someone joined us for the first time and they put in the chat: "This is the friendliest place I've ever seen on YouTube." And so, I don't know if that's true—I'm not on YouTube otherwise—but I'm hoping that the goodness of what we're doing here is doing greater good for the world than harm. Okay, thank you.

Conclusion

So, there's tea now. Let's just say hello to each other. Some of you are here for the first time or are new. What I'd like to ask you, if you're willing—and you don't have to—but if you could just turn to someone next to you and say hello. Even if it's your first time here, welcome them. Welcome each other. And if you want to say a little bit more, you can say if there was anything about this talk that was useful for you to hear, or interesting that you want to think about more. It can just be two minutes or so, if you'd like, just to be friendly. And then for those of you who want to stay, we'll have tea time outside. We can take off the masks outside, and there are blue skies, so it should be good for a little while. Thank you.