Restraint

[disastermouse]

Hey guys,

Restraint is something I struggle with - not so much in my formal zazen practice, but certainly when I'm not sitting zazen.

Zazen is an interesting example of sometimes strong feelings not necessarily needing action or commentary - it's very needed lesson for me. But restraint in the face of strong attachments off the cushion is something I fail at more often then not.

Any advice?

Chet

[Taylor]

Re: Restraint

Gassho,

For me, it's easy to be on the cushion. This is my place of "peace, mindfulness," and the rest of that ridiculousness. It's not like that really though, the cushion is a place of fights, arguments, discussions but only with the phantoms in my mind. So some time, and by that I mean a good portion of the time, I wake up only before the bell rings. What then? Just a smile for my own foolishness, and I get up.

As cliche as it is, a deep breath before speaking or acting always helps. And it's never too late to take one, even in the midst of acting or speaking, even if it may make it look like we're insane for just stopping :P

When I first came here you spoke on not judging our practice. It's one of the kindest pieces of advice I have ever received.

Gassho,
Taylor (Myoken)

[Rich]

Re: Restraint

I'm sorry , I don't have any advice. What I know is just too limited. My most recent unrestrained action closed one door but seems too have opened another. The only thing I can rely on is 'don't know' which is like now.

[Dosho]

Re: Restraint

Chet,

I don't know if this is at all helpful, but what comes to mind is realizing that any benefit we take away from sitting into our "real" lives is going to be piecemeal...excrutiatingly slow...as it should be, since if we try to force it nothing will happen. I do, however, still find myself expecting on a certain level that I can have major breakthroughs, so I can often find myself disappointed. But that's just me...not sure if that applies to your situation at all.

Good to see you back.

Gassho,
Dosho

[Dokan]

Re: Restraint

Hey Chet,

Well, I wonder if this could be based in the fact that restraint is a loss of control, or maybe even freedom? So by having to restrain yourself, you feel maybe you are losing one or both of these?

If so, then maybe the path would be to realize what freedom and control truly are.

Gassho,

Shawn

[Omoi Otoshi]

Re: Restraint

Posted this in another thread:

Suzuki Roshi:
"To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.

The same way works for you yourself as well. If you want to obtain perfect calmness in your zazen, you should not be bothered by the various images you find in your mind. Let them come, and let them go. Then they will be under control. But this policy is not so easy. It sounds easy, but it requires some special effort. How to make this kind of effort is the secret of practice."

"It sounds easy, but it requires some special effort" is true to most advice on this matter... I guess you will have to work on finding som sort of awareness of your thoughts and reactions, so that you can one day say to yourself "wow, that comment made me really angry. I feel like writing a really abrasive post back. No, I think I'll wait a couple of hours and see if it still seems as outrageous or important then, before I post." Thought labelling could be useful for getting to know your mind's inner geography and the nature of your thoughts. I did that when I started meditating. It didn't help with meditation, but it helped me get to know myself and how my mind works a little better. Just don't mix it up with your Shikantaza, since it's a totally different practice, but I don't have to tell you that. Practicing reading and listening without judging and without having an idea of your own to compare it with could be useful too I suppose (for all of us), but that's also very diffucult. Maybe you could just try to set a new standard for yourself when it comes to the low water mark of your responses and thye abrasiveness of your language? You can still be very clear, very straightforward, very honest, but there are different ways to say the same thing and a less hurtful way of saying things might not be less true.

I'm sorry I'm mostly rambling here. Maybe you can find something useful in this post. Otherwise just discard it.

Good luck and thanks for making the effort. Try to see it as very, very good practice!

Gassho,
Pontus

[AlanLa]

Re: Restraint

Chet, I read your post shortly after you posted it, and my first reaction was to say "Take a breath, Chet." But I showed restraint and waited, seriously, because I thought that might just be too cliche or flip or taken in all sorts of ways that might not be as beneficial as it was intended. So I pondered, took a breath, for probably too long, until I have now finally decided that, yeah, that's what I really do want to say.

In a recent thread (I can't remember which one; it was one of those things you get into with Taigu, you know the thread better than I do) you posted and then got some criticism for its bluntness and then you revised it and then you revised it again, or so you said in that thread. Maybe a couple of breaths before the original posting would have prevented all that post editing. In a way it's a lot like a flaming email here... you might want to pause a while and consider all the consequences before hitting submit.

All that being said, there can be a fine line between spontaneity, which I think gets you into lots of trouble, and planned responses that are drained of any emotionality, which I think is an impossibility with you. All that brings me back to taking a breath.

It's not about never saying something wrong or even hurtful. I do that all that time. It's about minimizing those things said that are wrong or that are hurtful without reason. It's about saying things that are interpreted as helpful as much as possible.

You have a lot of great insights, Chet, but they often get lost in your heated rhetoric. The result is we end up spending all sorts of forum time sorting through your rhetoric instead of dealing with the more important issues you point us to. Admittedly, sometimes those things are hard to sort through anyway, but you could make your insights more helpful by making them more restrained, so to speak. What is it that the Buddha did, helpful means? Something like that.

On the one hand zen is about spontaneity, thus being unrestrained, but on the other hand, ultimately, zen is about unrestrained compassion. Take a breath to ask yourself if your posts are compassionate, which is not to say nice or polite, but not so rude or impolite that the zen message gets lost.

Honestly, I am ambivalent about your being back here. On the one hand I welcome your stirring the pot, but on the other I think your lack of restraint often ends up distracting us from the benefits of that stirred pot. I welcome a restrained Chet and am gladdened by your asking this question. I don't doubt your desire on this, but I so dearly want to see more progress, and you are better by far than when you first joined.

Gosh, did I write all that? Only the first paragraph was done with restraint. The rest was pretty spontaneous ramblings (ok, a little editing to restrain any inflammatory or stupid mistakes, as usual).

[disastermouse]

Re: Restraint

Chet, I read your post shortly after you posted it, and my first reaction was to say "Take a breath, Chet." But I showed restraint and waited, seriously, because I thought that might just be too cliche or flip or taken in all sorts of ways that might not be as beneficial as it was intended. So I pondered, took a breath, for probably too long, until I have now finally decided that, yeah, that's what I really do want to say.

In a recent thread (I can't remember which one; it was one of those things you get into with Taigu, you know the thread better than I do) you posted and then got some criticism for its bluntness and then you revised it and then you revised it again, or so you said in that thread. Maybe a couple of breaths before the original posting would have prevented all that post editing. In a way it's a lot like a flaming email here... you might want to pause a while and consider all the consequences before hitting submit.

All that being said, there can be a fine line between spontaneity, which I think gets you into lots of trouble, and planned responses that are drained of any emotionality, which I think is an impossibility with you. All that brings me back to taking a breath.

It's not about never saying something wrong or even hurtful. I do that all that time. It's about minimizing those things said that are wrong or that are hurtful without reason. It's about saying things that are interpreted as helpful as much as possible.

You have a lot of great insights, Chet, but they often get lost in your heated rhetoric. The result is we end up spending all sorts of forum time sorting through your rhetoric instead of dealing with the more important issues you point us to. Admittedly, sometimes those things are hard to sort through anyway, but you could make your insights more helpful by making them more restrained, so to speak. What is it that the Buddha did, helpful means? Something like that.

On the one hand zen is about spontaneity, thus being unrestrained, but on the other hand, ultimately, zen is about unrestrained compassion. Take a breath to ask yourself if your posts are compassionate, which is not to say nice or polite, but not so rude or impolite that the zen message gets lost.

Honestly, I am ambivalent about your being back here. On the one hand I welcome your stirring the pot, but on the other I think your lack of restraint often ends up distracting us from the benefits of that stirred pot. I welcome a restrained Chet and am gladdened by your asking this question. I don't doubt your desire on this, but I so dearly want to see more progress, and you are better by far than when you first joined.

Gosh, did I write all that? Only the first paragraph was done with restraint. The rest was pretty spontaneous ramblings (ok, a little editing to restrain any inflammatory or stupid mistakes, as usual).

Hey Alan,

Yeah, it seems that most of your post was about stressing the need for restraint in my case. I'm pretty aware of that already, I'm just looking for ways to implement it. Probably starting with small stuff first is better. I have very powerful reactions to unpredictable things and I can't figure out how to insert a space into my response when the emotional reaction is very high. It likely looks like I don't care about my effect, but that's really not true. It's not fun to go through high-temper, embarrassing outbursts and then contrition later.

Also, thanks for being patient with my inappropriate outbursts and emotional temper-tantrums. They aren't something I'm proud of or something that I particularly want to continue. They seem so legitimate when I'm in the midst of them, but they look as ridiculous to me as they do to all of you when I look back.

[AlanLa]

Re: Restraint

Yeah, mostly unrestrained unhelpfulness, sorry.

Yeah, it seems that most of your post was about stressing the need for restraint in my case. I'm pretty aware of that already, I'm just looking for ways to implement it. Probably starting with small stuff first is better. I have very powerful reactions to unpredictable things and I can't figure out how to insert a space into my response when the emotional reaction is very high.

A small stuff thing would be to take a breath after that powerful reaction. That's the space you need to insert before your response. How? By taking a breath, which is a pretty small step. How to do that first? That's up to you, but breathing is pretty natural, so pausing to take one might be pretty probable. That mindfulness practice from zazen might help. It's one of those pointless points of practice.

As for myself, I am learning through (pointless) zazen to be more unrestrained, not that you are asking, but it's how I take it from the other point of view.

Hopefully this was more helpful.

[disastermouse]

Re: Restraint

Yeah, mostly unrestrained unhelpfulness, sorry.

Yeah, it seems that most of your post was about stressing the need for restraint in my case. I'm pretty aware of that already, I'm just looking for ways to implement it. Probably starting with small stuff first is better. I have very powerful reactions to unpredictable things and I can't figure out how to insert a space into my response when the emotional reaction is very high.

A small stuff thing would be to take a breath after that powerful reaction. That's the space you need to insert before your response. How? By taking a breath, which is a pretty small step. How to do that first? That's up to you, but breathing is pretty natural, so pausing to take one might be pretty probable. That mindfulness practice from zazen might help. It's one of those pointless points of practice.

As for myself, I am learning through (pointless) zazen to be more unrestrained, not that you are asking, but it's how I take it from the other point of view.

Hopefully this was more helpful.

Both posts were helpful, Alan! I guess what I meant is that inserting that breath before slightly less reaction-inducing situations is maybe the best way to start. When I feel 9/10 reactions, it's harder for me to 'not act'.

*gassho*

Chet

[AlanLa]

Re: Restraint

Hey Chet, here's another idea that might fit in the "spacious meadow for your cow" analogy mentioned above, which I find such a funny image. Anyway, the idea is that if you are 100% reaction then maybe you can channel all that reaction energy in a safer way and maybe even learn from it. Have your word processing program open and when that reaction hits type your response there. Let if fly! Have no restraint at all. "(Damn you Taigu, you &%$#@ *&^%$ etc.)". Then save it as a file. Close that file. Then come back to it the next day, or whenever, as long as you have put some distance between you and that initial reaction. Note the response you have now versus the reaction you had then. What differences are there? What happened to create those differences? Which reaction is more valid? How would people react to each of those reactions? And based on these and other questions you can come up with on your own, choose how you want to respond and then post that response. Does that make sense? You create a safe space, a mindful spacious meadow, if you will, from which to look at how your immediate and later reactions differ, and maybe in that space you can learn to... pause... enough... to show... restraint.

[disastermouse]

Re: Restraint

That's not a bad idea at all, Alan - and it would diminish my outbursts among my sangha.

*gassho*

[Jundo]

Re: Restraint

type ... "(Damn you Taigu, you &%$#@ *&^%$ etc.)". Then save it as a file. Close that file.

That's exactly what I do with Taigu.

Gassho, Jundo


PS - just kidding! :wink:

[AlanLa]

Re: Restraint

Chet, you might still need to insert a breath before going to the word processor. Also, it might be helpful if you frame the issue not as avoiding outbursts but rather as avoiding public outbursts here on the forum. So burst out all you want, but keep them private for a while first until you can evaluate them more carefully for their potential effects.

[disastermouse]

Re: Restraint

Chet, you might still need to insert a breath before going to the word processor. Also, it might be helpful if you frame the issue not as avoiding outbursts but rather as avoiding public outbursts here on the forum. So burst out all you want, but keep them private for a while first until you can evaluate them more carefully for their potential effects.

Thanks for the advice, Alan. Have you had to overcome anything like this in your own life?

Chet