In each of these stories, it occurs to me that the largest obstacle that each individual encounters to establishing, recognizing, or enforcing boundaries is compassion, or at least the attempt to behave in a way that they define as compassionate. It’s made me consider how having good, healthy boundaries can be consistent with behavior that is compassionate and healthy.

Although I think the intricacies of this subject will be revealing themselves to me for some time to come, I have had a few insights.

I think that one of the largest sources of confusion, and the most likely reason for making bad choices around boundaries, is confusing being compassionate with being nice. Being “nice” is making decisions about your actions based on making someone happy in the moment. Being nice is great. It’s why we hold the door for someone, add a little extra to your tip, give up your seat on the bus, express your thanks. There’s a reason they are called “social niceties”. They are the small gestures that create goodwill and lubricate our social interactions. It is important, however, to make a distinction between the circumstances in which it is appropriate to smooth the path you cross with a gesture, and those in which it is important to make decisions that feed and support a more complex relationship.

The problem with basing decisions about your behavior on making someone happy in the moment is that it is not always the most compassionate, or the wisest action for the long term. Making children happy by feeding them nothing by macaroni and cheese and ice cream may create short term happiness. It may even make you feel good because they will be thrilled that they are able to get what they want and seem to be filled with joy and affection for you. But in the long term, they are going to suffer. They will fail to thrive appropriately, have low energy, become ill, and fail to function well in social and educational environments. It may break your heart in the moment to have to say “no” to a child, but as an adult, you know that setting up those boundaries is creating standards for health and behavior that are to everyone’s benefit.

This is a simplistic example for the exploration of boundaries and compassion. Most circumstances are not so straightforward. If they were, we wouldn’t be talking about it. Many factors enter in to our personal and professional interactions: other’s expectations, our own fears, concepts of professionalism, social mores, and the complex relationships people have with power, money, sexuality, and healing being only some of them. All these contribute to making boundary issues tricky, even impossibly confusing.

The thing that can help cut through the layers of complexity and confusion when dealing with issues of boundaries is that compassion is not always about making someone happy in the moment. That includes you. But it is important that it is also about caring about the well-being of those involved, without feeding into the dramatic story line that is unfolding, and that includes you as well.

Fences keep horses safe in their pasture, as well as out of the neighbor’s fields. The healthiest boundaries are those that protect the well being of all parties, even if they seem like a whole lot of NO FUN. Unraveling what, in fact, is the healthiest, most compassionate action can seem muddy on the surface when everyone’s narrative is trying to take center stage. Being quiet enough to go below all the noise, and fear, and self-absorption, including our own, is where we can find the path of wisdom.

The repercussions of this story have been echoing inside my head for the remainder of the morning. Every time I think of it, I find more layers and greater nuance.

Just off the top of my head, the wisdom that unfolded behind this story included the following:

• The bad behavior of others is not an excuse for bad behavior on your part.
• When you do the right thing, it makes things better for everyone.
• Even though someone else’s actions hinder your ability to see things clearly and function at your best, your actions can make it easier for others to see their way, and that’s a good thing.
• There’s no separation between us. When you take the needs of others to heart and action, it creates a little clarity and calm and eventually it comes around to you. This happens in the present, but may have even greater ramifications as it ripples through time.
• It’s not all about you.

I know that this is only the beginning of the ripples that this story will make in my consciousness, and in my behavior. I would love for others to share their reactions and responses. What did it mean to you, and how might it play out in your behavior?

Happy Birthday Dr. King.

Why does this day have so much more power to generate the desire to make ourselves better, our house cleaner, our time better spent? The first day of spring would serve as well, would it not? Those who celebrate the Celtic holidays find Imbolc (or however you choose to spell it), temporally congruent with Groundhog Day, to be the day to set new patterns for future behavior; I know someone who always cleans the hell out of her house that day.

There is, I think, a congruence of circumstances. The first, and perhaps most important, is the power of the numbers. The division of time into chunks that have distinct labels allows them to be handled as discrete units. This division means we can both literally and figuratively place our history for that chunk of time into folders, file them, and shut the drawer. The fact that this comes at the end of a period of frivolity and excess of eating, drinking and spending means that the pendulum naturally swings the other way and there is a tendency toward restraint and discipline, whether that means spending less money or dedicating our time more productively, whatever that means for you.

As much as I resist this artificial distinction of one particular day, January first is an imaginary line that our culture has chosen to draw. Ignoring the predominant mindset that I can hardly ignore, and bucking a cultural trend that is essentially worldwide (New Year’s Day is a very big holiday in Japan, for example) seems just contrary and obstinate. When in Rome (or New York, or Auckland)…

It seems it would take more effort to resist the trend than it would take to make good use of it. So, in the spirit of going with the flow, I will clean my floors, do some work, be kinder to others, and avoid sweets in attempt to set a trend of behavior for the next twelve months. What have I got to lose?

So I started in the most straight-forward, logical place: the dictionary. I checked three dictionary sources: Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, and Oxford, and each had a variation of the definition that I found interesting. Of course, they all had things in common, and the overtly religious definitions were not applicable, but they all had nuances that I found interesting for contemplation.

Dictionary.com’s entries included, “Reverently dedicated to some person, purpose, or object a morning hour sacred to study; and “Regarded with reverence: the sacred memory of a dead hero.”

Merriam-Webster had an even more nuanced approached, with definitions that included: “Worthy of religious veneration; entitled to reverence and respect; and  unassailable, inviolable, highly valued and important, a sacred responsibility.

The addition to this list that Oxford provided was “Regarded as too valuable to be interfered with; sacrosanct.”

I decided that, to a greater or lesser extent, all these things were true and applicable to my experience. It is important for me to recognize and remember that any place I do my work, office, classroom, or living room, is, in that moment a place that I need to dedicate to that purpose, and that it is, in that moment, always and constantly worthy of regard and reverence.

Recognizing the sacredness of that time together is an important thing for me to do regularly and constantly, before, during, and after a session. It is a gift that I have been given, and the experience of each individual needs to be seen as an act that has deep and profound value for both the receiver and the provider, neither one at the expense of the other. It is a holy union of a sort, one which needs to be allowed to unfold in its own way.

My responsibility is to facilitate it with expertise and respect, meeting each individual in their sacred space; my struggle is to discover and acknowledge it as it arises.

I am open to suggestions for things I could do to help remind myself. Comment below…

I found this somewhat inspiring. As a result, my goal is more posts. Some will be long and thoughtful, and some with be quick bits of insight, humor, self-discovery, or information that catches my attention.

In the meantime, I’d like to get those blogger posts over here to this blog in a way that is not stupid and time consuming. If you have any knowledge about how I might do this, please let me know.

In my previous posts on not killing and not taking what is not given, the precepts, which seem on the surface to have simple, straight-forward meanings and interpretations become more interesting and challenging when we allow ourselves to sink into their nuances. There is the version of each of these that is the sort of thing we teach children. “It’s not okay to hit.” “Don’t take things that don’t belong to you.” “Don’t tell me things that you know are not true.” And then there is the real life, grown-up applications. The grown up world is much more complex and layered and it is in these layers that the precepts become more useful.

Lying is a cooperative act. A lie’s power only emerges when someone agrees to believe it. On some level we are complicit in being fooled, and the balance between being open and trusting versus being vulnerable is a careful balancing act. When going to see someone perform stage magic, you even pay to believe someone’s lies. You may be lied to anywhere from 10 to 200 times a day, but how many more do you lie to yourself and how willing are you to believe them?

The subtlety of the lies, half-truths, and justifications that we use to deceive ourselves is such that without regular and consistent self-reflection, we will willingly and consistently continue to do so, only half-aware of our self-deception.

The aware half is the part that is conscious enough to make us recognize our deception, and this results in further lies to justify the ones we’ve already made, or, if we are aware enough, a guilty misery. This misery creates a great deal of suffering as we perceive this behavior as evidence of being of a flawed character and a less than ideal person, diminishing our self-respect and creating a layer of self recrimination and loathing that creates a dirty lens through which we see ourselves.

But do we not lie to ourselves in order to avoid suffering? The lies we use to justify our behavior only delude us. They create a layer of insulation from our suffering, pain, and sadness; they do not eliminate them. In the process, as we have seen, we actually cause ourselves more pain.

This is the most difficult and yet profoundly important application of the precept against lying. This is where the rubber meets the road and where we can begin to eliminate distress by eliminating lying at the root, at self-deception. It is important to note that the precept instructs us to be not only truthful, but to do so with discretion and a loving heart, and nowhere is this more important that in doing so when being truthful with ourselves.

Practicing a mindfulness is an opportunity for us to recognize our justifications, excuses and self-deception. Approaching our faults, shortcomings and errors in action or judgment with a soft heart, kindness, and compassion for ourselves will make for a soft landing. Be honest with yourself, but be gentle, and each time it will become easier to do.

We encourage and nurture it in children because we know, without ever thinking too much about it, that it is crucial to their intellectual and social growth. As adults it takes us to everything from community education classes to a good, long wander through the cyber world.

I was doing some reading regarding Buddhist psychology and in an anecdote about a man who was working through his physical experience of his emotional pain, I recognized something important in one tiny sentence. In paying attention to the phenomena in his experience as he sat with his pain and anger, he became something about physical response to his emotional condition that caught his attention. He continued to allow himself to notice this response and to watch it as it did whatever it did – change, move, stay the same, gain clarity and focus, it doesn’t matter what.

What struck me as most important about this part of the story is that the thing that not only kept him in a state of presence with his discomfort, but willing to engage more deeply with it, was his curiosity.

Curiosity is not just a tool for the experience of mindfulness, it is a necessity. A healthy curiosity about the phenomena that we experience when we are in a state of self-observation serves to make us better scientists of our own minds. It allows the identification of the self as existing independent of our feelings and experiences, and recognition of them as ephemeral and not an integrated part of our identity. We can become anthropologists of the self.

Anthropologists and wildlife biologists working out the field endeavor to be as unobtrusive to the environment of their subject as possible, attempting to move as entirely into the realm of observer as possible, striving to only observe and collect data. The reward comes in exposure to new information that then continues to initiate the next set of questions. The discomfort is offset by the reward, and the reward comes in the unanticipated, in the witnessing of the surprising.

So it is with meditation. When sitting in meditation, there is nothing wrong, and everything right, with opening up the natural inclination toward curiosity. It can be the thing that keeps us in a state of calm observation when confronted with the difficult and uncomfortable, and can even be pleasurable. But does being curious serve us in quieting the mind? It can serve well in doing so, but it has its pitfalls, its “near enemies”, and just by knowing what they are, they can be observed and avoided.

When learning to meditate, it seems like a relatively straightforward thing; watch your breath (or other anchor), notice and let go of thoughts as they arise, quiet the mind. It does not take long to discover how nuanced this experience can be. Sometimes, as curiosity arises, there is, in an attempt to avoid becoming caught up in thinking, it is suppressed or avoided.

Returning to the analogy of the biologist or anthropologist, it is important to note that the drawing of conclusions does not happen in the field, in the immediacy of the experience, as trained scientists know that observation and data analysis are two separate activities. So it is with meditation. Curiosity can be an encouragement to be open to staying with the process in a state of observation, not as a platform from which to analyze, dissect, or conclude (there is time for that later). It makes us want to see what happens next. It need not be a slippery slope into being lost in thought.

As mentioned, humans find the process of being curious to be interesting and even pleasurable. This can create another opportunity for curiosity to become a trap. Craving and grasping are the ways we describe the seeking for and attachment to pleasurable experiences. When curiosity becomes the instigator of desire, our attention to what is turns into the pursuit of experiences. This very seductive scenario allows us to both occupy our mind seeking the next fascinating piece of data, or to justify creating a lot of internal fireworks, muddying the waters instead of seeing that which is real and right in front of us.

The Dalai Lama often refers to meditation as an opportunity to be scientists of our own minds. This implies both the necessity and delight of curiosity that science demands, as well as the required self-discipline in order to allow the discovery of the self to be pure and unmuddied.

I think the revolution may have come.

I always liked the Beatles’ song “Revolution”. Growing up in Buffalo in the late 60s/early 70s, as a young child I watched as protests turned to riots in 1967, 1969, and 1970, and believed that part of going to college was that you had to be careful about the riots. This was the world in which the Beatles wrote this song. A culture of anger that fostered a reactive people, whipped into a frenzy in which, for many, it was easy to believe that the only way to affect change was rage and destruction. Not everyone who protested espoused this belief, merely enough to color the movement with the stain of blood, tarnishing and diminishing the movement.

The Beatles’ simple lyric gives lie to the power of destruction and alienation, begging for a protest movement that draws others in, an inclusive movement rather than, for example, eschewing “anyone over 30″.

Now, as frustration, and even desperation, sweep through all ages, geographical locations, and subcultures, we see people taking to the streets again. The United States, which once inspired the overthrow of tyranny in nations across the earth, seems now to be inspired by the lands that, in some ways, we’ve all seen as our opposites, nations that seem diametrically opposed to our own. The power of the “Arab Spring”, with it’s loosely organized, all inclusive, and non-violent, grass-roots rising can be seen mirrored in the occupation of Wall Street. Like the protests in places like Egypt, the violence comes not from the protesters, who seem merely refreshed and relieved to finally be seen, but by the frustration of those who cannot manipulate, intimidate or control them.

And, like in those countries that live on the other side of the earth, the movement is spreading to other cities. What will be the outcome of these events? There is no way to know; they are, if nothing else, an act of pure faith (or perhaps desperation, but there is certainly a place where these two things intersect).

The key to the song “Revolution” is the chorus, which constantly reassures and calms with the reminder that “Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright?” A call to equanimity. A plea not to be attached to a particular outcome, because whatever happens, “It’s gonna be alright.” By letting go of any desire or need to control the outcome, by letting it unfold in its own natural way, tending it and nurturing it as it moves in its own path, it will, in fact, be alright.

This needs to be the anthem of the new revolution.

The next precept I am interested in is Not Taking What is Not Freely Given. In some venues this is short-handed to vowing to Not Steal, but I think the abridged version does itself (and us) a disfavor. Meriam Webster online dictionary (I appreciate the quality of this particular resource) lists the first definition of “steal” as “to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice.” Straightforward, but a bit simplistic. Further definitions allude to the territory I want to explore, expanding to include such phrases as “appropriating without right”.

Going beyond the literal is where the real meat of the precepts lies for me. Even small children understand that taking objects that belong to someone else is not a good thing. But the world does not consist primarily of the give and take of property, but mostly of the give and take between people, and this is where it life gets tricky, and the tricky places are the ones where we need the precepts the most.

When we discussing this precept in our Jukai group, an example that was given was in the realm of a need to garner approval from a parent, and the importance of it not being demanded, but freely given. This prompts a consideration of what else it is that try to take from others that is not ours to take and what the resulting consequences are.

In my investigation of this precept, the one thing that seems to be consistently true is that it exemplifies the notion that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The easiest thing in the world is to fool yourself into believing that your good intentions for others are not about you, that they are altruistic and pure in aspiration. The desire to solve and fix the problems of another is a very fine example of this. Consider, that with the exception of the parent/child relationship, the assumption that you know what is best for another person is a dangerous road to tread.

When I teach, I make a point of reinforcing that the most powerful thing you can do in a healing relationship is to be present. Being present is a state of open acceptance and being willing to be with what is, allowing the process to unfold in whatever manner and direction, and at whatever speed it happens.

The dynamics of this relationship are ripe with potential exploitation. There is one person in need, there is one person with a solution to the need. The problems arise when the person with the solution has the need to be validated in her role; a trap that is easily to fall into amongst even the most generous of souls.

Going into a relationship with expectations and intentions for the unfolding of another’s healing is to insert yourself into that relationship in a way that is unproductive. It is unproductive because the focus is going the wrong direction. Instead of the attention being entirely on the needs and responses of the subject, it becomes, on a subtle level, about being right, being the hero, the expert, the source of authority. The delicate balance of trust and partnership that is in the unwritten contract of this sort of relationship can tip easily. When it tips, the receiver is at the mercy of the practitioner and their power to discover their own path to wellness is taken away. When you insist that someone MUST try your hairdresser or the green curry, no matter how much you want to share what you have grown to know and love and have them appreciate it too, that insistence begins to take away the individual power to choose.

This exploration of Taking What is Not Given speaks to me deeply. It is about taking focus, power, will, and trust from another while having it disguised as compassion, caring and aid.

I remember that I was once at a talk by a Buddhist teacher about compassion, and at there was some time for discussion and questions. Near the end, one woman, with a great deal of urgency, explained that she had had a falling out with a relative, a sister-in-law I believe, and although this woman felt she wanted to make things good between them, the sister-in-law was not ready for this to happen at the same level and intensity. The core of the question was that our fellow Zen student felt compassion for her relative, and wanted her to see that and accept it. How could she make her? She felt strongly that her motivation was that if this person would just open up to her compassion, then she’d feel so much better, and that it was a gift she was giving her, if only she could see that.

Was she, in fact, trying to give her sister-in-law peace of mind? Whose mind did she want to set at ease? Wasn’t she, in fact, seeking a resolution, even forgiveness, from someone who was not ready to give it? By clothing it in the guise of wanting to “give” compassion to the other woman, one might see this as a kind of a con, not just conning the other person in the relationship, but particularly herself.

We don’t know what set off this spate of bad blood, and we don’t know the personalities and quirks of these characters, so we can only examine this based on what happened in that room, but it doesn’t really make any difference; the history was no longer the issue. It is, instead, the demand for something from someone that they were not ready or willing to give, and that, far beyond stealing your co-worker’s yogurt, is what we are discussing here. It is, by far, the knottier, more dangerous and consequential aspect to consider.

How can we live without killing? We cannot maintain our life and our health without causing the death of some living thing. And what about self-defense? Or the defense of an innocent? Would it be wrong to kill an animal that was savaging your own child?

I once read the precepts described as the way an enlightened being naturally lives. But even enlightened beings must eat. Some people take this precept as a directive to become a vegetarian, or even a vegan. There is nothing wrong with deciding that you will not take the lives of animals for your own food, but I point out that it does not say “…not to kill animals“. We kill plants every time we harvest grain or eat the roots of a plant, like carrots.

There are those people who live where it is necessary for survival to eat animals; Inuit people eat meat more or less exclusively, and Tibetans and other Himalayan cultures would not have survived without animal products. The precept against killing is occasionally  interpreted as being a vow not to harm other living things, so doesn’t this also imply that harming oneself through poor nutrition is also something to avoid?

Fortunately, the precepts are considered guides, not rules. They are simplified directives which are open to consideration. Not to say that you should go looking for loopholes. On the contrary, it is possible to find more applications of these guidelines then may present themselves in the most obvious ways.

As is true of all ancient teachings, they are translations from their original languages, as recounted by a long list of individuals, so I was wondering what would happen if I replace the word “kill” with the word “destroy”. Although both words mean to remove from existence, in English there is an implied distinction between them. This framed my thinking in a way that allowed me to consider it from a fresh perspective.

My spiritual roots prompt a view of  life and death as circular. It is a cycle without beginning or end, each ending providing the fresh roots for something new. If you bring a state of mindfulness to the consumption of life (eating) that acknowledges an awareness that it is a source of new life (food), and then continues as life (consumer), then it is not destruction.

If you bring an end to a life and it is wasted, then that is destruction, and that seems to smack of immorality. I see this as great support for composting. Uneaten food, food waste, paper products from plants, all can be maintained as part of the cycle of life when added to the compost bin where it is consumed by worms, bugs, and bacteria, whose waste then becomes part of the life cycle for new plants.

Wanton destruction of resources and environments also would be forbidden by this precept, and shows that the interpretation of the word “killing” need not be limited to the individual hand taking the individual life. It is deeply powerful when seen from a large-scale perspective.

For me, so much is about intention and context. It works best for me when I feel I am following the precept of vowing not to kill most closely when I am mindful, grateful and intentional about eating free-range eggs and hand-raised lamb then becoming a vegetarian who consumes no meat, but feeds the destructive pattern of giant agri-business.

When it comes to swatting mosquitos, I confess that I indulge in wanton destruction, and I have yet to develop an ability to feel regret about it.

Taking the precepts requires work. It requires an examined life, but isn’t that the life worth living?