Khong Sister Chan - Beginning Anew: Four Steps to Restoring Communication

Table of Contents

by THICH NHAT HANH

THE PRACTICE OF mindfulness is the practice of love itself. It would be very beneficial for a couple, before they moved in together, to each attend something I would like to create one day called The Institute for the Happiness of One Person. We would have a one-year program and only one course, entitled Looking Deeply. For a year, students would practice looking deeply inside themselves to discover all the flowers and compost that exists within them, of their own making and from their ancestors and society. Then, when they graduated, they would get a certificate saying theyre ready to move in with their loved one.

If people dont take enough time to come to know themselves well and untie their internal knots, when they enter into a relationship with another person, their union will be difficult.

When we enter a relationship, we feel excitement, enthusiasm, and the willingness to explore, but often we dont really understand ourselves or the other person very well yet. Living with someone twenty-four hours a day, we look, listen, and experience many things we couldnt have seen or imagined before.

When we fall in love, we construct a beautiful image that we project onto our partner, and we may be a little shocked as our illusions disappear and we discover the reality of living with someone. Unless we know how to practice mindfulness together, looking deeply into ourselves and into our partner, we may find it difficult to sustain our love.

In Buddhist psychology, the word samyojana refers to internal formations, fetters, or knots. When someone says something unkind to us, for example, and we dont understand why the person said it, we become irritated and a knot is tied inside. Lack of understanding is the basis for every internal knot. Practicing mindfulness, we can learn the skills of recognizing a knot the moment it is tied and finding ways to soon untie it.

Its difficult for our mind to accept that it has negative feelings like anger, fear, and regret, so it finds ways to bury these feelings in remote areas of our consciousness. We create elaborate defense mechanisms to deny their existence, but these problematic feelings are always trying to surface. Internal formations need our full attention as soon as they form, while they are still loosely tied, so that the work of untying them will be easy. If we dont untie our knots when they form, they will grow tighter and stronger.

The first step in dealing with unconscious internal formations is to try to bring them into awareness. We meditate and practice conscious breathing to gain access to them. They might reveal themselves as images, feelings, thoughts, words, or actions. We may notice a feeling of anxiety and ask, Why did I feel so uncomfortable when she said that? or Why do I keep doing that? or Why did I hate that character in the movie so much?

Observing ourselves closely can bring an internal formation into view. As we shine the light of our mindfulness on it, it begins to reveal its face. We may feel some resistance to continuing to look at it, but if weve developed the capacity to sit still and observe our feelings, the source of the knot will slowly reveal itself and give us clues about how to untie it. Practicing like this, we come to know our internal formations, and we make peace with ourselves.

When we live with another person, its very important that we practice this. To protect each others happiness, we must learn to transform the internal formations we produce as soon as they arise. One woman told me that three days after her wedding, she developed several large internal formations as a result of some things her husband did and said, and she kept them to herself for thirty years. She was afraid that if she told him, there would be a fight. How can we be happy like that, with no real communication? When we are not mindful in our daily life, we plant the seeds of suffering in the very person we love.

When two partners are not filled with too many knots, mindful living isnt difficult. Together the couple can look at the misunderstanding that created a knot, and then untie it. For example, if you hear your husband exaggerating to his friends about something he did, you may feel a knot being tied inside you in the form of some disrespect for him. If you discuss it with him right away, you can come to a clear understanding, and the knot will be untied easily.

Practicing the art of mindful living together, we can help untie each others knots successfully. We will be able to see that other people, like us, have both flowers and compost inside, and we accept this. Our practice is to water the flowers in them, and not bring them more garbage. We avoid blaming and arguing. When we try to grow flowers in a garden, if the flowers dont grow well, we dont blame or argue with them. We ask ourselves what we can do to help them bloom. Your partner is a flower. If you take care of her well, she will grow beautifully. If you take care of her poorly, she will wither. To help a flower grow well, we must understand its nature. How much water does it need? How much sunshine? You look deeply into the flower that is you to see your true nature, and you look into the flower that is the other person to see her true nature.

Suchness is a Buddhist term that means true nature. Everything has its suchness; that is how we recognize it. An orange has its suchness; that is why we dont confuse it with a lemon. In my community, we cook with propane gas, and we know its suchness. We know that it can be very dangerous. If it leaks into the room while were asleep and someone lights a match, it can kill us. But we also know that propane can help us cook a wonderful meal, and that is why we invite it into our house to live peacefully with us.

Releasing a Wrong Perception

I once heard a story of a patient in a mental hospital in Vietnam who seemed to be normal. He ate and talked like other people. But he believed that he was a kernel of corn, and every time he saw a chicken, he ran for his life. He didnt know his suchness. He had a very wrong perception about himself. He was a human being, but he had the wrong perception that he was a kernel of corn in danger of being eaten by the chicken.

The doctor told him, Sir, you are not a kernel of corn, you are a human being. You have hair, eyes, a nose, and arms. He gave the patient a kind of lecture like that, and finally he asked, Now, sir, can you tell me what you are?

The man replied, Doctor, I am a human being. I am not a kernel of corn. The doctor was happy. He felt he had helped this patient a lot. But to be certain, he asked the man to repeat the sentence, I am a human being, I am not a kernel of corn, four hundred times a day and to write it on a piece of paper three hundred more times each day. The man became devoted to doing it, and he stopped going out at all. He just stayed in his room repeating and writing exactly what the doctor had prescribed.

A month later, the doctor came to see him, and the nurse reported, He is doing very well. He stays inside and practices the exercises you gave him very diligently.

The doctor asked, Sir, how are things?

Very well, thank you, doctor.

Can you tell me what you are?

Oh yes, doctor. I am a human being. I am not a kernel of corn.

The doctor was delighted. He said, We will release you in a few days. Please come with me to my office. But, while the doctor, nurse, and patient were walking together to the office, a chicken walked by, and the man ran away so quickly that the doctor couldnt catch him. It was only after more than an hour that the nurse was able to bring him back to the office.