Expect Nothing
My good friend Josh practices Zen Buddhism and has an American teacher. Josh asked the teacher to put all his teachings into one nugget. The teacher replied “expect less, be more grateful”.
Expectation is within us in many situations. We have enjoyed something and expect that enjoyment again whenever we try to repeat the situation. But things and circumstances change and we can never control how others behave. So having an expectation leads inevitably to disappointment. Which disturbs our happiness. If we can expect less, watch what our mind does in anticipation of situations, and moderate the conversation, we will be happier.
Similarly difficult situations in the future can lead to negative feelings about what is to come. If we leave ourselves more open to what might happen there is less stress. How often have difficult things turned out better than we imagined? The more open we are the more easy it will be to be our true selves and the better we will perform or respond to the situation.
The practice of gratitude is more than saying thank you. It’s a moment by moment feeling of thankfulness for everything around us. Enjoying the small things. Noticing the challenges and feeling grateful for the lessons they bring rather than the annoyance they cause.
The following year the teacher came back and said that he had refined his teaching nugget to this: “just gratitude, expect nothing”.
Wound or Wisdom
We experience pain all the time. Physical injuries obviously are painful. And a wound is the result, but we also learn. We learn not to do whatever caused the injury in the same way. We learn to use the knife differently or that water in that tap is very hot.
Emotional pain is different. We have more choice. People say hurtful things. People behave badly towards us. We get upset. We feel it as strongly as a physical injury and experience pain in all sorts of areas of our body. If the injury is repeated it becomes pathological. The hurtful thing becomes a psycological wound.
Often these wounds are from our early lives and drive the way we behave in unconscious ways. Under stress we can be hurtful back. We carry these wounds into adult life and repeat these behaviours. They can also manifest as long term physical pain or illness.
As adults we can make more choices. We can choose whether we pay attention to the new wound or the opening of the old wounds and how we respond. Ultimately we can choose not to react and behave badly. Notice the wound. Forgive the perpetrator because they are acting from their wounds and choose to learn. Learn that the wound is harmless now and the wisdom we gain by practicing behaving differently until our old response doesn’t happen any more.
None of this is easy.
Other things I try to practice:
Using kinder words.
Thinking before I speak.
Try not to assume people will behave in as certain way.
Hardest for me is:
Try not to take things personally. I’m really good at not feeling responsible for things I can’t control, but as soon as I feel criticised, I start to act out. (see Wound above!)