Sept. 28, 2017 #AboutLastNight
Bhante teaches in West Vriginia but also at the three-month retreat at IMS in Barre MA. He founded a Buddhist center in Uganda that helps heal trauma.
A lot of people think his robes look like authentic African dress and when he gets stopped at airports he says he must keep himself from exclaiming, "Haven't you ever seen a monk, like The Dalai Lama?!"
But Bhante recommends to us that when we hear things we don't like, our off-the-cushion practice should be to think to ourselves only, "hearing", so that we label perceived insults as "hearing" with all the other sounds.
If we try something like that then we are less likely to get emotionally hijacked ourselves. Calling back our power to our own mind and not to the object of our distress, we can remain centered even in ordinary applications of everyday mindfulness.
When we get hijacked, Bhante says, we have:
1) a feeling,
2) a thought
3) an emotion.
Stories get built around emotions, and they can be where we get carried away.
Feelings(1) and emotions(3) are distinguishable he says. If we feel the feeling we can stop a thought from becoming codified into a hurtful story.
Not that we do not take real-world actions to protect or defend ourselves and others, but we can react much more skillfully if we remain centered and also 4) forgive.
What we must do, he says, is be aware of our own defense mechanisms. What are our defenses that get triggered?
It didn't take me too long to think of my vocabulary of defensive reactions, but exploring what types of events trigger these things in our minds, may take some analysis....
Bhante’s warning about emotions hijacking us is that it feels to him like when he missed a certain exit near Dulles Airport and then was out of his way for an hour(There's one like that on Rte. 9 outside Boston although not quite for an hour)! Still, it's preventable.
“May we be safe and free from suffering. May all beings be safe and free from suffering.”