Allowing our Limitations - Part 2
In part one of this “Allowing Our Limitations” blog post, I explored a specific experience that I had with Thai immigration that triggered feelings of impatience and agitation. That experience then reminded me that while we cannot change the circumstances that we are born with (temperament, for example) we can learn to respond more wisely with the practice of mindfulness. In this blog post, we will explore the theme of balancing self-acceptance and growth as it pertains to your mindfulness practice.
The shadow side of self acceptance is a fixed mindset: it’s when someone simply throws up their hands and says “this is how I am” (and the implication being: “and this is how I’ll always be). In contrast to the fixed mindset is the growth mindset: the belief that one can change. The research of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck makes a very compelling case for the power of adopting a growth mindset.
Let me share an example of a fixed mindset that I’ve frequently heard:
“I’d love to practice yoga but I’m too stiff.”
That’s like someone saying “I’d love to go on a diet but I’m obese.”
If you’re stiff that’s all the more reason to practice yoga. If you’re so overweight that your health is being compromised that’s all the more reason to eat healthy. If you’re prone to feelings of irritability and impatience that’s all the more reason to practice meditation. These are just some of the personal challenges that brought me to this practice. Given the personal transformation that I’ve experienced, I’m positive that if I can do it, so can you.
I think it’s quite clear that people are born with certain temperaments, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the capacity to change.
By nature I will always be someone who is working with an innate tendency towards impatience. However, this does not ensure that my mind will forever be identified with feelings of impatience when they arise in challenging situations.
In fact, it can be a skillful means to reflect on our own progress as further inspiration for the work we still have to do. I take great heart from the fact that so many of those closest to me tell me how I have radically changed for the better since sitting silent retreats, studying the teachings of The Buddha, and practicing meditation.
As someone who teaches mindfulness meditation, I aspire to hold myself to a particularly high standard. While this is important to embody the teachings and practice, it’s also essential that I can witness how my tendencies for striving and perfectionism can resurface in myriad ways.
Dropping back into the paradox of seeking progress and yet allowing for our limitations. Always becoming and always being.
It’s important that we aim for high ideals, yet that we also learn to be at home in our own humanity. The image of the perfectly serene, imperturbable Buddha is a wonderful ideal, but let’s see it for what it is: an ideal.
In an interview with The Times, The Dalai Lama conceded that sometimes small things still get to him, but he doesn’t hold on to his anger:
“You never stop getting angry about small things. In my case, it’s when my staff do something carelessly, then my voice goes high. But after a few minutes, it passes.”
The Dalai Lama is a remarkable embodiment of the teachings of The Buddha and the promises of contemplative training generally. Yet he still experiences anger and he is not only wise enough, but compassionate enough, to acknowledge his limitations. Undoubtedly, he understands the high regard in which so many people hold him and he wants them to know: “hey, even I still get upset sometimes too.”
If The Dalai Lama can give himself a break perhaps we can remember to cut ourselves a bit of slack as well.
His admissions also underscores one real value of the practice: it’s not that we won’t still get annoyed by those things that can trigger us, but they have less of a grip on us. Sometimes we can notice the feelings in real time and cease to be identified with the emotions. Other times, sure, we might get caught up in them but our mind is not so intensely in the grip of the emotion and it’s able to let go of the emotions more easily.
I’ve noticed how my mind wants to project things onto my own teachers, including my yearnings for perfectionism. The judging mind that’s constantly seeing flaws in others is often very judgmental of itself.
One of my teachers, Jack Kornfield, tells a story about when he was a monk in Thailand. He had become quite annoyed about a number of things he was witnessing in the monastery and one day he finally blew up at his teacher, Ajarn Chah. Jack shared several judgments of other monks and then turned to Ajarn Chah and said that based on Ajarn Chah’s behavior, the head monk didn’t seem so enlightened to Jack.
In his characteristic way, Ajarn Chah laughed and said: “That’s good I don’t look enlightened to you because if I did you would still be looking for The Buddha outside of yourself.”
The potential to awaken lies inside each and every one of us. By training the heart-mind through mindfulness practice we make the soil more fertile for these seeds to grow.