In this near impromptu twenty-eighth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore the many facets of mindfulness of speaking, stuff like its importance and the power of words, sound and (extended) silence. How is it in theory, practice and real life. Experiences. Times when it is challenging. guidelines for wise speech. How we can help each other, etc.
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Past chats with Wendy:
Audio: Mindfulness Of Speaking | “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #28
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
and by my lovely co-host Wendy Nash Wendy what’s going on well I’m here in
Gabby Gabby country in Queensland in kulture and what’s going on well not
much and lots all at the same time you know there are lots of small things that are irritating and niggling well I
actually twisted my ankle yesterday so um yeah so I’m just uh so yeah so that’s I’m just
turning off the volume and I YouTube so we’re getting all that are you okay I
mean can you walk on it and I think hobbling is a better word for
it sorry anyway well just take take uh care of it and yeah of course being
mindful which is of it but um today’s topic is mindfulness of speaking and so
the little description I have here in this near impromptu 28th installment of
the ongoing live series with Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we plan to explore
the many facets of mindfulness of speaking stuff like it’s importance and the Power of Words sound and silence how
it how this is in theory mindfulness of speaking in theory practice in real life our experiences times when it’s
challenging and how we can help each other Etc so as you know uh Wendy and I we do
we we talk uh I mean that’s kind of our our job sometimes right and I’m just coming off of a month-long silent
Retreat I’m not going to talk too much about the retreat itself but in this context um of of sound and silence and
speaking we could possibly um talk about that but I just throw it back over to Wendy and let her choose a place to
start with this I think after so month-long silent Retreat and then
speaking again so what is it like to
speak again well yeah so I’m I’m a week off the
retreat in Soul and then I plan to go back and help serve the retreat so I
will be able to use Electronics away from the monastery and and not interfere with the silent part of the retreat to
talk to my fiance and whatever but it it’s wild so how powerful silence is and
then can see this huge contrast of then
how powerful words and speech are you know there’s like we’ve mentioned this
before I’ve mentioned it before there’s just a natural tendency to communicate when around others and normally that’s
done through words I feel you know if you’re around someone for an extended time you know but being in deep deep
presence with other people without being able to talk to them uh and then getting a chance because we
did get a chance to talk to each other um during the retreat three days uh you
know I just I’ll just say it was special circumstances but then that’s when we really noticed how at least in my mind
uh would have one depiction of certain strangers and then then being able to
talk to them okay this is different uh I know at least for me the way I I tend to
smooth over things these days with words so and relieve tensions with words I
mean words can obviously build more tensions and cause a lot of harm and damage but they can also create a lot of
peace and Harmony and smoothing things over and so when there’s not this
tendency of me who’s more verbally based to interact with words then I don’t have
that tool in my toolkit so I’m doing guesswork with behavior in my feedback
what what what I observe in another kind of what I’m feeling um you know because some of us
can kind of feel what another person is feeling or at least observe their behavior and interpret it as a certain
feeling a certain way but the biggest thing is the mind and perception for me
filling in these gaps of what I don’t know about someone you know because you know these optical illusions where you
only have part of the data but the mind will fill in something that’s not actually there and upon closer examination realize oh the the
perception is actually filling in gaps here so the mind is a very interesting
thing here to to uh fill in these gaps and maybe how accurate it might be or
maybe how inaccurate how high the level of delusion not in a psychological sense
or maybe so and how much minimized that is and then when you get to speak to a
completely stranger for the first time after being with him in silence so for so long how much are they ACC actually
accurately depicting themselves or how much are they actually trying to cover up something you know what I’m saying
I’m not really accusing of anybody of anything but this I’ll just say before I throw it back over this notion of
deception it comes to mind here because deception for me usually is um someone’s
needing to protect something so it can be just as simple as a simp Le denial you you ask somebody about something no
no that’s not and that’s it you know they just but sometimes you can tell from body language right that that might
not be the case or maybe something else is going on there but it’s real easy for someone just to do a simple no denial
and um to for protect for protection reasons and I get that and then another
more Insidious one is to get back at someone to deceive them in order to kind
of um get back at them for something they perceived as some someone doing wrong so hopefully none of us really
have to experience this much I will say for the protective thing there is a lot
more creative ways to deal with this like just saying okay um I’m not I’m sorry I don’t feel like I’m ready to
talk about this um or just simply saying now’s not the right time to to to go
into this and the other person will probably get the the idea of that you know we don’t have to be like CIA I can
neither confirm nor deny this but to me it’s kind of a lack of creativity that
that protection can still be there with and still be truthful and not deceptive
um so I threw a lot of stuff out here I know um but yeah it was definitely an
interesting experience being mostly in silence but then being able to break that silence to
retreat yeah well while we’ve had some responses to your little talk there so
Joshua Beckett is the first time he’s been here so good evening he’s we’re in the middle of the day us so wherever you
are that’s that’s great uh so a few hours ahead of us where would be a few hours ahead um it’s
either in the US or somewhere like that um we’ve got a couple it looks like it’s a bot um yeah y so we can ignore those
ones okay but Joshua Becket is looks like he’s really engaged in this space
so perhaps Joshua uh what did you appreciate about um Joshua Becket what did you
appreciate about Josh Josh Dial’s um Insight you can type that up and we’ll
read it [Music] aloud um so let me think so I’m
interested in the idea of
deception would you say that it’s more about self deception than other deception well we
can talk about I was talking in in context of uh interacting with other people who are
being deceptive you know but yes in our own context that’s right yeah we can
deceive not only another but we can deceive ourselves and I think that’s actually more common that people aren’t
being completely honest with themselves you know so I I wonder
if I’m I’m kind of barking at the idea that other people are being deceptive
and and I want to frame it in another way what’s another way that it can be
framed do you think to not because it feels to be like they’re being
deceptive where it’s like you’re actually filling in the Gap about what’s going on for them oh no that’s two
different things so so this is um yeah that is that’s a whole another thing I’m
talking about when we we can actually verify that someone’s being deceptive right that that they they have been
caught red-handed being deceptive that’s what I was talking about with that now filling in the gaps that yeah that’s a
whole gray area uh and space where it is very uncertain they may or may not be
there could be a lot of other things going on I was just talking at the context at the end where someone can
actually be verified that they were being deceptive and that’s when it’s usually for protection or to get back at
someone right so yeah yeah and I would
yeah for sometimes maybe nefarious and not
nefarious reasons it’s true yeah so what was it like to actually
speak after a long silence you know it was like a relief
for me um but also you can see how um
also okay so there is functional speech too like you need to do your each person
has a job to do and so if you don’t know where something’s at or how something’s done then you that doesn’t really count
because you need you break silence in order to be able to have something functional happen and then if someone
perceives something as functional and the other person does not see it as functional then there could be a hey why
are you infringing on my silence and so a lot of these um it seems like some
Sometimes some of these um emotions or challenges are right
there pushing on the surface and then speech can sometimes relieve that
tension in a helpful way but also sometimes let it explode you know
um for me I I enjoyed then actually breaking the silence because I could
um you know it’s almost like an avoidance I could then relieve tensions
in a way that I couldn’t before because if it’s silent you just have to be with it there’s no kind of figuring things
out actually clarifying what I’m perceiving what the other person’s perceiving um there can be clashes um
but other times I felt it was such a huge relief not to have to be re um
expected to interact with people to engage on a different level um when we
talk a lot of times it’s on a surface level because we don’t want to go deep
we want to keep it on a surface level you know Small Talk smooth things over
and so all the things that are lurking beneath this veneer that we we commonly
operate on um we we never go deeper than that or broader than that so in a way
that that silence um can take the pressure off off having to to just stay
on that surface level and really go deep and so the these challenges that it brings up is actually really good for
practice I feel now um I think Wendy we can talk about mindfulness of speaking in just in
our everyday lives now this is in a context of retreat that most people I I would not most people but a lot of
people just don’t have the luxury to sit a a month Retreat you know and some of
this might be even noticeable on a day long a weekend you know or a week long or two week long
retreat um so but what do we do in our everyday lives to bring mindfulness of
speaking in our everyday lives I know when I’m paying attention to myself uh when speaking I I just blab real quick
you know and one of the best things I think could be possible with this is
just slowing down the speech I’ve got this tendency that I’ve got all this information that I want to convey and I
want to pack so much in there so
quickly that yeah that’s that’s that’s okay
but when can we really command the English language to to help each other
and uh help others and this is where I talked to somebody about the spaces
between Words which is also a big help for the stuttering the ums and the O’s
replacing that with being comfortable with silence between the words same way in meditation practice we usually think
of the object and not the space around the object being mindfulness of feelings
but what about the space around the feelings the thoughts what about the space around the thoughts just like in
music right it’s the notes that aren’t played are the pauses between the notes
and the sounds and the chords that really make a huge difference
yeah it’s an interesting one isn’t it I can hear there’s a little bit of feedback I’m sorry about that from me
can you hear that is that okay it there’s a little bit of background noise but it’s not really that big a deal all
right I’ll move the microphone a little bit further away maybe it’ll be a bit easier
um yeah as you were speaking about that I was thinking about a friend yeah I can
hear the echo back on me so I’m sorry about that’s a
problem um so I was thinking about a friend of mine and she’s not in a great
space and she gets these really [Music] big okay no I took I turned on Echo
cancellation sorry whoops [Music] um okay now try it now I had Echo
cancellation I turned it on so it’s it’s off now okay no no no it’s bad it still
is it’s terrible [Music] huh what happened I I just had it on
audio output external headphones noise suppression okay any
better can you hear me is it what’s going on it’s really distorted really
really loud oh really weird I just I put it back the it was I don’t understand
what’s going on hang on me what about now is that any better it’s terrible
it’s terrible good I’m gonna I’m gonna leave and come back okay sounds [Music]
good sorry about that everyone um
let’s bear with us while we get these Kinks ironed out here
um okay is it’s no better what is going
on can you can you jump off yeah yeah actually let me let me try communication
and we just can’t even talk I know I know what is going on I don’t I wonder
if it will end the streams um let me just it doesn’t matter let me I I’ll have to try try it again
okay is it oh it is better
okay okay so it looks like Josh is gone and it’s just me so I apologized
to look at to Joshua so sorry about that we just um had a bit of an echo and we
try to fix the technical thing and two Buddhists trying to figure out how the tech works is always a bit of a struggle
is this better oh that’s perfect oh good I weird I wonder what happened oh
well okay now do you do you remember now what uh what topic we were on that was
so strange so my friend has um I’m
trying to teach her to meditate and I catch up with her daily every day so
that she can we do a little meditation she’s got some mental health issues and she was sort of lying in bed and then
she got up and she was instantly irritated she was irritated before she got up and then she went out and she
just went ra and so I said all right now I want
you to sit on your hands and now get really angry with
me and she couldn’t apart from anything else she’s my friend but she’s going but
I can’t get angry when I’m sitting on my hands it’s like yeah that’s right so I think there is something about you when
you have a lot of energy in your body a lot of other things mindful speech in the way that
you and I might describe it is sometimes too much and so sitting on your hands is
a really good way of just bringing down the the attention
yeah stop stop being yeah lashing out and what’s the um what’s the rationale
what’s the reasoning behind how and why that works I don’t know but you can sit on your hands and then see what you
think I know what I’m going to think my hands are now they’re warmer because my hands are freezing cold now they’re
warmer but can you get angry can you feel yourself being able to get angry
honestly I I used to have um quite a bit of anger stuff but it’s really rare that
I ever get angry one of the things that still triggers me sometimes is When someone tells a deliberate lie to my
face then I can get or when I see someone taking advantage of someone and
then try to um like uh look over to me to get my approval that they’re fooling
another person and taking advantage of them that really gets my goat still uh and I get a little bit kind of defensive
for the other person but yeah I don’t I I I don’t know what to say here uh what was the question again uh so I want okay
so because what I I it was about being angry and so it’s I can feel so what do
I feel she said I feel trapped I actually can’t hand that’s why this is
why they put people in handcuffs right you know because they can’t you cannot act if your hands are bound usually when
someone gets angry it’s it’s a foreshadowing an initial signal that they could fight right that you could
use your hands to slap hit or push or protect yourself with your hands so when
that’s taken away you know uh what happens that at anger that would be my guess with
this yeah it certainly is that it is um it is harder to master the energy
so you can have a conversation while sitting on your hands sure and that’s much more convivial but it does
definitely give you a sense of vulnerability I think these things are really interesting in terms of speech
how much we’re informed by the body and how to direct the mind because
this is what we’re talking about and so when the body is calm it’s very hard to get angry but she was on a mission to
get really cranky so with her family and yeah so it was just very interesting
to to get her to own and to take responsibility for the
impact of her word righteous in righteous indignation I find can fuel these things
a lot of times they did this to me and I am going to show them they are so wrong
and I need to be right and I’m going to tell them how it is and why it is and they’re wrong and I’m right and as soon
as I uh sized up being right or being happy and well and which one do
I want is it really important that I’m really right and that I have to have my way because when I was like that nothing
mattered other than that and I would use speech and action and any kind of
strategy to prove that I was right and then get some kind of momentary satisfaction from that you know that
doesn’t last but is that really helpful and necessary is the the peace that I
have experienced through practice it’s way more satisfying than proving that
I’m right you know and so other the it’s it’s pointless to to get in arguments
we’re all GNA die anyway you know um so the the the peace of mind and well-being
and contentment and ease and satisfaction is just to me is far
greater when I’m not on a personal Vendetta to be right and prove myself in my points or some IDE uh ideology or
something like that and this is just something you have to practice and know for yourself sometimes it hurts to just
sit there and let someone be angry with you and or me and then tell me why I’m
wrong and how you know bad I am and it stings and the natural tendency through habiting at least for me was to go then
and prove myself no that’s not right I’m telling you why you’re wrong and why I’m
right it’s just this grid lock but when I just okay I’m just going to take this
for a second and just feel the sting of it but it will end and be over quicker
that way than if I just kept fueling the same fire and then and then it just gets the other person to come back and clash
Clash Clash so that’s that’s one of the things i’ I found around uh this too
so yeah I I think it’s it is definitely a good question to ask
would I rather be right or would I rather be happy and next time I catch up with my friend I will I will mention
that but there is something that that is difficult though when you’re in that space you know when it’s
built to be able to stop it from building like you’re on a mission and I
remember years ago that how much that was a thing and the other thing that
I’ve ve really been noticing lately is that the ego that
self-righteousness doesn’t want to take any responsibility for the
impact yeah and when you don’t want to take any responsibility then you’re in
trouble we we we’ve mentioned this several times before and I was even this was the kind of the last thing that when
I was doing uh ask us anything we had intent versus impact and yes and this is
this is something we’ve talked about before but I’ll just reiterate it what I say is 100% my responsibility to the
intent I have because no one really that I know of can impact or impact my intent
or choose to say okay Josh U I’m going to influence you to whenever you’re
speaking this is what I want you to mean and say and have a certain thing that’s
me right that’s that’s I have an inent of when I’m conscious of it what I want
to do what kind of you know why I’m doing it with speech and actions now how it
lands on another like Wendy how Wendy uh how my words land with
Wendy I have some responsibility for that but I don’t have 100%
responsibility for that if I had 100% responsibility for that I would have to control how Wendy takes it
but if I completely get rid of all my responsibility then that’s pointless then I can just go around saying
anything I want who cares whatever or do anything I want then oh it’s not it’s just it’s happening randomly it’s not
not me so you know where is this um responsibility for my actions and my
speech and there’s some of it but I can’t control 100% how another
interprets what I’m saying how it lands in their own heart but um I think this
is why both are very important um a lot of times our intentions go unknown
unexamined and come out of habit patterns so when we don’t even realize our own intentions for doing something
really or we’re not going deep enough when I don’t know what my intentions are
for speaking or acting very deeply then they might just be operating on more of a surface level and I’m unaware of
what’s deeper driving that that you know that initial intention one of the ways
to discover this is just asking why you know let’s just say um let’s go to the store why do you want to go to the store
well I want to buy something well why do you want to buy something well I want to have food uh because I want to eat why
do you want to eat well um you know I want to take care of this body uh and
but why do you want to take care of this body well you know um
because I don’t want to be a a burden on other people because if I didn’t take
care of myself well then somebody else would have to take care of myself well why do you care about that well if
everybody did that then this world would be complete chaos and you know um
sickness illness and so it’s just examining now that’s the intention now the the
impact you know um of my actions uh or of my going to the store
you know I might go there and people might look at me and they might think
you know let just why is he coming in here you know shouldn’t he be the type of person that
goes somewhere else or maybe he’ll buy this product over here or um no I don’t
know that’s probably not a good example but like how others are interpreting what I’m doing and what I mean is is
part my experience and part or part my responsibility in part there so um yeah I guess I was looking much
more at at at the times when I don’t care what the impact is oh
yeah and that is a marker that you’re in the ego space I think we all have this
idea that we are you know good people who speak kindly oh yeah but it wasn’t my fault that that that happened and one
of the markers is the lack of responsibility for the impact on others and that was the thing that really
struck me about the ego being such a core is is foundational to that that’s
what I was sort of suggesting totally and I think that a lot of this has to do with our own level of care about
ourselves because I mean looking at times in my life I just did not really care about myself at all you know being
irresponsible and not I mean and some so I would say people are in a lot of pain
a lot of times and they’re just looking for reprieves from that pain and they
don’t really care of the impact of their actions just as long as they can get a few minutes of pleasure or something
else to uh lessen the impact of the emotional psychic even physical pain
that they’re in you know yeah so it is coming up to
Christmas and many people will be returning to their family of you know their parents
home and mindfulness of speech we did it we did a show on this
right umid yeah and I always think it’s good
to be reminded because we do go back to that place you know this is where I see
no self being really clear that we can be who we are in our current life but
then being back in the context of the parents reverts us back to being children
it’s a really tough one because how many years did we spend with our parents and
they have an idea of who we are or who I am let’s just say my parents have an idea of who I am my family has an idea
of who I am and so and then I have an idea about myself based on their ideas
about me and so but then when I want to change how many years am I going to do
that and when I’m doing a significant change how many years then am I around
my folks and F usually I’m gone from there so all these ideas right have
solidified uh from the past and now I’m we’re let’s just say I’m trying to move on from that but we haven’t been around
each other that long to help transition out of the old patterns and ideas and
into the new ones so what’s going to happen then if you don’t have this this
builtup uh strength and fortitude with the way things they are now in your life
of course course all these old pattern pattern patternings and ideas about each other can come back so easily uh I have
found though with with practice that it has gotten better over time now I remember when I first started doing
practice this was way more apparent right I had uh I could see things about
my you know my life then and how I was moving away from that and now into something else but it just hadn’t had
enough momentum yet and a strength so it was easily broken down you know and it
came flooding back and of course it’s it’s still there but not to the same degree so just need to the time practice
and repetition of this I think is is a big scene too but we also have to have practical strategies for wherever we’re
at along these things and one of the big questions I have is if this is causing
so much trouble and pain why are we even still going through with all this
stuff yeah well my my my mother thinks I’m 15 you know and it’s a long time since I was 15 and she still speaks to
me like that and she still has idea the you know a couple of years ago she was sitting next to me on the couch and she
goes she’s sort of scratching in my hair and I was like well what are you doing and she said oh you’ve got gray hair I’m
like of course mom you know she the idea that her 15-year-old would have gray hair was sort of such a strange
idea but again that’s that’s mindful speech or lack of mindful speech the I
think the thing about mind speech is really just are we taking into
consideration what’s going on for the other person how might this
land what’s going on for them and how can we hold the space for both realities
to be plus the mixed one in the middle that’s where I think mindful speech is
really beneficial well that’s that’s brilliant Wendy to to yes give enough
space for how I want to be and how I want to show up and present myself honor
and respecting and and really valuing and being there for how the other person
is and wants to be and then that that middle ground and I’ll just go ahead and
parent some of these guidelines because I think they’re really good uh uh in the Buddhist teachings about wise speech and
the first one is truthfulness right not let’s just say U this is real easy to
understand I’m not speaking something that I deliberately know is not true I know something what I’m saying is um
false or not right so this is telling a deliberate deception a deliberate falsehood when I know what I’m saying is
not how it is but I’m doing it I’m saying it um saying something other than
I know the way it is right so that’s what I mean by this so I find that
sometimes quite difficult I have a friend who has a disability and she can get very angry so she likes to give me
her hand me downs and there might be 10-year-old food that expired 8 years
ago it’s been sitting in her cupboard and she can’t bear the idea of throwing it
away and she’ll ask me did I throw it away I what about this I I would say oh
hey thanks for uh I’ll add you don’t have a compost this will be this will be great compost material I I you know at
the point at the point where I was living next door to her no and she would would know if I put it in the bin so I
had to put it in the bins in other parts of the apartment complex so I was hiding it and in the end I said I gave it to a
friend of mine so but that was not true and I I’m conscious of that and if she
were to ask me about it I’d be going well I was a bit afraid of how you would react M yeah so yeah what what that I
was going to ask you the same thing if I may Wendy what do you think the worst kid happen if you were uh more upfront
and honest with her what do you think how do you what do you think would happen she would uh maybe get it out of
the bin and put it in her no when she uh no when she goes to give it to you what
do you think would happen if you say oh no thanks I I don’t I don’t think that’s that’s that’s actually um that’s not
something that I would like to accept right now or something like that or or actually just saying hey that’s it’s
it’s that’s eight years old expired you know that’s it’s kind of illegal to to to have to do anything with that because
it goes against sell safety recommendations and you know they can’t legally sell that in a store
you know um and uh you know if the health authorities knew about that I don’t even know what they would do you
know if you said something like more authoritarian like something like that what do you think she would do do you think I mean she wouldn’t your your your
physical safety isn’t jeopardized by doing something like that or saying something like that would it be or if
your husband was there at the time when this happened or I don’t know maybe this is none of my business but I’m I’m just
curious what do you think would happen if you tried some of these strategies or something different yeah um I think she
would put it back in her cupboard and then she might eat it oh my
goodness okay now tell me what to do all right well finally I’m getting solicited
advice instead of just giving unsolicited advice right I I would wonder what she would do if I if you
just took these and said oh I’m this will be this will making great compost you know um you know and then if she
takes it back then then I wonder what she would say if you said uh oh I I thought these were mine now I thought
these were mine why are you Indian giving what they call it you know you give something that take it back oh no
it’s a horrible it’s a horrible it’s horrible term and I I don’t uh it’s it’s not
accurate uh so it needs to be another term replacing that obviously um so and
I don’t even really get the context but uh yeah you know this is this is really
interesting and and I would say Wendy you know uh are you avoiding conflict
here you know or or is this actually you know um how do any I don’t want to
accuse you of something the whole point of this is what do we do about this you know how do we how do we best choose this okay so she actually um has very
few friends I’m really the only friend because she has this disability and she will burn a relationship she’ll just go
nuts oh no it’s very it’s if I didn’t if if it was somebody else I would go ah oh
no thanks and oh by the way I’ve seen it’s like eight years old I think I’ll just check it out so it wouldn’t be a
problem but in her instance because she’s sensitive about people throwing things away that it’s not appreciated so
if it’s not good enough for them that uh she gave something which wasn’t um which
was deemed to be bad so this a lot like one time she was serving a meal and she put cream on it
that was 4 days like expired five six or maybe it was 10 days expired and I’m
like what are you trying to do kill me you know so it’s not always easy at all
on how do you do this it’s really difficult oh yeah yeah and almost would
have to be there in order to to to judge the situation because as we know we’re just going by at least I’m just going by
um antidotal and um example and so we know when we actually get in the presence of another it’s a quite a
different thing than theorizing about certain strategies right I I still wonder about the compost you know how
she feels about composting and how that can actually be helpful and no can’t
compost C because that’s just throwing it away well but it’s what do she what does she think happens to the garbage
though that people the she does use garbage right she does throw um certain
things away right like there’s some kind of food waste at some point or what is she think happens with food waste in
restaurants you know what do they do with that it can actually help grow flowers and help new food happen you
know so anyway she she know she she knows all that sort of stuff but other
people she it but it’s a I think this is a really difficult one so she will give
me presents and then I go no thank you I don’t want that mhm and after about 5 years of this she
said I like it that you say no to me I don’t want that because I have no debt
to you there you go why won’t that work with the food
then because I don’t want it to go back into her cupboard oh I see okay now what
if you uh gave her a gift do you give her gifts and can you give a gift with a message that would convey something like
that giving a gift that conveys what you um want to point out in the whole
situation I think that’s a bit passive aggressive you think so what about gag gifts what about gag gifts funny do you
do she have a sense of humor would she appreciates funny humorous gifts humorous gifts you know what about
we we don’t we don’t have the same sense of humor cuz she has a disability so her her capacity I wouldn’t be able to match
her sense of humor things that I think are absolutely hilarious she’s like why
is that funny sure sure yeah okay all right well back to the drawing board on
that one when the I’ll had get so okay go ahead but I think it’s really interesting because what do you do in
this situation where you know she gets calls on her phone and it’ll be someone
like Taylor Swift is texting her on WhatsApp and of course it’s not Taylor
Swift she’s actually saying she’s actually saying that Taylor Swift is is
texting her yeah so so and then see
usually I respond with humor and I would I would respond well well maybe Barack Obama’s texting me do you think we
should exchange numbers between these two and or maybe they already have each other’s numbers no that won’t work
either because it seems like there’s some heavy delusion involved in this and um I don’t know sometimes I go ahead
sometimes I play along just to get more information on how they’re actually perceiving reality oh what’s Taylor
Swift up to today I mean what’s she saying you know how did she get your number what do you you know what do you think about so investig that’s what I
think investigate it a little bit get more information into the processes of how she’s viewing reality how she resp
response reality what might be behind this um sometimes there’s some psychological um um occurrences perhaps
as happened in the past and they they’ve come up with this coping mechanism or
this way of behaving in the world in order to as a as a response or maybe
conditioned out of things that have happened in their past and this is how they’re dealing with those things or
that’s affected them so much that maybe now that’s uh playing in this type of behavior and so like anytime we observe
something we can ask the question what’s behind that what’s the deeper thing going on you know what would cause them
to do that you know and um it stinks because you can’t really directly ask
them that but maybe you could um perhaps convey you know um this kind of
self-reflection self- inquiry and um but I don’t know either yeah again these are
these are just generalities of just shooting in the dark here because you almost have to be in the presence of
someone to see and observe it for myself you know what I mean because there’s not enough information here for me to go on
but so you you can’t be doing something like that she’s she’s 60 something she
has a disability they’re scammers oh of course yeah I mean yeah
that’s that’s there but how do you so they’re charlatans and so she says oh
you know uh who’s an austral who who’s somebody famous like Taylor Swift I use
that example and she replies back and says but what would you want with a 60-year-old woman and he like and she
doesn’t understand that they’re actually after money well this is and what this
plays on is uh someone’s lack need for importance and and um you know that
someone important is paying attention to me right that someone potentially like
ta that that even a scammer would bother contacting me and trying to you know um
maneuver in a way to to to to try to fool me or deceive me too right so I
don’t you know maybe anyway we can we can move on but I I just you know there
are I I kind of get very frustrated because there’s this idea that everybody
has the same sort of cognitive capacities physical capacities as you and me
and now wait a second what what about like a really strong muscular guy versus
a really sickly you know guy or whatever so I would say they don’t necessarily
have the same physical capacity right but policies and procedures and
buildings are designed for the guy who’s really fit and able not so much for the
sort of elderly frail woman there’s there’s a whole lot of stuff on that and if you were interested in data there’s a
great book called invisible women and that just really goes into all of
it so we have digressed but I did want to talk about mindfulness of speech when
somebody is vulnerable and uh susceptible to criminal
activity you mean on the on the victim end or the perpetrating end victim end
yeah now this goes into um victimization and even trauma too so
it’s it is a very sensitive thing um so yeah we can go into that I would just since this is mindfulness of speaking I
might as well just say these other guidelines because we talked this is a really good point because sometimes like
Wendy’s talking about we’re at a loss for what to do in certain situations for some people so it is just easier to do a
little white lie you know um and you know but I don’t I actually don’t
Advocate that uh but I mean I can’t you know anyway uh it’s uh it’s not an easy
thing so the next one is kind is it kind you know and I would say Wendy’s responses here are kind they’re you’re
you’re not doing out of meanness or coldness or anything like that so you know is this act or is this speech kind
or not um the next one is does it create division or does it bring Concord does
it bring people together and promote Harmony or does it divide people you
know and uh cause um Discord you know
the other one is is it helpful am what I’m saying is it helpful
or is it not is it just what they call um idle chatter you know sometimes we
need to talk about like the weather to put people at ease because we can sense tension and we just need to say
something right so it can be anything I’m just talking about blabbing on and on and on which I actually have quite a
bit of tendency to do if I want to right about any old thing just because I can or because I don’t want to feel the
uncomfortableness the unpleasantness of a silence you know um
in ttention and so the other the other one is it the right time to say it because it might have something very
important to say but it just might not be the right time to say it so these These are guidelines and it’s it’s a
training uh to implement these and of course I don’t think there’s few and far
between of us who who nail these every time but these are these are the guidelines okay so now getting into the
very touchy topic of uh victimization which is I think a rampid this bully
victim hero um programming and archetypes uh and but then the way more
extreme uh trauma which I do not feel uh qualified to say anything authoritative
at this point I can do this in an open exploratory context and see what’s um might be helpful and not but I
definitely a far from author authority figure on that but this this bully victim um hero thing is way more common
I think today yeah well it’s interesting because my husband’s being bullied by
his by somebody in his workplace yeah and it’s it’s awful to be beside and what we
do is I support him and I sort of help him debrief we he meditates every
morning and we talk through what’s going on for him and what could be going on
for her and all sorts of different things not to excuse her behavior but just to put it in within a
context and I it is and one of the things that
was very interesting in my meditation this week is that I
realized that I get into a place of panic when I
feel somebody is a big powerful person and there is some another person who is
vulnerable and voiceless and that just sets me up in a
bit of a thing so because I’m overidentifying with the victim and you
know I’ve been doing this for a long time now but to get to that realization of the identification with the victim
and you I can’t protect them and I am therefore against the perpetrator and I’m into that
Dynamic so I think it’s really interesting to own your own
identification to you know we in response to others particularly people who are vulnerable
and voiceless that’s quite a journey this identif this uh notion of
identifying goes beyond just the bully victim hero thing right
what I identify with is is going to determine a lot of how I perceive myself and perceive the world so what are we
identifying with very important reflection examination and this is where I find that these um identifying with
our core values so really coming up with
or ident um stripping away everything in life and just finding out at the core at
the core what do we really value the most maybe the one two three or four different values that
we really hold dear that we um find so important and then these core values um
I’ll just give an example of mine I’ve done these before wisdom on one hand the heart qualities on the other and so like
wings of a bird these balance and allow a bird to fly a bird is very courageous
because it doesn’t think it’s gonna fall out of the air at any time but it could right and so this natural courageousness
and then this notion of being free right it can go unhindered in places that a lot of creatures can’t and so you know I
just a a little visual image so when I have those core values there then if I
apply this situation to to Wendy’s uh thing I first thing I think of is
where’s the courage where is the proper encourag and um and power like where uh
what needs to be empowered here it it’s not the the big powerful person that has this weird Superior ego that doesn’t
need any more empowerment the the victim that actual victimization and that lack
of of power that doesn’t need empowering either but what needs empowering is is
in that situation to me is a sense of balance you know of okay how is the the
the the misappropriated power Dynamic how does that come more Back in Balance um and so this is where perception comes
in too so how can I perceive the victim as now being more empowered in a
wholesome helpful way and how can the the the the PO the the unhelpful
qualities you know and the unwise and the unskillful qualities of that which I’m perceiving as greater than how can
those be brought down and back more into balance here and I’m not saying this always has to be brought equal right but
where are the helpful qualities and where are the unhelpful qualities of this and what is the remedy and the
resolve that can help bring about uh more helpfulness more skillfulness more
wisdom and more um beautiful heart qualities here and see this is this is
all filtered through what I value right so that’s why I think it’s important to
identify what we really value and not take it uh put it in it’s a not self-
strategy meaning that instead of me focusing on this guy and how powerful he
is and his ego and his characteristics are the victim and who they are in their
story and what they’re identifying with instead of focusing on the what are the values involved here what are the
strengths what are the weaknesses what are the weaknesses that need strengthening uh and then what’s the
what what’s the best approach of this and sometimes I think uh depersonalizing
it helps take a lot of the emotional charge out of it instead of uh putting a
a self or or an identity on someone like what are the action verbs here you know
the the actions and the qualities that don’t have um personality egos involved
how that’s one strategy you know so but I I really get it because there has been
you know this the our heart really goes out and bleeds for people who have been taken Vantage of you know and um you
know and other people might think oh they’re just so weak you just need to get stronger and you know build up
bigger and be more resilient and things like this and you know there’s there’s a time and place for that too but like
what what what are the actions here you know what’s what’s what’s helpful for me and for others and for
everybody so I have a very different way of working with it rather than that and
I know we talk about emotions a lot but what I’ve noticed is that when I get
really into where have you gone Josh there you I just did change I just Chang the screen a little bit okay okay back
to um so where I get into a panic or I
get hard or hard-hearted there’s often an emotion that I haven’t acknowledged that sits
there which is holding the structure in place but once I’ve integrated it all
and I’ve included the emotion that is waiting to be included then that no longer arises
that’s beautiful but so I find that if I were to do what you’re suggesting I would
just go straight into bypassing because I wouldn’t have acknowledged the hurt that sits here which is where the
hardness is responding to that’s really important Wendy thanks for bring that up yeah because um so in
this instance if I if I so you’re you’re talking about the your over identification with victimhood right and
so because it’s the victim in you that’s that’s that’s it’s being brought up
right that’s why because that hasn’t you don’t feel that’s been resolved or addressed in yourself and so that’s why
you’re getting drawn and overidentified with the other who is also playing a victim right yeah yeah yeah very
important and and it’s actually the imagined victim exactly and so this is where I’ve
heard a different perspective that what we noticed in others is what we’ve actually at least started addressing in
ourselves because if we hadn’t started addressing it in itself we might not even known it in another so once we
recognize qualities in other it’s like a mirror that oh I’ve already seen that in myself at least seen that in myself so
I’ve at least somewhat addressed it myself maybe I haven’t worked all the way through it yet but uh at least the
reason I’m noticing in and another is because you know I’ve looked at it myself at least a little bit so yeah
this is a very important point and yeah sometimes I notice that I just get overly identified with something outside
myself and then totally forget that that quality is in myself too and another thing is when I when I I heard this
strategy too that I like if I start judging another or um not Desiring their
behavior or um you know um not wanting to experience a certain Behavior then I
can look inside myself and forget give that Within Myself that’s that’s um
contributing to that Viewpoint so what is it in myself that I can forgive that
I’m that I’m finding it fault with others now this doesn’t always apply because if somebody’s being abusive it
doesn’t really matter what’s in myself or another abuse is abuse and it’s never okay
so yeah yeah I think that’s true but I do think that we need to bring more of
the body and the emotion with it you know I
find too often in the Western and I don’t know if that’s the case in your
longer Retreats or with the way that the teachings are presented in Korea whether you find people are more embodied it’s a
very confucianist uh this the most confucianist country in the world Korea so whether you have found that the
teaching style is quite different because of that well it’s uh that that
might be something that it needs more further reflection for me because I have’t I think maybe once I get out of Korea comment on that but what that does
bring to mind is these differences between men and women at least in the west that I found that women on the
whole tend to relate to the world more emotionally and more emotional based while the masculine is more U mental or
um cognitively relating to reality in the world and the feminine tends to have uh
more of an emphasis on uh relationships and while the male is more about action
and work and what they their interest and what they find interested in mutual
interest perhaps so I would phras I would phrase it slightly differently and
uh there was a program we had with politicians women politicians and what she said very very senior politician and
what she said is it’s not that women are more emotional it’s just that men don’t acknowledge their emotions and they’re
often very emotionally reactive yeah but they aren’t including that so they’re
negating that which makes it a more volatile environment to be with whereas
what women will do is they’ll include that as part of the information package I think that’s way better way put way
better put Wendy totally yep so and some men are very very good at their emotions
and some women are hopess you know oh yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s not in one siiz fits all for sure so exactly
well so we’re at time we’re at time Josh we we did talk a little bit about
mindfulness this speaking but all these other things that come up that are important too right and so yeah I guess
uh we looked at some of them yeah I think we did for me I guess um
what I think about speech is how are you interacting with others and what are you
bringing to the party when you speak with somebody so to me that’s all part
of the picture about mindfulness of speech so for me I didn’t feel like we s
diverted very much from that we that’s right but we we didn’t talk about the internal speech a lot of people will
think in images but I’m more of language thinking and so how am I talking to myself internally here like in
Psychology a lot about selft talk but how many times am I rehearsing a conversation or what somebody said to me
internally and it had a huge impact you know how does mindfulness of speaking come in when we’re when it’s internally
and especially when it comes up on the cushion but we’ll just leave that for um your one’s own
reflection and and practice so Wendy thanks again for doing this and thank
you all for joining and may you all um speak wisely and with uh a centered
helpful beautiful expansive lovely etc etc
yeah and it’s Christmas don’t don’t do something stupid that will make your
reach your limits sooner yes more wisdom more more more kindness to yourselves
and maybe some distancing who knows absolutely all right
Integrating Presence 
11 thoughts on “Mindfulness Of Speaking | “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #28”