Category Archives: self-destructive behavior

Wise Action

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alt=The next aspect of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path we’ll explore is Wise Action. We can all easily come up with examples in our lives of unwise action: Maybe the time we tripped and hurt ourselves, the time we left the burner on in the kitchen and forgot about it, or the time we ended up with indigestion from over-indulging.

Unwise action is often frustrating, sometimes painful and can be dangerous. So how do we develop more Wise Action in our lives?

First we check in with our intention. This is always the first place to go whenever we feel out of sorts. Is our intention wise? Is it a wise loving intention that promotes taking care of this gift of a physical body to the best of our ability? Or are our actions seated in some sense of self-hatred that assures that they are likely to be unskillful?

We can also look at our effort. We might see that we are trying so hard to accomplish something that we are not taking good care of ourselves. Or, we are under-efforting, and not meeting our body’s needs. Wise Effort arises from Wise Intention and the two work together to bring balance and effectiveness. It’s an area to explore.

What about Wise Mindfulness? If we hurt ourselves or others it’s often because we weren’t being mindful. We were thinking about other things and we had an accident of some kind. Is there any accident that we caused that didn’t arise out of not being fully present in the moment? If everyone on the road were being mindful as they drive, would there be any accidents? This is why self-driving vehicles are safer. A computer-driver is not making grocery store lists, talking on the phone or texting, daydreaming or caught up in an emotional storm. Instead it is constantly noting all causes and conditions. Theoretically we could drive as well as computers, but instead we let our minds wander and boom. This is no small problem! In the US alone, there are over 30,000 traffic deaths per year, and many more serious injuries.

What about Wise View? Our actions become unskillful in relationship to other people when we believe them to be separate, alien and threatening. It’s a scientific fact that we are not just made of the same stuff, but are seamlessly interconnected with all being, but coming home that reality is sometimes difficult because we are caught up in destructive patterns of emotion and thought. And the result is violence. When we are able to come to Wise View, our actions are more skillful.

Beyond violence, other unskillful actions arise from unwise view: All manor of addictive behavior that is destructive to ourselves and those around us.

Last post we looked at Wise Speech. Now we can recognize how unwise action can be activated by unwise speech. Words that are hurtful can lead to bodily harm.

See how all the aspects of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path work together? When we recognize that something in our life is off kilter, that we aren’t being skillful or wise in our actions, we can explore more fully where exactly is the lack of wisdom in this particular case.

Often our actions are reactions. This makes them intrinsically unskillful and likely to cause trouble for ourselves and those around us. As we cultivate wisdom, our actions rise out of that wisdom. They are not reactive. They are, instead, responsive. What’s the difference? Reactivity is mindless, on auto-pilot and rooted in fear. Responsiveness rises out of a sense of being interconnected to all life. The action is rooted in Wise Intention, a loving intention that has no expectation.

Wise Action in a Changing World

In general we are uncomfortable with change, even change we had hoped for. It takes us time to adapt, to mourn the loss of what was and come into some comfortable relationship with what is new. In part this is due to our habitual nature. We are used to doing things a certain way and suddenly we have to pay more attention. For example, moving into a new home can be exciting but stressful, not just because of all the boxes to unload and phone calls to make and things to arrange, but also because we were operating on autopilot in our old situation. We didn’t have to think about it. We knew where everything was. We knew the route by heart to the old home, and our body just naturally goes there. This new route takes some purposeful thinking.

This is true with a new job, a new relationship, a new physical challenge or a new leader. It all takes some getting used to. And that’s not easy.

If the change was something we chose, then we are buoyed by the excitement of an opportunity or challenge. We can still find it stressful, but overall we feel good about it. But if the change was not of our choosing then there is no excitement to buoy us up. We find ourselves floating and sometimes drowning in a sea of difficult emotions.

If that sounds at all familiar, then let’s explore skillful means to survive and even thrive in that sea of change.

First, we need to recognize that change is the only constant. From the day we were born, we and everything around us has been in flux, growing up, altering circumstances, changing course. Walking in nature we recognize the cycles of seasons. Nothing stays the same.  

Second, we can see that we have always somehow dealt with change and have survived. But is survival enough? Most of us want a little more from life than mere survival.

We can look at the way we have dealt with change to see if it was skillful. Or are we reacting to what comes up in our lives with emotions and actions that seemed skillful when we were eight years old? As adults, if we take the time to pay attention, we have the capacity to see that these are not skillful. But because we are not taking the time to explore, evaluate and reassess, we may still be handling things in childish ways: sulking, lashing out, acting up, hiding out, unwilling to look at all sides of an issue. We may still see from a child’s eye view: That the world or someone in our lives is the cause of all our problems and we totally helpless to do anything about it.

Is this true? For most of us this may be true in some areas and not in others, because we have paid attention and grown in some areas, but are still on autopilot in regard to others.

Insight meditation is developing a strong healthy habit of meditation, mindfulness and compassion. AND doing self-inquiry. Especially after a period of meditation, when the mind is quieted down enough so that our innate inner wisdom can be heard, we can begin to question some of our assumptions about things.

So when we feel adrift in a sea of change, meditation and inquiry can allow us to become like dolphins, able to inhabit the experience more fully and more joyfully. Coming into the moment, we can recognize our reactivity, and how we are causing ourselves misery. We can see how we get stuck in nostalgia, stuck in anger, or lost in despair. We don’t get unstuck by pushing any of these emotions away. We get unstuck by cultivating spaciousness, compassion for ourselves and others, allowing whatever is present to be there, but also noticing what else is also present in this moment.

At any moment, in our body and in the world, there are both pleasant and unpleasant things going on. Noticing both allows us to expand our view, to hold all that is going on in a skillful way. And from this noticing we find we are able to be fully present and rooted in a more peaceful and loving intention, so that we make wiser choices and wiser actions.

Past dharma talks on Wise Action:

https://stephanienoble.com/2013/09/30/wise-action/

https://stephanienoble.com/2011/04/02/the-five-precepts-intrinsic-to-right-wise-or-spacious-action/

https://stephanienoble.com/2009/03/11/eightfold-path-right-or-wise-action/

Even Bad Habits Don’t Deserve to be Kicked!

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A More Effective Way to Deal
with Destructive Behavior

The spacious mind that arises out of the regular practice of meditation is a perfect stage for noticing a self-destructive behavior, and then noticing the voice inside us that activates or instigates that behavior. This noticing and listening is much more effective than trying to strong arm ourselves into stopping the behavior. How many times have you quit smoking or gone on a diet only to sabotage yourself? This is clearly a painful self-destructive pattern. Each failure makes us feel like a failure. Each hope dashed lowers our view of our own abilities.

Remembering when we have been successful at changing a behavior, we also remember a feeling of being whole-hearted, of being completely clear, and that it felt as if the change came about naturally. That sense of wholeness and clarity allows for positive change. Otherwise, the thundering roar of a cacophony of conflicting inner directives – desires, urges, fears – may totally derail us. The clarity comes from all the inner voices being in tune and in harmony. All our inner aspects need to be on board before a real shift can happen.

If we are really noticing, we find that on every journey to an unskillful action there is a conversation between inner aspects. At first we may notice only the most urgent voice demanding that cookie right now. The urgency is uncomfortable or exhilarating, and it may feel like our only choice is to comply. But when we pay closer attention, we find there is at least one other voice as well. If we recognize that the urgency doesn’t necessarily require immediate action, that we actually can tolerate ‘listening to the inner baby cry’ a bit before responding, we might begin to hear another voice as well.

There is a quiet voice within each of us that we may never notice until we are really paying attention. The silence of meditation allows us to become aware of a calm inner spacious wisdom. Through the regular practice of meditation, we can seek this wise inner resource out, as I did in my book Tapping the Wisdom Within, A Guide to Joyous Living.

As we begin to listen to this inner wisdom, we can allow it to have loving diplomatic conversations with our other aspects, negotiating inner peace. We can shift the internal power structure so that the urgent caffeinated aspects that have been yelling so loud that we give them what they want just to shut them up for a while, are no longer calling the shots.

At first it may be hard to find that wise inner voice, mostly because our more rambunctious aspects are running the show. But with regular meditative practice, quiet walks in nature, setting the intention to stay in the present moment and be kind, we create a spaciousness that allows us to notice and listen with curiosity. With that spaciousness, our journey of self-discovery truly begins.

Any self discovery we have done in the past, without this spaciousness, is more likely to have been a grabbing at identity clues and claiming them. I am that, I am like that, I am that kind of person. Our discoveries may be interesting or comforting, but really they are just decorative accessories of identity.

The self-discovery we embark on through this meditative practice is not a grabbing identity as if our behaviors or preferences are life preservers to save us.

Often it is our attachment to a certain identity that causes us and those around us suffering. My mother died of emphysema. She said she could have quit smoking much sooner, but she was so sure she would be an incredibly boring person without a cigarette in her hand to make her glamorous! Those artful smoke swirls of 1930’s movies had done their number on her. Of course when she finally quit she was even more interesting and enjoyable to be around.

A good question to ask ourselves when we are wanting to quit a habit but are finding it impossible: Who would I be without my cigarette? or Who would I be without my sweet treats? or Who would I be without my quick temper? The answers may set us on a fruitful journey of exploration.

Perhaps you have known a child whose room is piled high with all manner of garbage – discarded soda cans, gum wrappers, etc. – and they refuse to acknowledge this is trash. What’s up with that? Perhaps they are desperately building an identity for themselves, and everything they have touched defines them. So throwing away the soda can is for them throwing away a bit of themselves. This is an extreme example of something we all do to varying degrees. We take pride in our choices of the objects we have chosen to fill our lives, and vest them with the power to define us, to represent us to the world and even to ourselves. We can be very rigid in our definition. I would never wear that! I hate that kind of food. I’m the kind of person who lives in this kind of house, decorated in this particular style. I can’t imagine myself in a different setting. All of these kinds of statements are not just preferences, they are the life preservers of our identity, and we cling to them pretty fiercely.

When we come into a vaster vantage point of Right View, we begin to see that none of these things are us at all. What is offered is much greater than all of this little detritus floating around in the sea that we’ve been clinging to for dear life. It is the invitation to recognize that we are the sea itself. We don’t need life preservers of identity to rescue us. We are already rescued! We only need to recognize our true nature.

Notice the little voice in you saying, But I want the cool things! This is not about giving up the things. It’s about shifting our relationship to them and the world around us, not believing that these things define us. And then not being attached to the identity of being a person who can do without things. It’s an ongoing process!

If you are not yet ready to give up the life raft of identity, don’t fret. Don’t add yet another voice to the cacophony within that says you haven’t got it. Baloney! You’ve got it. It’s all there. In your own time, in your own way, at your own pace, you will reveal all to yourself. Patience. Practice. Intention to be present in this moment and to be kind. Let that be absolutely enough. It truly is.

And with that regular meditative practice comes:
– The spaciousness to notice a thought, a desire, an urge, passing through
– The patience to stay with the thought a while before fulfilling its demand through action.
– The ability to see that the thought has a voice, an agenda, an intention that may be rooted in fear.
– The time to pause and follow that thought thread down to its roots
– The willingness to become familiar with this voice, to give it an affectionate name,
– The wisdom not to claim it as identity but to recognize its concerns
– The skill to negotiate a workable solution that circumvents the unskillful behavior it requests, while fulfilling the deeper need for a sense of safety and security that it desires.

Listening to the voice that is promoting the behavior, naming it, asking questions, negotiating some equitable solution. Voice by voice, we get ourselves together, speaking with one clear intention.

That’s when resistance to the change we want to make falls away. We haven’t ripped it out, we haven’t thrown any part of ourselves away, we haven’t sacrificed anything. We have simply made friends with ourselves and become whole-hearted and able to do what we need to do.