Ayya Santussika: The Wisdom, Truth, Letting Go, and Peace in Skillfully Receiving Admonishment

So today I want to talk about being easy to admonish, which has kind of a heavy sound to it. So way it's usually translated in the Buddhist texts. And I think about it as being someone who's easy to approach, easy to give feedback to. And it's really such a fertile ground for letting go, for practicing letting go. I know for myself, when I was younger, when I was working and raising my family, I was, I think pretty reactive when someone wanted to tell me I had been doing something that they didn't like or maybe making a mistake, this kind of thing. I think it was tied up in the package of perfectionism, really wanting to do everything as perfectly as possible. And my investigation of that was, okay, I wanted to do that because I didn't want to be kind of getting trouble or be kind of reprimanded, you might say that kind of thing. And so the, when someone would tell me that I'm doing something that was harmful to them or something they really didn't like or something that I really shouldn't be doing, I would feel really bad. And one time someone really close to me said, you know, when you go into feeling really bad about it, then I feel like I can't tell you things. And it's like, in so many ways, we can be difficult to approach, difficult to honestly, give feedback to. So that was really helpful for me, and learning about the Dhamma and learning about kind of understanding my conditioning better and really practicing with letting go of resistance to hearing what someone else thinks about what I'm doing or saying or have some kind of feedback for me has been really helpful. It's been an opportunity to step outside my own perspective and really listen. Another thing that I used to do that would make it difficult to give me feedback is immediately explain myself. Instead of really listening, and you may have heard me talk about that before, like particularly in a training situation in the monastery, someone is telling me, I should do things differently or something, something is wrong with what I've done. Immediately want to explain if they would just understand why what the circumstances are, why I did or said what I did, they would understand and it would all be okay. But that would get perceived as resistance. And I realized, oh, okay, first I have to really listen to what they're saying with patience. And if there's something to explain that comes later, after I've fully taken it in what I'm told. So the Buddha gave a list of the ways in which people are difficult to admonish. And it includes things like blaming someone else or saying to the person, well, you do the same thing or what you do is worse. And we probably all have seen whether it's been our own reactions to receiving feedback or someone else's that we've observed. There are many ways that we avoid or react. The Buddha goes through this list of they might be reacting with anger, with resentment, with irritation, with, you know, there's just obviously all different possibilities there. And so we want to know ourselves, right? We want to know what we're really feeling in that moment. And so I want to focus on how we can use this. What a great opportunity when our view of ourselves, our sense of self is really being challenged in a certain sense. And I don't mean in the right way. We want to challenge our view, our view of the sense of self by recognizing that it's just a facade. But I mean, when we take it personally, that someone is giving us some kind of criticism. And to recognize that, of course, what they're saying may or may not be true. It may be partially true. There might be other factors that need to be taken into account. But that if instead of reacting right away, we can take in what's being said and be present with it. And then instead of taking it personally, you know, be able to evaluate the information and be present with what the feelings are that arise inside. All of this is helping us develop our patience, develop our stamina for discomfort. And it really provides such a good opportunity for letting go. And for having a really clear example of how the sense of self operates. One time someone in a holy life, maybe 10, 15 years ago, and monished me for something. And by then I had already learned to not react, to just take it in. And at that time, what the person said was, I was impressed with how you took it. And my thought was, well, I'm not going to say anything because I've learned that I can't trust what I'm saying to be taken in a good way. So there's another whole aspect there. You know, can we trust the person who just gave us this feedback? And in reflection on that, you know, it said a lot about the community I was living in at the time, about, you know, whether or not it's a safe space. But ultimately what mattered was my own practice, my own, you know, ability to understand where that person was coming from and also understand what I knew that was incorrect about their perspective. Incomplete really about their perspective. And what really was behind a feeling like there's no space, no opportunity for a legitimate conversation about it, what an authentic conversation about it. So these are just some reflections on different circumstances where we receive feedback and what might occur as a result. What I'd like to focus on is how do we apply wisdom in this situation? And in fact, I want to draw upon the four things in our sutra last night that the Buddha talked about, foundations that we can rely on that help us awaken. He said first, it's the foundation of wisdom. And the second foundation is truth. And the third one was practicing relinquishment and the fourth one was practicing for peace. Actually, I think he used a different word for the relinquishment part. Let me just quick take a look. You should not neglect wisdom. You should preserve truth, should cultivate relinquishment and train for peace. I like that wording, that translation from Vikuboti. So when we're receiving feedback, first the not neglecting wisdom, like really being aware of the various levels of where wisdom comes in, the wisdom to just be present and aware of what's being said and try to put ourselves in that other person's shoes, if you will, to see where they're coming from. Sometimes the mind immediately wants to add something onto it that's not really there, some assumption about this person or their perspectives on things, some memories about them perhaps that cause us to be resistant. But instead the wisdom of just, can I just look at this, take in what's here and not add anything onto it? Can I see, can I put myself in their position to try to understand where they're coming from? And then at the same time, can I be present with my own feelings, my own internal reactions, maybe my desires to react, to respond to, put them down or blame them, any whatever those reactions might be, being present with that, listening to our own mind, listening to ourselves. The wisdom element there is knowing that this is all conditioned. It's all conditioned and unreliable. So we take it into account, we recognize, what's being said and then being present with it and observing whether or not from our conditioning, from our perspective, from our understanding, whether or not it's true or to what degree it's true. So sometimes we might immediately think that's wrong and perhaps it is just inaccurate, not really true. But sometimes when people say things to the Buddha that you recognize and what they're saying isn't true, but then he'll come back with, but there is this way that you could think of it as true. If you look at it from this perspective, for example, someone would say to the Buddha, you're an exterminator, you are killing off something. It's like they think he's a nihilist or he's really negative about life or something like that. And he would say, there is a way that I'm an exterminator. I exterminate hatred, like killing off anger, something like that. And then he might say, but I don't think that's what you meant, kind of like idea. And the reason I find this valuable to see from what place, from what perspective could what they're saying have value. Now, a lot of times we can realize right away, yeah, I did that. Yeah, I didn't think about or I didn't take into account the effect on this other person or the effect that it had or whatever, but this idea of just asking yourself, how can this thing that they're saying be correct or true under what circumstances can be really helpful? It can be helpful to open us up, open up our perspective, our perception. And so when we're looking at things with wisdom, it takes us, it can take us all the way from the mundane of what's happening in this moment to the ultimate of really letting go, letting go of needing to be right or needing to be perfect or like, yeah, so okay, I'll see what I can do to change that and just really put in the effort to change it. Being easy, when we become easy to admonish, then there's this, it feels like water. They say something that flows in your own awareness and understanding flows into, like water just flows into the openings, the cracks, it just continues to go downhill, finds its way. And then when I think about this, like the mind being like water and hearing and taking in whatever is given and then flowing, like if there's something that I should change, then I just let that energy, that effort make a new groove, like go with the old, like flowing gently, but with that kind of persistence water has where you can really carve a new pattern, a new habit. Sometimes we may think of ourselves as already just set in a place, this I am what I am, but that's not true. That's not truth, that's not wisdom. It's much more beneficial for our own growth, for awakening to recognize that we can change what we wanna change. It may take time, but just like water going through a crevice in the ground makes a canyon eventually, it really is where we put our attention and our effort. When we're easy to admonish, it's so peaceful. So again, in these four kind of components here that the Buddha gave us in this Sutta, it's Sutta number 140 in the Majima Nakaya, looking at this wisdom, seeing it for what it is, all layers of it, the physical experience, the emotional experience, the interaction with someone else, what we're hearing, what we're seeing, and then what's the truth? The truth is the Dhamma, and it's clear, it's reliable, and conventional reality is not the truth. Certainly we understand, okay, I actually said this or no, I didn't actually say that kind of thing, but it's like, that's such a, if you start to really see this whole conventional reality as Sankara is, we realize that my memory of what I said is not particularly reliable. How I stored that memory and what came along with it when I stored it or what built up around it is not really reliable. So where is the Dhamma in the circumstance that we're dealing with? And when we really rely on the Dhamma truth with a capital T, we have this incredible peace and it leads to this relinquishment, this letting go, letting go of whatever it is that's causing resistance to the present woman, to what we're hearing, how we see ourselves, how we see someone else, what we think of them, what we think of ourselves to let go of our defensiveness, our patterns that are unproductive is so peaceful. We really are training for peace, training for happiness, training for, we're become easy to live with. So it can make it sound like whatever someone tells us then we should change, but that's not true if we're really using wisdom. The nature of all of us as human beings with all of our varied conditioning and our blind spots and the imperfections that are inherent in being a human being, being a living being, being in, in Sanksara remind us that, yeah, we need to be discerning and follow the Dhamma, even on these simple things. And the Dhamma is going to include a lot of patience and compassion, kindness, even if we feel like someone's blaming us for something that's completely inappropriate, really not at all applicable, not at all accurate. We can be patient with the suffering that they're experiencing. We don't have to let their actions, their speech create suffering in us. If it does, we can observe it and we can let it go. A lot of times we're kind of like tuning forks, like the other person is upset and angry and it brings up that same energy in us. But this is part of the training, part of this training for peace to see that, to have compassion for ourselves, to take it slowly, even if those feelings are coming up inside, we can be present with them without reacting from them. This is all part of the practice. It's part of something that, you know, the practice of becoming easy to admonish or easy to approach or easy to talk to about difficult things can really be such a wealth of opportunity for us to grow and learn and develop on the path. Because that patience, that ability to let go is a transferable skill. We can do it with other things, letting go of what we're craving, what we're cling to, that's unhealthy for us. I've found it to be a really beneficial practice myself. I'm talking about this today because my Bikuni sister, I had Chitinanda said, why don't you talk about being easy to admonish because you're good at it. And I'm glad that that's the reflection. I want to be good at it, mainly because I can be more helpful to others. I can be easier to live with and I can be at peace in myself, regardless of whether I'm making mistakes or doing something that I should change or whatever's coming up. So I'd like to invite your comments and questions, experiences, see if this is applicable to your your experience these days. Yes, Salaf. Well, look, the first word that comes up for me is, what is reliable? Is there anything reliable? And what I mean by that is, I've been working on the body and then from last night's group, I realize there's the contemporary world or the conventional world, the external, the internal and the external. And then the word that comes up is like, there doesn't seem to be anything reliable, except I do understand the Dharma and I do understand peace and training for peace. That's my thought. Yeah, nothing in this world is reliable or worthy of being clumped to. You know, you look at the body as changing. We really take in that everything conditioned is impermanent, that everything in Sangsara in the world, in our experiences, having a physical body and a thinking mind, that it's all impermanent, it all brings dukkha if we attach to it and none of it is self. So yes, what is reliable? It's nibbana, Dharma. Those things aren't two different things. Whatever we call that, the knowing, that is the only reliable. I don't want to really call it a thing. It's not a thing. The things are not reliable. Well, I think of the Sangha as being reliable or the refugees as being reliable. Depends on what we mean by it. So sometimes people really put their faith in a charismatic teacher, for example. You think of them as Sangha, maybe they're in robes, maybe they're not, but regardless, that's not the place to put our faith, our confidence. We can benefit from their wisdom, we can benefit from their support. But what happens if they do something that's not good? So many times people, their faith in the Dharma, their faith in Buddhism crumbles because something like that happens and it's just because what we want to put our real confidence in is Dharma. So Sangha that you take as refuge is really enlightenment. It's really the ability, the opportunity, the reality that there are those who experience enlightenment, who realize Nirvana. And that's what we want to put our confidence in. Not the humans, not the personality, not the idea, the concept of them as a self, but as the awakened mind. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Anne. Yes, thank you for this. What came to mind in addition to understanding what you said is the issue of self-admonishment. So I was thinking about a conversation I had with my sister yesterday on the phone. And I'm sorry for some of the things I said. I sort of teased her about something and I'm sure it wasn't pleasant for her. So it was part of an old pattern I realized that it's easy to fall into. So I'm just contemplating if I need to get back to her or I don't necessarily expect you to have any answers, but it was around her birthday and she was counting how many points she got for people responding to her birthday. And she said, well, it's really pathetic. And then I said, well, look, there's me and Ed here. That must be double the points. So I sort of engaged in that in sort of a semi-mocking way. And so I feel like I just need to get back and maybe say sorry I was teasing you. And know you had a great birthday and sending love from us both or something like that. When you imagine how she would feel with receiving your message, would it be good for her or not? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And I would do it. Yeah. It's great to see those patterns and how they emerge and that we do have the ability to resist them if we are conscious. And so this is becoming conscious of it and aware of it. It's really good. And yeah, and just seeing the sad predicament we're in, wanting to feel better because of what other people do or say, relying on what other people do or say to help us feel better. One thing that's changed for me is really wishing for our, I want to say, wanting the feedback from people about what I'm teaching, for example. It's like I want it, of course, I want it to be understandable. And I want to know what people need, but the desire for confirmation is gone. And I think that that's interesting. It's just interesting. It's totally natural, like your sister, to look for, and all of us as human beings, to look for positive reinforcement from others for what we're saying and doing. We're like herd animals. We want to be accepted in the group and we want to be valued by others. And I think that's interesting. We're not just a group and we want to be valued by others, but as the practice deepens, we need less and less of that because we're more and more confident in the Dharma and we're less and less attached to the sense of self. And interacting with someone like you were just describing who's hurt by or they become sad or they become happy based on what other people are doing. You just see that you can have compassion, you can see and have compassion for that very vulnerable state and know that what we want to do is develop our own foundation and this particular expression of it from the Buddha, this wisdom and truth and letting go relinquishment or as you brought up in another translation of that would be generosity, but that idea of generosity as letting go and peace to know that we actually have the ability to put in the causes and conditions for that to, for that to arise and to be the place we come from. So yeah, I think compassion for your sister is really, it's really lovely. Thank you, James. I just started to hear something that occurred a number of years ago, but you actually admonished me. Yeah, you admonished me and I was going to say I'm grateful I could see what you're talking about. And the effect of me was a very intense sense of moral shame and just really shaken that, you know, I caused it some offense to my elders and frankly, I still feel that and it's not intense, but and I'm not, you know, this is kind of wrapped up in self too, but I have to say it really strengthened and sensitized my sense of caution about speech and what I'm doing and, you know, very much on the hearing, sort of guidance. So I think the point is, you know, that it can be painful to get feedback, but there's a lot to be gained from it. And yeah, that's what I have to say. Thank you, James. Yeah. Beth. Thank you so much for this talk. It's just so like right on target for me right now. One of the things I do in the morni