Then Devon came for a visit from where we were living on O’ahu. Within days she was a local favorite. The woman in the coffee shop, who had only warmed up to me after months, warmed up to Devon within minutes. The food-truck folks, the bartender at the restaurant, random people on the street—within days people knew Devon and treated her like a welcome friend.
The thing is, though, this level of radiant presence doesn’t just come naturally. Or part of it does. But the other part has to do with training. Devon has been refining her own mind, day after day, year after year, on and off the meditation cushion. She has been paying careful attention to her interactions with others, checking in again and again to see how things go whenever she turns herself to the world. Also, I know for a fact that she’s always asking herself the same elementary questions I listed above: True? Kind? Timely? Helpful? And this allows her to show up and be more fully attuned to the range of people in her life.
Now, of course, I’m not saying Devon never stumbles. In the ten years we’ve been together I’ve seen her make hardcore social errors, embarrass herself, embarrass others (including me), step on people’s toes, and even occasionally tick off the innocent bystander. So what we don’t want to do is make this into some rigidly unattainable goal of theatrical smoothness. Devon is a work in progress; me, too; you, too: everybody’s just stumbling through together, trying to figure it all out. The key is to start checking your mind. What are you thinking? Could it be slightly truer, kinder, and the rest? Then check the words that are about to leave your lips. The more you say what’s true and kind and timely and helpful, the more the world will begin to become a friendlier place.
A Quick Meditation
SPEAK WISELY
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Let’s try to bring some awareness to how you communicate with others. By recognizing times when you’ve been honest and upright in speech, you gain confidence in your ability to hone this skill. It’s really possible, though not always easy. And while it can take time, the payoff is totally worth it. So let’s practice this with a little formal meditation.
Get comfy. Breathe deeply a few times and let your nervous system relax and settle. Spend a few moments just feeling the moment and being okay as you are.
Now think of a time when you really spoke skillfully. A time when you were honest and kind, and your speech was timely and useful. Maybe you spoke truth to power. Or you confessed something to your significant other and it deepened your intimacy. Or you wrote a clear email at work. It doesn’t have to be blown-away amazing speech, just a time when you felt good about how you communicated. Maybe it wasn’t easy to tell the truth, but you did anyway.
Once you’ve picked your moment, spend some time remembering it as if it’s happening right now. Remember your words and how your body felt as you spoke them or emailed them or texted them or sexted them. You don’t have to feel all glowy here; just stay curious about how wise speech feels when you do it.
Okay, great. Now let go of the reflection and relax for a few moments. Simply be with your body and your mind as they are. Nice work. You’re done. Feel free to come back to this exercise from time to time. I’ve gone through periods where I’ve done something like this every day for a week or two, just to get a handle on the stuff that’s coming out of my mouth.
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YES, YOU CAN STILL BE STERN
So now that you’ve reflected on talking with honesty and heard about my wife (yes, by the way, I know I’m highly biased), I’m hoping you’re inspired to try following the Buddha’s guidelines for speech: True, Kind, Timely, Helpful. But if you’re anything like me, you’re probably also wondering, Am I just going to have to try to walk around with a buttery smile all over my face like I’ve had some kind of a ketamine lobotomy? What about when people do stupid stuff, dangerous stuff, mean stuff? Am I supposed to let them walk all over me and just be Zen about it?
As we’ve mentioned already: of course not. Some of the kindest people I know can also be the fiercest. Remember Dr. Bonnie Duran back in chapter 2. Remember our whole disquisition about setting boundaries in chapter 3. And, just for kicks, let me describe another example of a preternaturally kind and compassionate human being who also engages in some serious straight talk.
There is a Tibetan teacher we studied with in Hawai’i named Lama Rinchen. In the year that we were with him, Lama Rinchen was eighty-eight years old, a small, quiet man with a quiet voice who was always smiling and calm. As an ordained Buddhist monk, he wore his same red robes every day, day after day. He ate simple food, lived in the temple where we all came to study, and spoke to whomever showed up in the same calm, even tone. Lama Rinchen is, as far as I am concerned, a true Buddhist adept, a master of his own mind who seems to never lose his cool and, unlike me, never wavers from the sort of kind, lighthearted presence that we might think of as saintly.
Until one day. Because in the center where Lama Rinchen teaches there was a longtime student, whom I’ll call William. And William was always making trouble. He was disdainful of other students, haughty about his Buddhist textual knowledge, and above all, very, very confident in his high levels of spiritual attainment.
So on this one fresh summer Sunday morning in the hills above Honolulu, we all did our ninety-minute group practice together, as we did every Sunday. And after the practice, Lama Rinchen asked if anyone had questions, as he did every Sunday. And a student raised her hand and asked a question about the unborn nature—a very high-level question about our experiential knowing of absolute reality.
Lama Rinchen paused. As he was gathering his thoughts to answer in his quiet, kind, somewhat broken English, William turned around and began to unfurl a haughty disquisition on the unborn nature. On and on he went. Lama Rinchen simply watched him go. The room full of students simply watched him go. If people were upset, no one seemed to show it. When William took a breath, the student who had asked the question gently interrupted him, in a way that I found both skillful and firm. She said, “Thank you, William, but I was actually asking Lama Rinchen to answer this question.”
William shrugged, as if to say, Well, I can answer it faster and better. Then he was quiet for a moment.
The whole room turned to Lama Rinchen, who began, slowly, meticulously, to give an extraordinarily subtle explanation of the unborn nature, based entirely on textual reference, but shot through with his own deep, decades-long meditation experience. Things were going great, until, again, he stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts, and William jumped in again. And this time he corrected Lama Rinchen! Never mind that Lama Rinchen ordained at the age of twelve and studied with the greatest masters of Tibet before coming to the West. Never mind that Lama Rinchen has spent years in cloistered meditation retreat. And never mind that William’s correction was technically inaccurate—he just launched into his own explanation, all over again, of the unborn nature.