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Transcript

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Tania: Welcome to Ready To Be Strong. I’m Tania Israel. In this podcast, we’re broadening our minds, opening our hearts, and strengthening connections to face the challenges of a divided world. So, today we’re unpacking reactions to the 2024 election. Pema can’t be here today, but my dear friend, Karma Yeshe Chödrön is uh, here. She’s a Buddhist teacher and we have known each other for many decades. 

Yeshe: It’s always such a pleasure to be with you, and I don’t think there were that many decades. 

Tania: Okay. Only 40 years or so. Well, I mean, certainly over those decades we’ve had many conversations, but I really wanted you to be here today because we’ve been talking since the election, and I have felt like you have some truly valuable perspectives and guidance that I know I have found beneficial and just helps me to feel more grounded, and I really wanted you to come and share that with our listeners.

Yeshe: Thanks, Tania. Yeah, this is definitely a very tender time and it’s also a time of great possibility, and I’m so happy to talk with you about how my Buddhist practice has helped me to learn ways to harness that opportunity in the middle of allowing myself that tenderness.

Tania: I know people turn to you for guidance, particularly in Buddhist circles, but I think that you have a lot to offer to everyone, and I, I think you have some really beneficial insights that our listeners might appreciate.

I know I’ve been seeing a lot going on out there in terms of anger, you know, people just throwing vitriol around people, coming up with so many different analyses of what happened. People struggle with other people’s reactions too, and I wanted to hear a little bit from you about, you know, what are you noticing out there and how are you making sense of it?

Yeshe: Yeah, I think what I’ve been noticing is very similar to what you have. Of course, the content or the flavor of the emotions might vary depending on political opinions and who this person or that person voted for. But, one thing that I find clarifying in interfacing with everybody, something that helps me connect with the person who’s having whatever particular emotion they’re having, is that this is a time of very obvious uncertainty. Uncertainties are kind of, continuous thread in our experience, but we have lots of really good ways of making things feel certain enough that we can plan our day, that we can go about our activities and so forth. Moments like this are so seismic that it brings the background uncertainty forward, and we all have very different ways of responding to that.

Very different emotions that come forward. From a Buddhist perspective, it’s actually a wonderful opportunity to really look at our habits, our heart and mind, and to engage life from the standpoint of learning more about ourselves and others.

Tania: I love this way of thinking about it in terms of uncertainty. I feel like some of the distress that people were experiencing and just how amped up people were in the lead up to the election felt very much about uncertainty and trying to manage that uncertainty in all kinds of ways. And then once the election was decided, you know, I’ve heard a lot of people saying, okay, well now I’m just resigned.

And you know, okay, now we know what’s happening and, and here we are. And I am I don’t know. I’m now turning off all my news and I’m just in this place of, now we know what’s happening. It seems like that’s not the full story of it. In terms of, you know, I, I, I don’t know that people are so settled with that feeling, even people who are saying that. So what, what do you make of that?

Yeshe: Yeah, uncertainty rarely makes us feel settled. What it typically does is switch on largely unconscious and automatic responses that we’ve developed throughout our lives to make things feel less rocky, less groundless. So, part of what happens, and as you say this, it’s not just the election. You know, the fury over all of the polls and which polls were right and which were wrong, is another way of putting your finger on the pulse of how much we want things to be known.

How much we wanna know ahead of time what’s about to happen. And one thing that’s really interesting to me is that these moments are actually an invitation to settle into the reality that we never know what things are gonna be like. Any number of polls or talking heads on different cable news channels are going to tell us what’s gonna happen.

Nobody knew what was gonna happen in this election. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen going forward. That doesn’t mean that we can’t have a measure of calm, clarity and enough tranquility in our lives to move forward with wise action and understanding of our own situation, but actually taking the invitation of these moments of obvious uncertainty to sort of connect with the reality that never really know with crystalline clarity, what’s about to happen next can be very beneficial. It’s kind of like floating or surfing on waves of an ocean instead of trying to outrun a tide or riptide or something that’s pulling us in a direction we don’t wanna be. It’s really allowing us to be with what’s happening.

Tania: So. I have two questions about that really, you know, because I, I am sort of imagining how some of the people I know would respond to that, that, that they might, you know, say, well, if we’re not preparing for what might happen, then we’ll not be able to respond to it as well in the moment. So that’s sort of one line of like, of curiosity that I have, how you would respond to that.

And, but then the other question is, how do we do that?

Yeshe: Actually, I think the answer is the same for both of those questions. Yes, you definitely have to prepare for what might happen, but it begins with our heart, not with our hands. Our heart drives our hands. And so, when we are in a place of really wanting to connect, really wanting to find the wise choice, really trying to act with purpose and meaning, and our heart is driving our actions in a way that really will be prepared in the sense of being responsive to a shifting landscape, which is the one thing we know for certain is coming. We won’t know for certain what that landscape looks like until we meet each moment.

One example that I can think of is this very topical. The ACLU ran a full page ad in the New York Times talking about all the things that they’ve done in the past and their preparedness going forward to meet the challenges of the second Trump administration. This is a wonderful example of grounding action in knowledge, grounding action and purpose and meaning, and moving forward with preparedness, knowing what has been learned from the past and being responsive. Not saying this is gonna happen and that’s gonna happen and this is how I’m gonna respond, but I’m ready. I’m here and I’m going to respond to whatever comes.

This is very different from being reactive and oftentimes the reactive posture can actually put us on the wrong footing. We’re not ready for what’s actually meeting us, but something that we anticipated would happen, which is kind of the whole situation we’re in right now. We were anticipating a particular result and it doesn’t happen.We get thrown and everything goes topsy-turvy. That’s not likely to bring forward a prepared easeful response, whereas something that is grounded in the reality of what has happened in the past and what it takes to respond to the landscape as it changes is one that is a lot more likely to meet circumstances in a way that is accurate to the conditions at the time.

Tania: So how do we then know if we are coming from a grounded place or if we’re just kind of spinning out in our preparation? 

Yeshe: Well, the simple answer is that not being prepared or being reactive feels jangly. It doesn’t feel smooth, it doesn’t feel expert. The not so easy answer is it takes some practice to be connected with even that quality of where our heart mind is in a given moment.

So from a better standpoint, we often say that we can’t just jump into situations and expect everything to be perfect or expect us to be adept at handling things. Just like we wouldn’t expect to surf the highest waves in Hawaii on the first time out on a surfboard or play a magnificent concierto the first time we sit at a piano.

It takes time, it takes practice. From a Buddhist standpoint, that’s a meditation practice, but from an everyday standpoint, it’s simply being aware of how we respond on a day-to-day level. Just getting to know our hearts, our habits, and the feel of what it’s like when we’re responding to our child or a coworker or a spouse or a friend in a way that is conducive to positive results.

Then we get used to what that feels like and we can apply it in other situations. If we’re not ready for that yet, if we haven’t done that yet, it doesn’t take a lot of time. It really is about listening to our own hearts, and it’s right there. We know we know how to do this. We know what it feels like when we are aligned with what we care about, and we know how jangly it feels when something is setting us off.

Tania: So it’s not even so much about, you know, what we’re doing externally that’s gonna tell us if we’re coming from a grounded place. It’s really how we’re feeling internally. And if we are in that, like you talked about, you know, you said expert, but, but it doesn’t sound like that kind of expert that’s necessarily spinning out all the analyses and looking at all the data right now. It’s more of an internal expert that if we know that we’re kind of drawing on our own internal guidance, then that gives us a better sense that we’re coming from a place of groundedness.

Yeshe: Yeah. And even recognizing what place we’re coming from is already a step removed from what we’re trying to do. Just knowing how it feels is giving us a hint at where our intention is, which is the previous step. When we’re acting from an intention of connecting, it might be connecting with people who are under-represented or who are vulnerable. We have a feeling that’s very different than when we’re operating from a place that is combative, wanting to oppose or attack views that are opposite to us. The actions may not be all that different. The actions that we take may be very similar. But the part of expertness, or the other word I like to use is to be adept, is simply to be fluid with what it feels like to be coming from an intention that is positive and growthful as opposed to a combative one.

Again, the actions itself are not how we tell the difference. The difference comes from intention and that’s the tricky part that’s very invisible. In some of your work I hear you often trying to bridge the divide with someone that we don’t necessarily agree with by trying to look at what’s underneath opinions or ideas.

It’s similar to that. Only now we’re having that dialogue in our own hearts. Trying to be adept at where we are and where we are coming from.

Tania: Mm-Hmm. I, I love your framing of it as a practice because, you know, in, in Facing the Fracture, I lay out like, here’s all these things that we can do and you know, we can, turn off our, our news notifications. We can correct our misperceptions of other people. We can try to understand their perspective.

We can open our hearts. We can, you know, there’s, there’s all of these things that we can do, and I recognize that, that’s asking a lot of people. And it’s not gonna be easy to just, oh, you read it and you go, oh yeah, I see there’s lots of evidence here and these would be really helpful, and so I’m just gonna do all of them starting now.

I mean, I do think that the current context, you know, before the election and going forward also might bring people to an awareness that this is something that they need, that they, they need some guidance in terms of how to navigate the divisiveness of our, of our country, of our world. Often people say, you know, around these things, like, but I’m not good at this. And people say that. I think about meditation too, a lot. You know, it’s like, oh yeah, I don’t do it ’cause I, I’m just not good at it. But, of course you’re not good at it when you start. What do you suggest for people when they’re approaching a practice, whether it’s a meditation practice or whether it’s, you know, all of these things that we can do to navigate division. What do we do when we feel like we’re not good at it but it seems like something we might want to approach?

Yeshe: That is such a great question ’cause it really gets the heart, as you say, of a lot of the ways that we talk ourselves out of something that we actually feel we would benefit from and wanna do. So I would say, first of all, connect with why this feels powerful for you. Why does meditation or learning how to connect with people who disagree with us, or maybe even just our family members, or how to be a voice in our community? Why does that matter to you? This is an important first step because you know, you can’t, we’re talking about mind here. All of this is about mind and kind of the point of Buddhist practice is to recognize the supremacy of mind in all of our actions. But you can’t push mind around, there’s nothing physical to push.

You can’t tell it, stay here because for sure it will move. You can’t tell it, please move because for sure it will stay, but it has the capacity to know. It has the capacity to be intelligent, so reasoning with mind is very helpful. Just reasoning in this case, this means giving yourself time to really interpret the reasons why you think it’s important to meditate or have healthy conversations with family members or what have you. This is what keeps us motivated. It’s what makes us enthusiastic for whatever the practice is. So this is, again, going a step before the actual activity. And then when we’re actually engaging in a new meditation practice, a new way to communicate, a new way to be politically active.

It’s really important to take small, frequent steps. So to use meditation as the example, don’t feel like you need to meditate for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening from day one. Do it for five minutes and maybe do it a couple of times. Throughout the day or the week, whatever feels comfortable for you.

So start where you feel confident and capable, and then increase the frequency and the duration each time. The same thing applies, whether it’s meditation or a conversation or political activity or what have you. This is how we build confidence and we can keep stacking on the reasons of our heart to actually engage in the activity, whatever it might be.

Tania: Yeah. When I think about those sort of small doses that we have to do, I was, I was just thinking about how I, I know all these people at the moment who say, oh, I’ve just turned off news completely. You know, like after the election, they’re like, okay, I heard the result, and then I don’t wanna hear anything now. And I think, oh, well, I do tell people, you know, to turn off their news notifications and there are things we can do to consume news more wisely.

But I’m also, what, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve been thinking about this, I thought, well, is that what’s gonna happen? When these people then turn the news back on, is it going to have the same sort of reaction for them that they’ve been having, which is just, you know, kind of blowing their tops every time they hear something. So I’ve been thinking that yes, it’s probably good to take a, you know, to take a break when we need it, but we’re also gonna need to learn how to manage our reaction when we do start to turn the news back on and, and how do we do that? So, I think that in all of these cases, like, you know, if somebody’s turned the news off, they’re probably not gonna keep the news off for the next four years. And they’re probably going to, when they hear, it’s so funny, all these people who are like, I’ve turned the news off, and then a second later they’re like, but Matt Gates, you know. Somehow this information’s still getting through and, and it’s still stirring up the same reactiveness. And so, I think maybe having small doses of things that we say, okay here’s a small dose of the news or of information or of, thought or perception that I’m having. Let me maybe work with this on a, on a smaller level rather than just saying either the fire hose is gonna be turned all the way up or disconnected.

Yeshe: Yeah, that’s really important because what we talk about when we’re talking about small, frequent doses, to use that term, is not about the content. So it’s not about small frequent doses of news, for example. It’s small frequent doses of how I practice responding to the news. So it’s very much something that is in our wheelhouse.

There’s absolutely nothing we can do about how Donald Trump chooses his cabinet. But we do have a choice in how we respond, and we can use that advice of small, frequent doses to work with that. It may not seem like a lot, but in this moment, the choice not to rush to hatred or anger or disarray is huge. To take small, frequent moments of time, to take in content and choose to respond in a way that is actually beneficial for us. That furthers our ability to engage wisely with the world. That’s where the practice is. So yes, definitely turn off the news if perhaps we’ve been over imbibing prior to the election and we can use a pause.

A pause is very helpful. It helps us to reset and to reprioritize where we are, but as you say, snippets will get through. There are some things that manage to get through, even if we’re not actively watching the news, and that’s where we can use the atmosphere of the pause. The pause by itself is not helpful. There’s nothing intrinsic about pausing that is helpful. It’s what we do with the pause. That is helpful or not helpful. And that’s where we have those moments of practicing those moments of saying, do I allow anger that is just not really directed at purposeful action? Or do I spend some time with, what’s the intention underneath there?

Well, maybe my intention is to have a principled cabinet. To have people who care about the world in positions of power, these are really valuable intentions. How can we act even with a measure of rage or outrage, but in a way that is channeled to actually yield results? And are aligned with our intention.

Maybe that means speaking up to our congressional representatives or being involved with community activity. Or maybe it’s just sitting with a neighbor who’s equally upset and needs some time and a loving gaze to be with them for a moment. Small ways, interacting with different news sources, different things out there in the world can actually make a really big difference.

Tania: Yeah, I feel like people are feeling so out of control. And that’s such a hard place to be. And I’m always trying to say, okay, well what can I control? What can’t I control? And I don’t think I can really do anything at all about the cabinet appointments, but there are things that I can do both internally and externally.

You know, I can work on how I perceive other people and try to correct for misperceptions. I can try to make space for the whole range of different ways that people are reacting to the election and the aftermath. And, I can also do things, you know, there’s, there’s very practical things we can do in terms of engaging in our communities that I think will be helpful. And it doesn’t even necessarily mean engaging with people who have different political views, but it can just be volunteering in any capacity where we’re interacting with other three dimensional human beings. I’ve also been really encouraging people to learn more about the Bridging Movement because there are hundreds of organizations that are working on bridging divides and strengthening our democracy and knowing about those is not only encouraging and gives me some hope, but it actually gives people things that they can do to to sort of write their perceptions of, you know, we think that everybody’s extreme and hateful and all of this, but most people aren’t in that place and a lot of people are actually working on making things better. So I agree that trying to find what’s within our capacity to do something about, rather than expending our energy on things that are, you know, all of the analyses and all of the just reactivity doesn’t seem to get us anywhere.

Yeshe: Yes. I couldn’t agree more. I mean, when we feel powerless. Constricting ourselves to places where we really don’t have control, only puts us into a spiral. Whereas when we fill the spaces where we do have a voice and a role, that’s actually very empowering. So it can seem counterproductive to limit our sphere, but actually that’s where we feel most empowered. Because that’s where we actually have a role to play, as you say. And then another thing I would say is that we always have the power to recognize dignity in somebody else. Even if they don’t agree with us, even if we think their actions are reprehensible, we can recognize that there’s in the heart of all beings, this dignity of simply wanting to be happy and we can find, a great deal of compassion when we see people go awry, oh, this is their way of trying to be happy and making the world a better place. And I don’t see that that’s gonna work out for them. So rather than rage, we might start to connect with a sense of empathy or compassion.  A sense of recognizing that people’s actions do not always reflect the sort of essential, I like to say dignity and Buddhism, a lot of the time they say it, the word used is goodness, basic goodness. But sometimes the goodness is hard to see. Uh, but simply just allowing ourselves to see someone, being seen is a very valuable thing to receive. But we don’t often hear about the immense value of opening our eyes to seeing others.

Maybe we won’t know everything that’s happening to them. Maybe we still won’t understand why they do the things they do, but just seeing and allowing ourselves to see beings as beings with inherent dignity, with a wish, very much like our own, let things be right in their hearts, in their homes, in their world.

That helps us to find a really, really fundamental common ground. That can be really powerful.

Tania: Yeah, I think that that is valuable and not always the easiest thing. And I think one of the things that I hear from people is, well, you know, I don’t wanna have compassion for white supremacists and neo-Nazis. They’ll go to the most extreme example and this sort of very narrow stereotype that they have in their minds of who is on the other side. And the thing that we know is that most people are not that extreme. And that probably it’s gonna be easier for us to start doing that kind of practice with people who are not, at maybe the farthest end of the political spectrum. And frankly, these days I feel like people are having so many reactions to people on their own side, or at least, you know, on the left, this is what I’m hearing. Like people are having reactions to folks on their own side who are having reactions that are different from their own. So, people being really upset at people who are not, you know, people who have kind of gone back to their lives in a way after, you know, focusing entirely on the election, or people who have really different analyses of what’s going on.

I’ve been asking people lately, I’m like, who are you most mad at? Because I feel like people have so much anger that’s sort of coming up that’s being directed in different ways. And, you know, some of that kind of gives a hint about some underlying analysis that we have of what happened and whose fault was, you know, an undesirable outcome.

But yeah, the people we might be opening our hearts to might be even closer than you know, than, than people who have different political views even.

Yeshe: Yes and Buddhist practice really recognizes that. I know in your book you share a practice of opening the heart. And traditionally yeah, we don’t start out with people we see as opposing us. We start out with easy people. Even pets, pets are a great place to start because we rarely have, even when they behave in naughty ways, we still feel kindness and compassion towards them.

So we, yes, we start out with what’s easy and we extend out. Another thing that’s really important to point out is we’re not, when we use the extreme examples, compassion for a white supremacist, for example, we’re not sympathizing with their actions. That’s not what this is about. What we’re doing is opening our heart’s eye to see, oh, how sad this is, how they think things will be better. So it’s not so much of, I’m in a great upstanding, elite position and there are this benighted person, but just heart to heart recognizing that putting people down, shunning people, this is not a way that leads to more connection, more goodwill, more feeling happy in our own lives. Not so much, oh, their actions are okay.

That’s not at all what this is saying. It’s actually saying the opposite. Their actions are completely contrary and counterproductive to what they want. And this sort of turning inward for ourselves and others really does have a way of containing and channeling the energy in very positive ways. I always love to tell people that the Tibetan word for a Buddhist literally means someone who looks inside and inward. So when we’re saying, well, they did this wrong, or they did that wrong, or it’s their fault, or I’m mad at them to use your question, but what does that say about where we’re coming from? Not from a standpoint of guilt or blame, not at all, but from a standpoint of understanding our own hearts, being seen by ourselves. Being able to recognize where we are coming from and whether that’s actually likely to lead to the positive way of being in the world that we want for ourselves. 

Tania: Yeah. This idea of looking inward, I think is so important that that piece of, you know, people’s actions not being aligned with what they, you know, purportedly are trying to accomplish. I, I actually see that in, in the anger that, you know, there’s a lot of vitriol being thrown around right now, and I keep thinking, you know what?

That’s not actually gonna be a winning strategy in the end, but we have these sort of more immediate impulses that I, I think people are acting on very often. And, you know, I think we’ve all had experience of doing that. Like, oh, you know, I’m, I’m going to eat the ice cream, you know, even though the green beans are right here.

And that, that might you know, the green beans might take me more toward my nutritional goals, but I have this craving. So the, you know, the, the throwing the vitriol around, that’s sort of meeting some immediate craving, immediate desire that people have. But of course, in the long run, that’s probably not going to help win more elections if that’s what people’s goals are.

Yeshe: Yeah. And you typically again, from a Buddhist standpoint, when you look at these kinds of impulses or cravings, the vitriol, to use your example, these are symptoms of a habit that’s already been strengthened,a lot. And so that’s why the impulse is so strong, because we’re really habituated to it. Those moments where we see the real impulse, again, this is not easy to do without an established practice in small ways to allow our lives, but when we see that impulse, when we feel that craving to shoulder, whatever it might be, to eat the ice cream, and we recognize them as a bell. It Is bringing us back, reminding us to turn inward and say, ah, this is happening because I’ve strengthened this habit countless times before, and this time I’m gonna do something different.

I’m going to start burning in a new neural pathway in my brain so that when this moment happens again, I will be more inclined in the direction of this habit that I want to cultivate for myself. So those moments of very strong impulses are really important instructions of how valuable it is to cultivate a habit.

So our bad habits are teaching us how important it is to cultivate the habits that we consider good, valuable, and in alignment with what we want in our lives. Then we can start doing precisely that, doing, laying the groundwork for the good habit to be as easy as reaching for that ice cream.

Tania: And it’s really that every moment we’re being presented with here is giving us that opportunity. And it, it’s something that I, I say about, you know, the divisiveness that we’re, that we’re having is that ideally, that’s going to get people to focus on some of these things. Like how are we interacting with social media and how is our lack of intellectual humility, you know limiting us in ways and, and then to really encourage people to address some of these things that are gonna benefit us in the long run, no matter what’s going on in our social and political world. So every, every cabinet appointment that’s being made, every, you know thing that we’re, that, that’s unfolding is telling us that there’s an opportunity here. For us. I love this idea of like, to create a new pathway for ourselves.

Yeshe: Yeah, that is so valuable. Can you see the difference? I have this piece of information about the cabinet or whatever it might be in the world. What my kid just did that I told them a hundred times not to do, and I respond with a knee jerk reaction as opposed to the way you just framed it, which is, this moment is an opportunity. You can feel how scintillating it is.

The curiosity that we meet, that moment of opportunity with the discovery, the sense of experimentation, even the sense of, oh man, that did not work at all. I’m gonna have to try something better next time. And really just being in the freshness of each moment as it arises instead of flattening it and making it into some kind of cookie cutter moment, which it isn’t, it never is.

Even when they look very similar, moments are completely different. And when our intention is to meet them with interest, curiosity, and discovery, it changes our actions completely. Rather than, I know what you are, you’re small and I’m gonna treat you that way.

Tania: Oh, Yeshe, thank you so much for being here with me today. I, I feel calmer just hearing your guidance and reflecting on these opportunities that, that I, and we are all being provided with in these challenging times.

Yeshe: I agree. I mean, these times are challenging. But we can open to the inspiration in them. Being driven by inspiration always feels a lot more meaningful, purposeful, and engaged.

Tania: I’m Tania Israel, professor, psychologist, and author of Facing the Fracture.

Yeshe And Karma, Yeshe Chödrön, lama in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Make your choice.

Tania: Are you ready to be strong?