An Appropriate Response?

What is an appropriate response when I get something I don’t want, or don’t get what I do want?

Bully the person I “think” is responsible? Chastise, criticize, frighten, and ruin them I’m following the Chief Justice and going with no.

At least from a mindfulness perspective - and I’m guessing this is obvious: it’s the age-old processes of listening patiently and with compassion, remembering we’re all in this together, and then making choices that don’t cause any harm, no matter how disappointing the moment. 
 
 Or to make it even simpler, and as Justice Roberts said, file an appeal.

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 483. It’s good to see you.

This week I got interested (again) in the question of an appropriate response. It’s a question I sit with a lot, do my best with, and talk about a lot. And then on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts said, “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.” Which of course was itself was a response to the president’s call to impeach District of Columbia Federal District Court Chief Judge James E. Boasberg, after he ordered a halt to the deportation of the 238 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador and for the government to turn the deportation planes around. 

As everyone knows, Supreme Court justices rarely comment…on anything. So the fact that Chief Justice Roberts commented at all, and then offered a response about the president’s response: I thought that was pretty interesting, and so did a lot of people. 

The question of what is “an appropriate response,” from a mindfulness perspective, comes from what’s known as Case 14 of the Blue Cliff Record. The Blue Cliff Record is a collection of Zen koans, or riddles, from the 12th century. In Case 14 (don’t we lawyers love that?), a monk asks Yunmen, an honored teacher, “What is the teaching of a lifetime?” Yunmen replies, “An appropriate response.” 

Which of course begs the question, which Yunmen doesn’t answer, of what is “an appropriate response.” That’s why it’s a koan – the practice is to sit with the question, for a day or a year or a lifetime, and as the poet Rilke said, “perhaps…gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” Or, we could try to figure it out right now. 

I’ve heard teachers say to think of an appropriate response as, “first thought, best thought.” Meaning, whatever comes to mind is what’s present and true. That gives me pause because it seems like what’s happening right now: leadership in the U.S. (and elsewhere) says what immediately comes to mind…through whatever lens they happen to be seeing through. I’m guilty of this as well, of course, and maybe you can relate: if I respond with the first thought that comes to mind, it’s filtered through sixty-five years of conditioning. And so in my case, and in the case of our current leadership, it’s not all good. Or not good at all. Take your pick. 

Another idea I’ve heard about how to think about “an appropriate response” is that our first thought is our best one if we’re practicing. When I’m practicing diligently, and especially when I’m centering lovingkindness and compassion, my first response comes through those lenses and is more likely to appropriate. When I’m not, or if I’m someone who doesn’t know about practice or mindfulness or how to understand or cultivate the mind, and the impact that can have, my response is less likely to be appropriate. 

Here's another definition of “an appropriate response,” from Matthew Juksan Sullivan’s The garden of Flowers and Weeds, A New Translation and Commentary on the Blue Cliff Record:

But all of this still begs the question of what is “an appropriate response” in any given moment. And my understanding from my very limited study is that it’s something each of us has to answer for ourselves – that we each have to pay attention to the ways we approach others, communicate with others, and communicate with ourselves, and, what, compare and contrast? I think so. Take a look at how that goes when we’re not practicing very diligently, if that ever happens for you, and what happens when we are. Remember the Louis Armstrong quote? “If I don't practice for a day, I know it. If I don't practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don't practice for three days, the public knows it.” For me that is so relatable.

Meaning, for me, when I don’t practice, there’s greed, hatred, and delusion – the three poisons of mindfulness, the ways the untrained mind, or the un-practiced or in my case, less-practiced, mind, filters the things I’m saying and doing. There may not be quite as much greed, hatred, and delusion as there once was after 35 years of practice, but it’s alive and well. When I am practicing, there’s a decent possibility that the filters are things like kindness, compassion, patience, generosity, and even a little wisdom. Which, taken together, to me anyway, constitute “an appropriate response.” 

Does that mean that people who don’t practice mindfulness can never offer an appropriate response? I don’t know. I don’t think so, because some people are born with a great deal of natural kindness and wisdom and it’s right there on the surface. I have a couple of friends like that and they’re kind of a marvel. I try to hang out with them whenever I can. But for most of us, without mindfulness – that moment of realizing I’m right here, with everyone else, in this moment, I have a choice about how to be, I don’t want to cause any harm, and I want to be kind and compassionate and as wise as possible – without mindfulness to remind me of that and to give me my options, I’d say, it’s dicey. And I’d also say, the evidence – from people who don’t appear to me anyway to have any mindfulness – the evidence shows that it’s dicey. 

Is “an appropriate response” too high a bar? Our Chief Justice doesn’t think so, so I’m going with him. When the president got word of Judge Boasberg’s order, what if he’d been mindful? What if he’d thought about being just one of eight billion folks on this planet but with a whole lot of power to do no harm and to do only good? Imagine. Who knows what might have happened? 

I know this is not born out by the evidence yet but I’d also say that without giving an inch or giving up one iota of responsibility to participate in righting this ship and being an agent for good in the face of what looks like nothing but bad right now, stranger things have happened. I’m not sure what, but I also don’t understand karma. So I’m on what feels like the right side – or the only side – of this craziness right now, but if I take the very long view, I guess I’d have to ask myself a question I sure can’t answer for anyone else, and that each of us has to answer for ourselves: what truly is an appropriate response?