From Suffering to Peace

The seventeenth-century Zen master Bankei once wrote, “Don’t side with yourself.” When I first heard this teaching, I was immediately struck by its originality and insightfulness. I pondered how many times I have been lost in endless arguments in my head defending my position, siding with my perspective. We become similarly consumed as we plan conversations, adamantly stating our viewpoint or holding court.

Our views tend to hold a lot of power over us. If you doubt that, consider what happens when someone challenges them: all hell can break loose. A view can form in the space of a few moments that can influence us for a lifetime. Watching one’s fortune slip away during a stock market crash can instill the view that Wall Street is a terrible place to invest. If you get bitten as a child by a German shepherd — as I was — it can implant the belief that some dogs, but especially German shepherds, are not to be trusted. Our views, whether we adopt them consciously or unconsciously, are like the course we set for our ship, often affecting the direction of our life.

So many of our cherished beliefs are adopted unconsciously, implanted at an early age by family, culture, and church. How much energy do we pour into defending or advocating such beliefs? People can lose loved ones, friends, and jobs in fights over religion, ethics, and politics, and the more attached we are to our views, the more aggressively we tend to defend them. It is not uncommon for families to ban certain topics at the dinner table, as entrenched views easily cause arguments and worse. So it requires discernment to uncover those unconscious views that guide us. Often, they are hidden and only come out in our interactions with others.

For my friends Ginny and Joan the bell of love rang at first glance. They shared so much in common: interests, political perspectives, musical tastes, and their work as child psychologists. They both longed to have children, and quite soon after they got married, they happily gave birth to twins, two healthy, lively boys. That’s when both the joys and troubles started.

Unbeknownst to them, they each held strong, divergent views about parenting, which reflected differences in their own parents and upbringings. Ginny’s parents were “old school.” They were kind but very strict, believing kids shouldn’t be mollycoddled but instead taught to toughen up. For instance, crying infants, they believed, should learn to comfort themselves. Joan’s parents, on the other hand, were very doting; their babies never left their arms. Ginny and Joan quickly got into disagreements and then bitter arguments about how to respond to their infants’ distress. They continued to justify their beliefs about parenting and the rightness of their positions until they were clearly at loggerheads. Eventually, they went to therapy to find resolution, and this work helped them unpack their views and see their attachments to them. They realized they were both acting out of old family beliefs that had existed for generations and that lived unconsciously within them.

When I first began studying Buddhist teachings in my late teens and early twenties, I went from being an anarchist, punk, antiestablishment rebel to a proselytizer about that religion. In a short span of time, the teachings of mindfulness transformed my life, and I wanted everyone else to reap the benefits. I preached passionately to my loved ones. What I didn’t understand then was that you can’t just unleash unmetabolized views onto others and expect them to be interested! And you certainly can’t convert anyone by doing that.

Of course, the prevalence and power of views are not a modern phenomenon. For centuries, people believed the world was flat and dared not sail to the end of the world for fear of falling off! The Roman Catholic Church was convinced all the planets and stars revolved around the earth, not the sun. Astronomers like Galileo were persecuted for heresy for daring to say otherwise. Indeed, these are the types of views that are hardest to recognize: those that are shared by an entire society.

We only need to look at wars throughout the ages to see the painful legacy of this. In the last century, clashes over political belief systems, whether in the name of communism or capitalism, have killed millions, while in the distant past, wars over religious beliefs were even more common, like the centuries-old battles between Christianity and Islam. The human psyche seems hardwired to seek meaning and understanding, as well as, sadly, to defend one’s worldview to the very end. The bitter irony of people killing and persecuting heretics in the name of God never ceases to amaze. It reveals the immense power that views have, both personally and in society.

Through paying attention to the views that flow through our own psyche, we can become aware of our own belief systems, particularly those we didn’t choose but have adopted unconsciously. We can then assess whether our views are actually true, in alignment with reality, and support our well-being, or if they are harmful. For instance, if we identify with the belief that we are not good enough, we can understand that belief as the voice of the inner critic or a message perhaps absorbed in childhood, not an actual fact. Often such views can live within us for decades unnoticed, blending in like white noise. When left undetected, they can wreak painful havoc in our life. With awareness, we can see clearly the damage they cause and learn to release them, or at least to cease believing them.

We can do the same with our beliefs about others. Do our views of others reflect bias, prejudice, or fear? This can be easiest to see when nations are in conflict. When other countries have different beliefs or viewpoints, citizens are often encouraged — by politicians, protagonists, and media propaganda — to fear or demonize them, to see “them” as not just different than “us” but even evil. This conditioning might target other customs, cultural perspectives, or religious beliefs. At its worst, such conditioning hardens our hearts and closes us off to whole categories of people as the “other,” thus justifying war, discrimination, and, at its worst, genocide. This occurred in Rwanda with horrific consequences, where up to eight hundred thousand people were killed in one hundred days, partly instigated by propaganda fueling rifts between Hutu and Tutsi tribes.

With mindfulness, we attend not just to beliefs but to our relationship with them. For example, the more attached we are to our views, the more vociferously we hold on to and defend them. Entrenched attachment to views is what, in its extreme form, can lead to violence and hatred, as clearly evidenced in countless acts of racism and homophobia worldwide. But self-awareness can help us see our mind and its thoughts clearly for what they are: a thought is just a thought; a view is just a view. A thought’s power is in the authority we bestow upon it and how much we believe it to be true. What we do with that information can be the difference between harm and harmony.

One of the most entrenched, unconscious beliefs is the notion of permanence. How often do we suffer when things change? We tend to fall into the trap of believing that life will continue as it is, and when things are good, we desperately want that to be true. But life constantly undermines our cherished belief of continuity. We often rail against change, yet the more we fight against transience, the more constricted we become and the more we suffer, since life will always keep pulling the rug out from under our illusion of stasis.

Perhaps the most pivotal view we cherish concerns our sense of self. We tend to believe we are separate, independent individuals. One example is the notion of the rugged individual in North American culture. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Who and what we are is embedded in a matrix of interconnection, constantly under the influence of interpersonal, environmental, social, and political forces. Mindful investigation reveals the falsehood of separateness by showing us how interdependent we are and how much the world influences us in every moment. Ironically, our very beliefs demonstrate that. We can come to discern that our views and opinions are rarely our own but are instead the result of multiple influences.

In conclusion, mindfulness, or the clear knowing of what is, helps us see through the veils of our beliefs, views, and ideas. These views are powerful, and they influence our perception, thoughts, and actions. Being aware of our beliefs is essential if we are to understand the forces that move us, that can influence whether we cause suffering or cultivate the conditions for peace and happiness, both for ourselves and for others.

• PRACTICE •

Mindfulness of Views

In this practice, write for a few minutes in a journal about all the views that feel important to you. Write about whatever comes to mind, stream-of-consciousness style. Then take a few more minutes to write about all the views you have of yourself. Lastly, jot down your views about meditation and about your ability or capacity in mindfulness practice.

Now read through what you have written. Do you agree with everything you wrote? Does every statement seem accurate and true? Inquire into the origins of some of your long-held, cherished beliefs. Observe what happens when you agree with a view versus when you feel as if a belief is neither objective nor accurate.

Another way to explore views is to engage in a friendly debate with a friend. Choose someone you trust who has an opposing view on a particular subject. As you engage in conversation, notice when and how you become entrenched in a particular position. Pay attention to how attached you feel, or to your need to be right. What happens when your friend challenges your view or questions it? Do you identify with your point of view so strongly that as your friend disagrees with your view, it feels as if they are attacking you personally? The more attached we are to our views, the more entrenched we become in our position and the more aggressively we defend it and become reactive when we are challenged.

To loosen up any clinging to your own views and opinions, try putting yourself in the position of the opposing point of view. Ideally, we want to be fluid, to be able to see all sides and perspectives. That helps us see the reasons for the other person’s views so we can interact from a place of understanding and compassion, not judgment. It might also lead to a compromise that solves the problem of apparent disagreement.

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