Each of us has “buttons”—areas where we are sensitive. When our buttons are pushed, we fly off the handle, blaming the other person for upsetting us. But our being upset is a dependently arising process. We contribute the buttons, and the other person does the pushing. If we didn’t have the buttons, others couldn’t push them.
Our buttons are our responsibility. As long as we have them, someone will push them, especially since they are big, red, and flashing. Our buttons are so sensitive, that even if a person walks by, the breeze from his passage will trigger our button’s detector and our alarm will ring, “That person is offending (harming, criticizing, deceiving, manipulating, cheating, etc.) me!” Although many times people have no intention of harming us, our buttons get pushed just because they are so sensitive.
For example, Helen prided herself in being a good mother. She dearly loved her child, was conscientious about her safety, and made sure she had many opportunities to learn and play. Because the preschool was just a few blocks away, she would occasionally ask friends to pick up her daughter when they were passing by. Even if a friend didn’t have a car seat, Helen didn’t worry, for the drive was so short. One day, when her friend Carleen was coming to visit, Helen asked her to pick up her child on the way. Carleen said, “I can’t because I don’t have a car seat. We mothers must be informed, and an informed mother knows that a young child never rides in a car without a car seat.”
Helen interpreted “informed mother” to mean “good mother” and was offended by Carleen’s insinuation. She brooded for several days, until she realized that her hypersensitivity was responsible for her mood. She thought, “Carleen and I have different opinions, and that’s fine. Not everyone needs to have the same ideas about car seats. I feel that I’m informed, and my decision is reasonable. I know that I care for my child properly. There’s no reason for me to take Carleen’s remark personally, thinking that a mere difference of opinions means I’m a negligent mother.” She let go of her sullenness and felt confident again.
We need to do internal research, asking ourselves what our buttons are and why we are so sensitive in those particular areas. Our sensitivity generally has to do with attachment. In the above example, Helen was attached to approval. If we are able to identify and then reduce our attachments, our buttons shrink. Then even if someone wants to push them, doing so is harder. Realized spiritual beings have no buttons left to push, so no matter how others treat them, they do not become upset.
We may think that if someone deliberately insults us, it’s correct to be angry. However, such thinking is illogical. We would be giving our power to the other person, in which case his intention—which we cannot control—would be governing our happiness and suffering. Whether or not another person wishes us ill does not matter. We still have a choice whether to be offended. The less we are attached, for example, to praise and reputation, the less miffed we will become, because our mind will not interpret situations as personal assaults.
When we feel someone has wronged us, we may ruminate on it for hours, days, weeks, and even years, going over the situation again and again in our mind. Inside of us is a prosecutor, judge, and jury, and they all agree that the other person is wrong and we are right. This internal courtroom is happy to work overtime. It goes on hour after hour trying and prosecuting the person. This internal dialogue stops only when we sleep and then resumes early the next morning! In addition to this internal courtroom, all our friends may agree that the other person has overstepped the boundaries. But despite all this sympathy, we are still miserable.
Why? Because being right has nothing to do with being happy. We can be right up, down, and across, but as long as we are angry, we have no internal peace. Sometimes, the other person apologizes to us, and we are still miserable. To be happy, we have to give up wanting to prove our case, give up needing to have the last word, give up craving to be vindicated. The Eight Verses of Thought Transformation says:
When others, out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practice accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.
This verse does not mean that we naively capitulate in every conflict. Rather, seeing that the need to be right is simply a button, we choose to shut down the internal courtroom and send home the judge, jury, and prosecutor. We give up our anger because we see that it only harms us. “Offering the victory to them” simply means that we contract our over-sensitive buttons and cease obsessing about the incident.
For seven years Heather had not seen Ed, her ex-husband, and had never met his new wife, Gloria. They were coming in from another city to attend the graduation of Heather and Ed’s daughter. The week before they were to arrive, Heather, who had always blamed the breakup on Ed, learned that he was complaining that he had gone into debt supporting the two children he had had with Heather. Heather was enraged, because she felt that, as a single mother, she had sacrificed tremendously and that Ed had given her too little and had given it reluctantly. Realizing that many of her buttons were being pushed, Heather called her friend for advice. Her friend recommended that she read a small booklet published by a Buddhist center, called “Working With Anger,” and listen to the tapes of a talk on the topic. It took her friend a while to convince Heather to write down the name of the booklet and tapes, because Heather kept interrupting, “Yes, but I need to set the record straight with Ed immediately. I can’t stand his lies!”
However, after reading the booklet and listening to the tapes, Heather felt she had some tools to deal with the situation, although she was not completely confident that she would be able to avoid blowing up and creating a scene when Ed and Gloria arrived. As it happened, at the airport Gloria had spilled something on her dress. Heather’s daughter took it home and washed it, and seeing it crumpled, Heather ironed it before her daughter returned it to Gloria. A little kindness can dramatically change a situation. Heather felt good about ironing the dress and Gloria was touched by her generosity. When the two women met the next day, they were happy to see each other and embraced, much to everyone’s surprise. Meanwhile, Heather let go of her resentment and thought, “The divorce was hard for both Ed and me. We both had to make adjustments and difficult sacrifices for the children. But I’m sure he is as happy as I am now watching our daughter graduate from college.” Much to everyone’s delight, the graduation festivities went well.
All of us have “rules of the universe”—unconscious preconceptions that condition the way we view life. These include “Everything should happen the way I want it to,” “Everyone should like and appreciate me,” and “Everyone should agree with my opinions and do things my way.” When we view others and the world through those preconceptions, we inevitably get into conflict with everyone and everything. We feel unappreciated, unloved, and discriminated against. This is not coming from others, but from our view of them. Once we recognize our false preconceptions are buttons and begin to dissolve them, we find the world a much nicer place. We are able to appreciate others and work for their benefit, without being disapproving or antagonistic towards them.
Several years ago, a group of people I respected and trusted broke the “rules of my universe” and unexpectedly interfered with a project on which I had diligently worked for months. As a result, much to my displeasure, the project was canceled. I had to admit I held animosity towards the group. I used Buddhist techniques for working with anger, and over time this diminished, but every so often it would flare up, and my “rules of the universe” would resurface, making me quite miserable. One day, in the middle of such a flare-up, I was walking to my room and suddenly the thought hit me, “This planet has six billion human beings on it, and no one else is as upset about this situation as I am. In fact, most people don’t even know about it, and those that do aren’t terribly concerned. If this event is so insignificant for all other sentient beings, why do I spend so much time focusing on it?” Since I clearly saw the foolishness of dwelling any longer on me and my concerns, my rancor fell away.
Because self-centeredness interprets events in relationship to “me,” we not only become upset at others’ comments but also exaggerate their import. For example, Martin and Karen had an agreement that he would shop for groceries and she would wash the dishes. One day at breakfast, Karen looked for peanut butter to put on her toast and not finding any, asked, “Honey, did you forget to buy the peanut butter?”
Still sleepy, Martin mumbled something, and feeling he didn’t care, she said, “It’s your job to do the shopping. We agreed on that.”
“I know,” he responded, “but it’s no big deal. I’ll get some next week when I go shopping.”
But Karen felt brushed off, because she ate peanut butter most mornings and Martin knew that. “This happened last week, too. You waited until we were completely out of bagels before buying more. And last month, you went shopping and forgot to get margarine. You know, this situation happens over and over with us. You ignore your responsibilities and then, when I say something, you tune out. In fact, this is indicative of our whole marriage. You just don’t care about me and you’re totally irresponsible. In fact, I wonder if you love me and if this marriage is going to work!” By this time, Karen was fuming and left the breakfast nook in a huff. Martin, meanwhile, sat there dumbfounded, thinking, “My goodness, it was only peanut butter!”
This story—varieties of which are unfortunately often repeated—clearly shows how our mind creates our experience. When our buttons are pushed, we can make one event or phrase into the symbol of an entire relationship. Our mind builds on a small occurrence, making it into a huge one that we are certain is true. Upset, our mind jumps from one conclusion to another with astounding speed. In addition, we draw on our arsenal of stored painful experiences to lob onto the other person. We have collected this arsenal over time, accumulating all the small things our friend has done that we don’t like. Rather than dropping them or clearing them up when they occur, we have stored them in our memory to use as ammunition the next time a fight occurs. Then we shell the other person with past situations that he or she may not remember.
How can we avoid this? First, by being aware of our feelings, we will notice anger when it is small and apply the antidotes to settle our mind. Then, depending on the situation, we may decide to explore the issue with the other person. In this way, we avoid stockpiling hurtful experiences that could build up resentment and lead to an explosion.
Second, by being aware of our feelings, we will learn to identify the real issue in the conflict, instead of being lead astray by false buttons, in this case the lack of peanut butter. We can ask ourselves whether we’re upset by the ostensible issue (that there is no peanut butter) or whether we’re really upset by the underlying issue (that we feel we’re drifting away from the partner whom we care about). In this way, we will know whether we need to discuss the problem at hand (restocking the kitchen shelves) or something deeper (our mutual respect and concern for each other). Then, we can discuss the situation, being sure to listen carefully and to express ourselves in ways the other person can understand.