..续本文上一页suggestion is given to her because Elle is a women”s magazine. "You should start"—this is addressed to the lady—"by looking at him and by asking a question. You could ask: “Darling, are we a really happy couple
We have to look clearly at the real situation. Darling, as a couple, are we happy
If not, why not
” You”ve heard that Buddhist meditation is the practice of stopping; in this case to stop is to turn off the TV. We should not get carried away by events and get lost. We suffer, so we let ourselves be carried away by the events of daily life. We should practice stopping, turning off the television, looking at this person who has been living next to you for ten or fifteen years, and asking the real question, "Darling are we happy as a couple
Let us be honest. Let us look at the reality. We cannot let things be that way anymore. If we are not happy, why not
" After stopping comes deep looking. Deep looking is part of meditation. The first part is to stop, the second part is deep looking; stopping, samatha (Sanskrit), and deep looking, vipashyana (Sanskrit). The practice of stopping gives us a chance to look deeply into the heart of things. These two elements constitute the practice of Buddhist meditation: we have to learn how to stop and find calm and concentration again. With stopping, calm and concentration, we start to look deeply into what is here, our own situation.
"Maybe your husband will cooperate, and you will practice deep looking. Maybe he will refuse. You had a lot of courage. While starting the practice, you asked your husband to practice with you, to look deeply into the situation. But maybe he doesn”t want to collaborate, because for him it”s difficult, it”s painful, so it”s easier for him to forget about it and look at television. So we should prepare carefully in order for him to accept. You should use the sort of language that will invite him to do that. This practice implies deep listening, and the use of the kind of language that is called loving speech. If you have studied the Five Mindfulness Trainings, you already know that this is the practice of the Fourth Mindfulness Training—deep listening. Listening with awareness and loving speech, in order to help your husband and take him into the practice of looking deeply, you have to use loving speech. The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is a person who is able to listen with a lot of compassion. Therapists, when they have this capacity of deep listening, they can help a lot of people. We need to be calm and to have a certain compassion in order to listen to the other. If you don”t have the capacity to listen, the other will not cooperate with you. So maybe before asking this question, you need to practice for a few days: practice sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindful breathing, in order to be able to say things with loving speech. Even if someone says stupid things, if the other person is blaming, judging, you should still listen with calm, in order for the other to continue. Learn to practice like the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, practice deep listening.
"You should feed and maintain living compassion in yourself, in order to be able to listen. If not, his speech will touch seeds of pain in yourself, and at this moment anger may come up in you, may rise in you, and it will be very difficult for you to continue to listen and to continue to speak. So you should start with a few days of practice. In Plum Village, we can learn these things, we can learn how to sit calmly, with a lot of patience, with compassion, and learn how to breathe in order to remain calm during the whole conversation. Those are basic conditions for the practice to become a success. If you have all this, then your husband will cooperate, and both of you will be able to sit and lo…
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