In monastic life, for example, you have to share everything everythings communal - so a good part of our experience of life are the reactions we have to each other. There are different types of characters and different ways of doing things; some people you find more attractive and others less attractive. All of this is observed, so that you”re not just following these habits, but you”re beginning to really see a lot of these selfish attitudes and biases -and feelings of being threatened by others.
I remember experiencing this years ago with one of the monks. Intellectually, I liked him very much, but whenever he started coming near me I had this tremendous fear arise. He was a very kind person - never hurt me - but whenever this particular monk came into my field of vision I started feeling fear. And then, because I was puzzled about it, I started realizing that the particular way he moved and carried himself conveyed aggression to me. It was not his intention, but the actual movement of the way he walked and carried himself converged to this mind some aggressive force.
I hadn”t been aware of that because I tend to be very abstract about people: you know "this one is this way and he”s good natured, he”s kind"; but then you get confused by these irrational reactions that don”t fit into your intellectual perception. The way people move sometimes has a very strong effect on us that we”re not always aware of.
The convention of the Buddhist monk puts the male into a non-aggressive, harmless form; one of the important parts of the training is in harmlessness. The whole appearance - the shaven” head, bare feet, the robes - is to remind the inpidual man himself he is a monk, and also to convey harmlessness to the society around. This is why I think, once you get used to Buddhist monks as a perception, you feel devotion and respect: if the life is lived properly then it represents compassion, harmlessness, restraint - good virtues. Now if you take skinheads - they don”t convey harmlessness, do they
Their whole expression is to convey aggression and brutality. They develop a way of walking, and looking, and moving, and they put on things that make them look aggressive and mean. This tends to bring fear into the mind.
The training of the Buddhist nun is to put the female form into a state where, it”s not trying to attract men or arouse jealousy in other women. So the proper training of a Buddhist nun is one of not trying to draw attention to herself.
By training in these ways, we become, aware of conditioned tendencies in ourselves. If I had no such convention I would probably never have thought of it much. In Thailand, as a monk, I became very aware of the reaction people had to me, and I began to wonder why they would jump back when I had onlly good intentions. I wanted to be friendly, and yet when, I came directly to them they backed off. Why
Then I began to see that, for one thing my size could appear overwhelming, and that it was also because of the habitual movement of the body.
Living in Thailand for a number of years, I developed a genuine appreciation for that particular respectful way of living, where you”re trying to bring out the best in people -rather than arousing things like greed, or anger, or aversion, or envy, or lust. You”re no longer moving out into the society with the intention of arousing these kind of states of mind in people, but you”re living in the soceity trying to - be that which is nonaggressive, harmless - that which conveys to the mind the possibilities for the human being to be peaceful and awake, mindful, wise, and restrained.
Q: You said that worry is what we produce when we don”t have any faith in travelling beyond pleasure and pain, Can you say a bit more about that
A: I am a great w…
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