If you have ever been attacked, if you have ever been the target of
viciousness, then if you were quick rather than simply having gone off
on automatic, you may have observed the
machinery
which was reactivated.
For the sake of this conversation, either of whether you were
really attacked or whether you
interpreted
you were attacked will suffice because this is not a conversation about
the distinction between a real attack and the
interpretation
"attack". This is a conversation about reactivation, choice in the
matter, and freedom.
When I am attacked I want to attack back. I say that yet it is neither
strictly true nor does it serve me. If I want to attack
back, there is freedom in it. Yet in attacking back when I am attacked,
I notice there is no freedom in it. So the reaction is better stated as
"when I am attacked I attack back". That's the truth. In fact, when I
am attacked, the real risk is not from the attack itself. The real risk
is the risk of becoming tangled up in the reaction to it. Actually
there are two risks: one of becoming tangled up in the reaction to it;
two of giving up my freedom to it.
* * *
There is the pertinent
Zen
tale about a woman who fell in love with a
Zen
master. The
Zen
master loved her being but did not reciprocate her base desires. Soon
she became angry with him for spurning her advances. She thought of a
way to get him. She became pregnant by another man. When the child was
born she told the entire village that the
Zen
master was the father. The woman and the outraged villagers stormed to
the
Zen
master, demanding he take care of the child, confronting him
with the woman's story: that he was the father of her illegitimate
child.
"Is that so?" he said.
Although he took the child on as his own, the
Zen
master was disgraced. He was forced to pay for the child's upbringing
and education. He became a pariah in the community. Yet he became a
good father to the child, so much so that after a few years the
villagers complimented him. "You have a wonderful way with the child"
they told him.
"Is that so?" he said.
When the child was grown he left the
Zen
master to make his own way in the world and became successful. The
child's mother who had lied about the
Zen
master initially was softened by the good effect the
Zen
master had on her child. She had remorse for what she had done. She
went to the
Zen
master and apologized to him confessing she had lied about him in order
to get him for not loving her in the way she wanted to be loved.
"Is that so?" he said.
* * *
What does it take for me to win so that my win does not make others
lose? Is it possible? What does it take for me to win so that others
win?
What does it take for me to win so that my win does not make others
wrong? Is it possible? What does it take for me to win so that others
are made right?
What does it take for me to win so that my win does not dominate
others? Is it possible? What does it take for me to win so that others
are not dominated?
Part of this experiment is to look at our investment in the "you lose /
I win" paradigm. The starting point for looking at it is the
willingness to get that people may not initially warm to the generosity
of a "you win / I win" offer. The thing is this: do I lose if my "you
win / I win" offer is rejected?