Rose Taylor's Articles on Lion's Roar

Praise and blame are like echoes that don’t ultimately exist, explains Rose Taylor. But we still have to know how to work with it. If you know that all the many utterances of praise and blame Are sound-emptiness, unborn, Like the sounds of guitars, echoes, and thunder in the sky Then all attachment and aversion to these sounds of praise and blame Will be completely pacified. —Unchanging Sky’s Beautiful Melody, Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche As conveyed in this verse, the Buddhist teachings on genuine reality tell us how praise and blame are merely empty sounds with no true existence. In essence, they are no different. We are able to distinguish the concepts of praise and blame only by contrasting each with its opposite—each depends on its opposite for its own definition. They do not have any independent identity in themselves. These sounds of praise and blame are merely unborn sounds, like echoes reverberating or thunder rumbling in the sky. This can be quite difficult to remember when we are faced with praise or blame. Our minds are easily carried away with the alluring sounds of praise and disturbed by the harsh sounds of blame. So it is useful to examine the relationship between them, develop skillful methods for working with them, and investigate their ultimate natures. The Relationship Between Praise and Blame. Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, teaching in Spain in 1995, spoke of praise and blame this way: “The more people there are who praise you, the more people there will be who criticize you. For example, if you become president a lot of people support you and praise you, but then more and more people also criticize you.” Even when we simply look at praise and blame in an everyday context, we find that. The more you are praised, the more others criticize and blame you. This is known in England as the “tall poppy syndrome”—the flower that grows above the rest will be cut down to size. Whatever praise there is lifting a person up, an equal force is applied to keeping them on the ground. An example could be a mother who has had a successful week at work finding her stock of blame and criticism well maintained by her censorious children. Or a teenager whose friends pay her the greatest compliment by trying to imitate her innovative new outfit but upon returning home she finds her father outraged that she left the house in such attire. This even happened to the Buddha. While he had many devoted students, his jealous cousin, Devadatta, was continually attacking him. He spread vicious rumors about the Buddha and tried to kill him. Since that time, while many revere the Buddha, others have been extremely hostile, resorting at times to vandalizing or destroying Buddha statues. My current inspiration for thinking about working with praise and blame came out of a recent incident. My husband, Ari Goldfield, and I were invited to teach in Asia and we were exchanging emails with the organizers about the program. At one point, we emailed our standard document about our diet and other details pertaining to the visit, as this usually proves helpful for our hosts. But not in this case—they thought our message was inappropriate and were offended by our forthrightness. On the same day that this happened, we received another email from two lamas in America who were hosting us upon our return. Their email thanked us profusely for the same document and said how useful they had found it. This highlighted how one person can find something laudable while another finds it despicable! These differences can become even more extreme when communicating with people from other cultures. Receiving praise and blame on the same day for the same communication was an excellent illustration of how praise and blame are not ultimately valid. Furthermore, this relativity does not just occur from the perspective of others but also from our own side. Some words may seem like praise to one person but blame to another. When I was teaching a Tibetan language class at a study program in Nepal, one of my friends taking my class accused me of being too demanding. These remarks were intended as criticism but I received them as praise! I really appreciated my own teachers who had pushed me. These students had come a long way and were paying to be there in difficult circumstances, so I was going to try to progress their studies as much as possible. We all have our own ideas about what is good and what is bad; praise and blame are fluid and indeterminate. This is a good reminder of the Mind-Only tradition’s teaching on how our experiences are created by our own minds, our own ways of thinking, rather than by some objective external reality. Working With Praise. While praise and blame are not ultimately true, that does not mean that we should disregard them outright. There are skillful methods for working with the praise and blame we receive. When considering praise, first we need to be aware of the habits of our own minds. Some of us can be heaped with praise but it never touches us; we have a perfectionist streak and always feel we could do better. We disregard praise. The problem with this is we never feel encouraged and lifted up by the appreciation of others, and then we miss something that can really help us in our efforts. In this case it is important to allow the praise to touch us. We do not need to solidify it and make it a cause for arrogance, but we can feel that something we have done has positively affected another person and they have appreciated it. We can simply be touched by the praise and then let it go. This can then energize us for further endeavors. If we are prone to self-doubt and lack confidence, we can sometimes remind ourselves of other’s appreciation of us in order to balance our mind’s habit to view ourselves negatively. Or we might have a tendency toward arrogance. Then praise becomes a cause for feelings of bloated superiority. In this case, we need to remember the teachings of impermanence and interdependence. This experience of praise is a single fleeting moment and we should not fixate on it, solidify it, and try to carry it around with us. It takes a lot of energy to do this because the moment naturally passes and fades. We find ourselves repeatedly telling others about it in order to hold onto the moment. If we develop such arrogance based on someone’s appreciation, we should examine whether we can truly claim authorship of this act. We do this by examining all the various causes and conditions needed for this action to have occurred. When we do so, we cannot maintain our arrogance because we know how many things far beyond ourselves also played their part. For instance, when students in my Tibetan class praised my teaching, I would recall all the elements that came together to make such an event successful. I thought of the kindness and generosity of my own teachers who shared their knowledge with me that I could now impart to others. Also, I thought of how the students’ intelligence, enthusiasm, and harmonious conduct helped create an environment conducive to learning for everyone. When we consider things in this kind of light, we do not get carried away by the praise we receive. This is important not just in terms of reducing our propensity for negative mental states but also for our own development. If we get too attached to praise, we run the risk of simply trying to recreate whatever previously earned us praise. This can be deadly to our path. We become afraid to explore other ways of doing things and get struck in imitating ourselves. In dharma, we are encouraged to live in the present moment, in each fresh instance, rather than freeze our experience and no longer relate directly to what is appearing to us. This problematic tendency for self-imitation has been noted in the art world. Some artists, writers, and poets who were highly praised and successful in their own lifetimes got stuck for decades in repeating the style that first garnered them critical acclaim. Some of those who were not recognized until after their death were freer with their style and continued developing and evolving. So, whatever positive feedback we receive, we need to maintain a fresh approach in each moment, just as we do in meditation, by not trying to recreate or hold onto an experience. Every moment requires us to live fully and freshly present. Working With Blame. When we find ourselves the object of another’s blame or criticism, it is good to try to establish a balance in our reaction between being open to the criticism and learning what we can from it and not being overwhelmed and utterly discouraged. First, we create some space around our immediate, instinctive response. Ordinarily we may argue back and delve into a heated debate over the merits of the accusation. Or we may shut the conversation down and refuse to hear what we are being told. Or perhaps we launch a counterattack. Whatever our own individual pattern of reaction, it is good to take a moment to hold ourselves back from knee-jerk reactivity. Open Listening. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche said that one of the greatest gifts we can receive or offer is genuine feedback. So, when someone criticizes us, it can be very beneficial for us to listen openly to what they are saying. There is a Chinese proverb with a similar meaning, “Words that are good for us to hear, do not sound pleasant.” What is beneficial for us to hear is not necessarily the easiest thing to hear, nor is it always the easiest thing for others to tell us. Many of us avoid confrontation and giving genuine feedback, preferring the path of least resistance, letting things slide rather than creating a tense situation. The one person I really engage critically is my husband, and I am grateful that he does the same with me. Our strong love for and commitment to each other provide a supportive ground for when we need to have what would otherwise be difficult conversations. So, if someone has the courage to step...

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