pink_trike wrote: Chris wrote:
In my job I sometimes do counseling with women who have new babies in their homes. Often they are in troubled relationships where there is, at the least, verbal and emotional abuse. Apart from traditional counselling methods CBT etc., I often intersperse stories such as my 'version' of the Akkosa Sutta (which has substitute modern names for the 'host' and the 'rude guest' [the partner]) - Walshe trans. below - and they always "get it". It is teaching them that insults and cruel words (emotional and psychological abuse) belong to the perpetrator not to the subject of the abuse. i.e. it can only hurt if she 'accepts' and 'owns' the insults and demeaning words herself. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .budd.html
I'm sure, with a little thought, you could teach and illustrate any of the Buddha's teachings without alluding to any religious tradition.
I do hope the Buddha doesn't mind being called 'Malcolm' and the abuser being called 'Joe' in the story.
I'm going to construct a small practice around this.
That's a great suggestion by Chris. Along with Retro's similie, I think it is a good way of getting the audience to reflect on how one's perception of any given set of circumstances strongly influences one's actions. The most challenging bit I suppose is getting them to see how our perception at any given moment is wholly arbitrary
--that it need not
If I may share an exercise that I do with my students:
I would tell them to jot down on a piece of paper the first impressions that come to them when I say words like 'dog', 'tree', 'car'. I would then ask them one by one what they have written down. As expected I'd always find a variety of responses. For some people, the word 'dog' reminds them of their family pet. Some of them would think of specific breeds of dogs, some of them would think of specifics parts of a dog like tail, fur, etc. Yet others would experience feelings like love or even fear. The same would go for words like tree (which usually elicits responses like bark, leaf, green, oxygen, nature, fuel, environment) and car (which usually elicits responses like wheels, speed, fuel, crash, red, freedom, Ferrari).
After going through each person's response, I would then point out to them that if language is merely something that describes the world as it exists 'out there'--if meaning is something that exists independently--then everyone would perceive the same thing when they hear or read the words 'dog', 'tree' and 'car'. But as we can see in this exercise, it is not the case.
I would sometimes also add that a person for whom tree signifies the raw material for fuel, construction, etc, would experience a forest very differently from another person for whom 'tree' signifies nature, life, etc.
I use this exercise to get the students thinking about the workings of language, representation, and the meaning-making process. However, I think it can also be used to address Dhammic themes.
All the best.