A review of the four steps of standing up


Ken: Thank you. This is October 11th. Our last teaching session. We have two things to do today or here. One is to cover four hours of material in half an hour. And the other is to conclude the story. Okay. The last point is “received the result.” You have the four: show up; open to what is; serve what is true to the limit of perception; receive the result.

Receive the result just means exactly what it says. You act and whatever the outcome, you work with that. The opposite is when you act and the outcome isn’t what you want. You try to make the outcome into something else. So I had nothing to do with that, or circumstances were beyond my control. Oh, it’s not so bad. You know, you try to control things rather than just receive.

Now, these four steps are not one-shot affairs. You show up, you open to what is, serve what is true. You receive the result. Now there’s another situation in which you show up, open to what is, serve what is true. Receive the result. And now there’s another situation in which you show up, open to what is, serve what is true, receive the result. So, this is a way of living.

When it comes to the acceleration we’ve talked about, the situation or the new situations present themselves extremely quickly. Or it can. So that’s part of what we were referring to right at the beginning of this retreat. When we were talking about staying in touch with what’s happening, with the feedback that’s arising, that’s showing up in the new situation and what enables you to receive that feedback is precisely receiving the result. So since Alex has been generous and talking about his last job … no, I’m not going to go there. Don’t worry about that. There was a whole process of new situations happening one after the other. That’s the kind of thing that happens. What happens is we get fixed in a certain line of activity and that prevents us from receiving the results. So we literally don’t know what is happening. And then we get taken by surprise. This happens time and time again. When couples split up almost always there is an active person, the person who actually does the breaking up and there’s the other person. And for the other person, it always comes as a bolt out of the blue. Because they haven’t been in tune with the situation. So this ability to receive the result is very important. And to recognize that there’s a new situation, it requires constant reappraisal of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. And what’s happening. In rapidly moving situations it really is moment by moment.

Handling conflict


Ken: Most people want to know something about power because they don’t know how to handle conflict. So I want to talk a bit about conflict. First bit. What is conflict? Conflict is the experience of resistance to change when two or more worlds interact.

Conflict is the experience of resistance to change when two or more worlds interact. So you have A and his world, B and his or her world. Circumstances bring about some kind of interaction between A and B. It may be proximity. It may be geography. There may be other reasons, but there’s some kind of interaction. As soon as there’s any kind of interaction, a third world, we’ll call it C, is formed. And the question is, what is C going to look like? Well, from A’s point of view, C’s going to look like A, or A’s idea of C. From B’s point of view. C is going to look like B’s world, or B’s idea of what C should be. But in fact, in almost all situations, C doesn’t look like either A or B or either of their ideas, But that may or may not be acceptable to A or B. And if they resist, conflict arises. It’s the experience of resistance to change when two or more worlds interact.

Conflict only arises in the context of relationship. If there’s no relationship, there is no conflict. In extreme cases, such as some of the struggles in the Middle East, let’s say we don’t have a relationship, well you do have a relationship, you live next to each other and you may want each other dead. You still have a relationship, that third world is there. And both of you are resisting any change into that third world like crazy. So that’s very intense. No relationship, no conflict. So what conflict represents is a problem in a relationship.

And you have, you never have any idea of how the conflict is going to evolve. You have a lot of experience. You can make some fairly good guesses, but you can never actually know them all, there’s too many factors in operation. Some of them can be just the operation of chance, which means that when you enter a conflict, you cannot know the result. I’ll come back and say a bit more about that in a moment. One of the more useful frameworks which comes from Tibetan tradition to protect your practice are the four stages of conflict: pacification, enrichment, magnetization, and destruction.

The four stages of conflict


Ken: Pacification. You seek to resolve the problem in the relationship, utilizing the resources that are at hand. This takes usually one of two forms. You talk things out, or you rearrange the furniture figuratively or literally. There are many configurations of space which actually create conflict by virtue of the configuration. You change the configuration. You remove the conflict. One example is if you have a bunch of office equipment at one end and a narrow passage between say two desks to it, and a number of people working. So they have to go through this narrow passage to get to the office equipment. But as soon as you do that, you set up a pecking order in the office, who gives way to whom, lots of conflict. If you widen the passage so that two or three people can pass in either direction at one time, the pecking order disappears, the basis of the conflict disappears, and all you’ve done is rearranged the furniture.

Enrichment. You seek to resolve the conflict by bringing in additional resources. One of the most common is money. Hollywood, working on a script, writers not working out, writer doesn’t want to let go of his credit for the script. Executive calls him into his office says, we’ll give you a quarter of a million dollars to go away. Make it 300,000. Done. That’s enrichment. Bribes—a form of enrichment. Training. Education. An apology, that is an expression of feeling that is greater than what would normally take place in such a setting. Facilitation, mediation. These are all methods of enrichment. If you’re able to resolve the conflict at the level of pacification, the relationship strengthens because the two parties learn from the experience that they can work things out on their own. So they have a stronger relationship as a result. If they instead go straight to enrichment, it’s an expression of distrust in each other and the relationship, so it weakens the relationship. So it’s very important to go through pacification first. If you’re able to resolve it at the level of enrichment after having gone through pacification, then sometimes it will strengthen the relationship. Sometimes it will weaken it. Depends on a lot of factors. If you aren’t able to resolve the issue at the level of enrichment, you move to magnetization.

Magnetization is where you use your personal power to compel a resolution. In very crude terms, you hold a gun to the person’s head. You make them an offer they can’t refuse. If you go back to The Godfather, for instance, my preferred method of using magnetization is to be a spokesperson for the situation, so you use the power in the situation, the energy of the situation to compel a resolution.

Almost 20 years ago, there was one of the high lamas of the Kagyu school visiting LA. I knew about this well in advance. And at that time there were three different centers in Kagyu tradition in LA. And the visit was going to be over the Thanksgiving weekend with, you know, several days before Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving weekend and some days following, So when I was asked which days did I want, I took the Thanksgiving weekend, because I knew neither of the other centers would want it. So there wasn’t any argument. And I planned to do a retreat up here at Mount Baldy. And they were only too happy because they all wanted to be, you know, travel, etc. And they’re happy not to be stuck with that weekend for their centers. That was cool.

Fast-forward six months, I’ve got all the plans set up for the retreat here, full enrollment. People are coming in from all over the country. We actually had 55 people here that weekend. Two weeks before this, I got a phone call. “We think you’re being very selfish doing this retreat. You’re denying hundreds of people in Los Angeles, the opportunity to meet this wonderful teacher. So we think you should reschedule.” “Oh, well that’s nice. Thank you for calling.”

Next day, I got another phone call, same message. “I said, this doesn’t make any sense. Why you calling me now? This has been set for several months. This was decided a long time ago.” Then I started getting a lot of phone calls. The conflict had escalated. I was hearing from people that I hadn’t heard from for three, four years asking why I was being so selfish. So I said to this person, “What do you want?” “Well, we think you should have the retreat in the city.” And I said, “Well, there isn’t any location.” “Well, if I find a location?”I said, “I’ll consider it.”

Two days later, she found this location. Well, it wasn’t suitable for any number of reasons, but I was tired of getting all of these phone calls. So I met with a couple of advisors and some of my students and said, “This is what’s going on. What do you think?” One of my students spoke to me and said, “If you hold the retreat anywhere other than Mount Baldy, I’m not coming. And I don’t think a lot of other people will either because that’s not what we want. And it’s not what you do anyway. Ken.” I went, “Oh.” Then one of my advisors said to me, “I think she just gave you the key we’re looking for, Ken.” And I went, “Right!”

So the next day I called up this woman who had been putting all of this pressure on me and had orchestrated this phone campaign against me, and said, “Here’s the situation I’m in. Thank you for doing all of the research and finding this other location. I brought it up with my students. They rejected it completely. So I can’t do anything here. However you control this person’s schedule. So if you feel this is really important, you cancel my retreat, and you set up your own, but my hands are tied. My students have said, this is the only retreat they want to do. I can’t do anything else. It’s all in your hands.”

Well, she didn’t want to take that responsibility, so the retreat went forward. That clear enough for you Carolyn? We had 55 people here. It was a bit strange, but it was a very good retreat. You use the power of the situation to compel a resolution. That doesn’t always work. Sometimes you actually end up in trial in court. Sometimes you end up at war. This is destruction.

Destruction is destroying the aspect of the relationship in which the conflict arises. Parents do this all the time with children. Two children are fighting over a toy. What do the parents do? They take the toy away. That’s destruction. What do the kids do then? Now they usually look at each other and say, what do you want to do now? They destroyed the basis of the conflict.

Sometimes destruction involves you leaving the situation. You quit, or you quit that aspect of the relationship. I’ve had to do that a number of times. One of the ways that crops up is that a friend will ask me for some advice about something. I’ll have to say no, we’re friends. You started asking my advice, that could change. So they think about that quite carefully. I think about it quite carefully because it changes everything. So keep those straight. Usually we don’t do that because the being a consultant or providing advice is a very different relationship from being a friend. And it’s important to respect that. Whenever you have dual relationships, you’ll get into this. Henry Ford once said, it’s very sad when your friend becomes your business partner. It’s very wonderful when your business partner becomes your friend, because business partner and friend are very different relationships. Business partners is about making money together. Friendship’s about emotional connection, friendships is a much deeper form of relationship. So it’s very sad when your friendship becomes a business relationship and vice versa. When you enter conflict, you do not determine to which of those levels the conflict goes.

You do not control the level of conflict


Ken: You stay present in the conflict with your intention, the other person, the other party determines which way it goes. My martial arts teacher put it this way: Why would I kill you, if I could just maim you? Why would I maim you, if I could just injure you? Why would I injure you, if I could just embarrass you? Why would I embarrass you if I could just walk away? But if you don’t let me walk away, then I will embarrass you. And if you don’t stop when I embarrass you, then I will injure you, etc. This is something to keep in mind because in the course of engaging a conflict, if it moves to the level of destruction, something is going to die. You’re going to meet death. It may not be clear what that is when you go in, but at some point something is going to die. And if you aren’t prepared for something to die, then maybe not such a good idea to engage the conflict. And so we’ve had various examples of that offered this afternoon, where you take on a task at work which may put you in a bad position. Could end up becoming a scapegoat. Raises the possibility that you’ll be fired. Now that’s death in the business world. You criticize your wife’s soup. Find her in divorce court. That’s death in the marriage world. It’s never about the soup. Sophie and Michelle?

Sophie: Does internal conflict go through the same four stages?

Ken: Very good question, Sophie. Thank you. Exactly. How many of you have found certain of your expectations have had to die in the practice of your meditation prep and the course of your meditation practice? How many of you have had to let go of certain ideals? Or certain character traits that you wants took such great pride in?

Sophie: And do you go through the same stages of trying to pacify and magnetize and then …

Ken: Oh, I think so. I mean, I’m going to sit until I reach awakening. I’m going to be just like the Buddha. I can live with this. Oh, maybe if I just put some support there. No, I’m going to power through this. Maybe I better get some instruction after all, all four stages.

Student: Well, where’s the destroying. The magnetizing would be …

Sophie: I can see where you try to enrich it by getting yourself more comfortable in meditation, but I’m missing the other stages.

Ken: Magnetization: I’m going to power through this.

Sophie: And then how do you destroy it?

Ken: I have to get some instruction after all. I’m not going to be able to be just like Buddha. Not give up, but give up being like Buddha. Going to have to get some instruction. I’m just going to have to be an ordinary human being after all. That’s such a drag. My relationship with that ideal is destroyed. Okay. Michelle.

Michelle: One of the things I admire about dogs is that an emotionally healthy dog will never use more force than necessary. So one of mine came to me because he was aggressive towards a child in his household. But what had actually happened was the dog weighs 120 pounds. The child weighed maybe a third of that. He was taking a nap one day and she wanted to play and she was in his face and he got up and he moved and she followed him. And this happened several times. And eventually he gave a little growl and that caused her to move in. And she tried to ride him and, you know, try to do any number of other things. And so he gave a larger growl and she ignored it. And, after some period of time, he snapped at her. And I know this because the mother told me the story. She was in the room the entire time. And she decided the dog was vicious.

Ken: Her child could do no wrong. Steve.

Steve: I noticed that you put apology in the second category. I’m wondering why that isn’t in the first category?

Ken: Well, it depends on the circumstances. In some cases it would be in the first category, but often in more formal settings, an apology or opening up that whole emotional realm is not the protocol. So at the end it would represent a level of enrichment.

Steve: So, pacification is …

Ken: Resources that are at hand, and Enrichment would be in the case of emotional stuff, putting a higher level of feeling or a deeper level of feeling into it. I see this where people are in some kind of contention or other things. And one person says, you know, I never really meant to hurt you. I’m sorry. And the conflict is gone. Okay. Now I’ve gone over my time. So, I need to turn it over to Jeff at this point.

The White Bird: part 7


Jeff: You got four days or four hours and 40 minutes. That was pretty good. Let’s return to our story.

Ken: We keep changing the order.

Jeff: Remember it’s a fairytale. It’s happening in another realm. It started out in a time far beyond this one. It’s not this time. So we last saw our prince stripped of his clothing, stripped of the sword of brightness, stripped of the fruit of happiness and stripped of the white bird, and left by the side of the road. The two brothers had returned to the king with what they’d taken from the younger brother. And immediately began crowing about what they brought and the king said, well, where’s the prince. And oh God, he just went over to that tavern. You know, it’s like days, he walked down the road and spent the whole time drinking. So the king said, well, gosh, can you draw that sword? I want to see the sword. Well the brothers, like they couldn’t get it out. Wouldn’t budge. Well, can I have a bite of that fruit of happiness? I want to taste that fruit. And he took a bite and it was bitter. And the white bird just cried and cried and cried.

Well, the young prince, he stayed by the road for a bit. And then he decided I’m not going to just give this up. And he walked back to the castle, but they wouldn’t let him in. Nobody recognized him. He was just some guy dressed in rags. And so he sat down by the gate. It was actually the gate that went out to a garden and he sat there for a long time. And eventually the people in the court came out to take a stroll in the garden and they all passed him by, nobody recognized him.

And a bit later, the king came out, walking with the white bird. The king passed him by too. He didn’t recognize him, but the white bird saw him and immediately knew who he was and ran to him and kissed him and said so this is my prince. This is the prince. So the prince stood up and explained to the king what had happened, the whole adventure and how it had come about. And the king said, yes, yes, yes, yes. But that’s what your brother said. How do I know that you’re telling the truth? Can you pull that sword out? He said, sure. And he took a hold of the scabbard and pulled the sword out, flashing the light shining brightly. And the king realized what had actually happened the whole time. And he was intent on punishing the two brothers, but they’d already run out the back door when they heard that the prince had returned. But the prince was back. Now, why is this story called the white bird? Any Tom, Jake or Harry can find the fruit of happiness or find the sword of brightness, but it takes a real prince to find the white bird.

That’s the end of the story. So what does that last line mean? Any Tom, Jake, Sally, Sue, or Harry can find the fruit of happiness or find the sword of brightness, but it takes a real prince or a real princess to find the white bird. What do you think? Any ideas? Take a moment and just reflect on the whole story. We’ll come back to this question. And reflect on the whole story and pick one part of the story that resonated for you that made some sense for your life or for something that’s happened. So just take a moment, reflect on that.

We’d like to hear what came up for you. If anything, did anybody, just raise your hand, speak up?

Student reflections on the story


Pat: I like the part about how, when he attained the white bird, he recognized what it really was and decided to not use the white bird as an object, but establish a relationship with it.

Student: The moment for me is when he put that little hat on and transformed it to something totally different, you know, a bird, and was able to transverse this huge distance to a very dangerous place with a very dangerous person and grab her by the hair.

Jeff: That’s great.

Student: And not let go.

Jeff: That’s a huge thing. All the other princes were still, they were stones. So what Gary pointed out there, that the prince turned into something else. He couldn’t make it up there as the prince.

Student: I like that ending when the white bird recognizes the prince and goes to him and the sword gets pulled out or he’s able to pull out the sword. It’s like these two passive elements of the story the whole time have a lot of power in the end and affect the outcome.

Jeff: The two passive elements being …

Student: The dove and the sword, they are referred to, they’re passive, they don’t really take on any kind of role. They’re just sort of items. But they, they kind of transform in the end to becoming something. So they change, their lives change. I guess they become different things.

Jeff: Nice, Christina, is there another mic over here?

Student: The fact that even though the intentions were there, and they were good, he had to find his way there. He had a little greed, didn’t work out, he kept persevering. So, there was a journey of, having a result, not end up giving up, learning from it.

Jeff: Yeah. You can think of, if you’ve ever watched any Jackie Chan movies, the way Jackie Chan just keeps responding to whatever comes at it, just keeps working with it, keeps working with it.

Student: I liked that he had the book of wisdom, and he consulted it. And in the beginning he did something just a little different. And then he started doing exactly what it said and had better results. But at the end he was stripped naked. The book was gone, it wasn’t mentioned anymore. And then he just went to the gate and waited, and the sword and the bird came to him.

Jeff: Oh, nice.

Student: I think a lot of people are touching on this, but for me it, the same thing that it’s what he formed an emotional bond with, the white bird, that then returned to him. And that for me, just on this retreat, it reminds me of all these instructions that I followed for a long time about opening to the field of awareness. But this time there was the instruction also to open emotionally to it. And that, I don’t know if it’s analogous, but that is sort of had a big effect on my, what I got from this retreat.

Jeff: Nice.

Student: The white bird recognized who the prince was all along. You know, when she was riding with them, no matter what he did at the end, when his outer appearance had changed, she knew who he was all along. She knew who he was.

I was really touched yesterday and felt almost foolish by how deeply I was touched by the journey that he kept screwing up. But it was important to screw up in order to take the next step. And then the way the story ends. In fact, if hadn’t screwed up a couple of times, he wouldn’t have had the white bird and he wouldn’t have been recognized.

Jeff: That’s wonderful. Yeah. Hey, it’s like receiving the results. Oftentimes we want to ignore the bad results. That’s how you find your way. Okay.

Student: I love the whole story. I love your delivery. and the suspense is not, I hate those “to be continued” things. And they did that with the Superman comics. I quit Superman comics. But it’s that perseverance, not knowing that you’re gonna get it. I never ever got the feeling that he was going to win. It was just the next challenge or the next, oh, okay. It says to do this and there was this just willingness. I mean, things that would have wiped me out. He was duped by his family. That’s a kill, that’ll always get ya. And big, ugly, scary things. And he just kept moving. I think, because the integrity was, he was gonna hold his word, his intention with, to bring this back and okay he got robbed of that, but he still showed up in tatters. And the final blessing was his, like life.

Jeff: But as Ken pointed to a few moments ago, that the four steps, showing up, opening to what is, it keeps cycling around and around and around. If you stop, you’re stopped.

Student: His initial impulse at the beginning of the story was to go to, was it enter here? And you will pay what you can.

Ken: Take what you need and pay what you can.

Student: And he found things inside that were not so nice. And he took care of them. I like that … [unclear].

Jeff: Can I ask about a white bird?

Ken: Sure. Go ahead. Yeah. You’ve received two answers already.

Jeff: Yeah. What is the white bird, or who is the white bird? Where in your life is the white bird?

Student: That place that knows.

Student: That, which really recognizes you, that you know it and it knows you.

Jeff: Anyone else? Laura.

Laura: But also, not what you thought you were looking for. Not what you went off in search of.

Jeff: Nice. Didn’t know you’d find it. You didn’t know you’d find it.

Student: You didn’t know you were looking for it.

Jeff: Exactly. Michelle.

Michelle: Is it also the part of you that serves what’s true.

Jeff: Is it?

Student: The question is for you.

Jeff: Question for you? What’s the difference between what knows and that which serves what is true?

Student: It sounds to me like the same thing but what knows was … I’m sorry. The only thing I can think of is a little bit too new-age-y for me.

Jeff: Yeah. So what Michelle might be pointing to here is that what knows is not necessarily passive. What knows has some relationship with action.

Student: Do we call this Buddha nature?

Ken: What’s Buddha nature?

Student: Original mind, that which knows.

Ken: What’s original mind?

Student: The white bird.

Jeff: Good answer.

Ken: I think that was the case of cover your losses.

Jeff: Well done though. What about those two brothers that ran off? What’s that like?

Ken: Anybody know those two brothers? Alex.

Alex: The part of you that wants what they want and doesn’t want to pay for it. And so they, you get these spiritual attainments. It’s not that I know what the white bird is meant to represent. And then you try to use them as tools, and it falls apart.

Jeff: We try to use them as tools to get something, like to wake up or something like that. It’s a danger.

Ken: How often does the story take place? This is what Jeff means when it takes place in another time. Molly.

Molly: So, you use the brothers against the man with the red eyes, the old man.

Ken: You want to use the brothers against the man with the red eyes.

Molly: Since there are tools.

Ken: Why would you want to do that?

Molly: To try to weasel your way to get something. And you’re trying to destroy the man with the red eyes, and you would try skillful means.

Jeff: Maybe in a wrestling match. I’m not quite sure.

Molly: You’re working against yourself basically, but that would be maybe one way to work against yourself. Do you see what I mean?

Jeff: Almost. So, to use the two brothers, that one way of grasping at things of wanting get something from something …

Molly: Even when you’re trying to destroy your opponent, even when you’re trying to use the sword to destroy the man with the red eyes, you can trick yourself by using these two brothers to do it. You know what I mean? Like you, you trick yourself into thinking that you’re actually destroying this person, but you’re actually stepping out the back.

Ken: That’s the problem there.

Jeff: Nice. Thank you.

Ken: Yes. This happens quite frequently as you try to get clever with this stuff. Okay? One thing I just wanted to touch on very quickly before we close, it’s an important topic. We don’t have much time. The ethics of power.

The ethics of power

Ken: As we noted when we did the sword exercise, If you aren’t present in the experience, you’ve already violated the ethics of power. You’re a predator. So presence is the ground. Balance is the optimum condition for the arising of presence. So that is the only thing worth defending, worth wielding power for. This gives rise to boundary. The boundary is defined by balance. Where things are out of balance, a boundary has been violated. The exercise of power is used to address that imbalance. And that’s what engages obligation. Obligation is dependent on your environment. It’s dependent on the relationships you have. One way this is viewed is in terms of order. Others first, environment second, you third, But you are always part of the situation. There’s more on obligation, but we don’t have time to go into it. Some of you are familiar with this in terms of the three bases of relationship. I think there’s something up on the website about that. Some articles, somewhere. Mutual benefit, shared aim and emotional connection. And then the last element is courage. Courage is what’s you experience when you accept your obligation and stand at the boundary.

As Takuan notes, in Unfettered Mind, the book, this was very badly misconstrued in samurai culture, who felt that they had to duel someone who insulted them, that that was the obligation in defending the boundary. And as he points out, that’s nonsense, that’s just a refined expression of your anger. The only boundary worth defending is balance. Because that’s what creates the conditions for presence. Now that’s a somewhat pithy summary. With respect to courage, courage isn’t about not feeling fear. It’s about experiencing fear and being able to act anyway. It requires a higher level of attention.

One very important aspect, power, which I’ve alluded to before. It’s different from the other gestures. With ecstasy, which shows up in spiritual practices as devotion. If you screw up, you may go a bit crazy. People will say, hmm, he was touched by God. With insight, if you screw up, you’ll end up exploiting or being exploited. With compassion, if you screw up, you’ll end up a bit like a tyrant. You’ll end up as a tyrant. And power. If you screw up, people die. So it’s serious. People die. So keep this in mind. I think that’s everything. Do you have any words you’d like to add?

Jeff: It’s time for dinner.