Claralynn Nunamaker grew up in Chicago. She first encountered Chinese philosophy when at university and particularly resonated with the Dao De Jing. She studied Chinese and spent some time in China before moving to moving to Ukiah, California, home of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas Chan Buddhist monastery. It’s there that she became a practising Buddhist. Soon she became involved in the Theravada Forest sangha in northern California and her interest moved her to learn the Pali language in order to read the early Buddhist sutras in their original language. Over the years she has extensively studied and taught Marshall Rosenberg’s system of non-violent communication, which she sees as the embodied practice of right speech. Today she aligns with early Buddhist teachings and is deeply influenced by Ayya Khema and her main teacher, Leigh Brasington. Claralynn serves as Director for the Scottish charity Friends of Early Buddhist Teachings and chair of Sakyadhita UK. Her website is crnunamaker.com.

In this interview, Claralynn insightfully explains the practice of non-violent communication (NVC) and its foundation in the universal attitudes of kindness, compassion, and empathy. Her view is that NVC gives us the tools to transform the aspiration of right speech into reality through clear learnable techniques and principles. Something we all need I’d say! The concept of a troublesome buddha finds its equivalent in the ‘enemy image’ in NVC. Through various personal examples, she explores the power of avoiding falling into the trap of simply describing the enemy image (ahh wasn’t that a big scary dog?) - thus giving it power - to identifying and describing our feelings and needs (I can see you’re scared and want to feel safe). This shift into connecting to the need that’s not being met, she says, allows us to draw alongside the difficult people we meet and see their Buddha nature.

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Steve grew up in a Christian family on the Shetland Islands (off the northern coast of Scotland) and was very involved in church growing up. This provided the foundation for a life-long interest in spiritual investigation, philosophy, world mysticism, and body-awareness realms of practice. He has an interest in extreme outdoor survival, and works closely with the well-known therapist Michaela Boehm. Steve teaches a wide range of movement and meditation practices and works with leading figures to develop their performance and interpersonal skills. He also presents the popular Guru Viking Podcast, specialising in in-depth interviews with leaders and teachers in the world of meditation, spirituality, and self development.

In this interview touching on Steve’s broad experience and wisdom for dealing with difficult people, he highlights the Buddha’s teaching on the ‘Eight Worldly Winds’ (pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute). The Buddha taught that we suffer because we cling to the positive ‘winds’ (pleasure, gain, etc) and resist the negative ones. In dealing with challenging situations, Steve has found these to serve as a very helpful antidote to sense of shock or injustice of a difficult encounter. He has observed that wise people don’t celebrate a given situation, but instead take a more equanimous attitude. One such example is a story relating to the famous Zen master Hakuin that Steve has often meditated on and draws deep inspiration from:

Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life. A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child. This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin. In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else he needed.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back. Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"

– “Is that so?”, from “Zen Flesh Zen Bones” translated by Paul Reps

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DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE RETREAT
11-14 July 2024, Derbyshire, UK
https://zenways.org/event/dealing-with-difficult-people-retreat/
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This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend

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Charlie Morley is a bestselling author and teacher of lucid dreaming, shadow integration and Mindfulness of Dream & Sleep. Since early childhood, Charlie has been fascinated by lucid dreaming. His interest in Buddhism was piqued after reading “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama on a long flight when he was just 16, and just a few years later he took refuge in Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. After being instructed in the Buddhist practice of lucid dreaming by Lama Yeshe Rimpoche, he began giving workshops and teaching widely.

In this interview, Charlie discusses in depth the encounters he’s had with the most difficult person in his life - himself! In a lucid dream, he explains, you literally meet personified versions of your own psychological states. The negative (wounded, suffering) aspects are known as your shadow self. The lucid dreaming practice he teaches takes the view that meeting these so-called ‘demons’ offers you the opportunity of transforming them - for turning them into helpers or angels (i.e. troublesome buddhas). Charlie describes that when we recognise that, within a dream, all is pure potentiality and empty of inherent existence, all fear dissolves. We can then learn to face our deepest pain demons in the dream state and come to terms with them, hug them - and eventually let ourselves be eaten by them… This lays down the neural pathways that help us do that in waking life - to deal with the troublesome buddhas of our daily life.

Support the Show.

This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend

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Matt has asked that I use only his first name to preserve his anonymity. Matt has been a member of the Zenways sangha for some years. He came to meditation originally through an interest in Asian martial arts and is now an authorised teacher of the Jhana practice method taught by Leigh Brassington.

Matt has high functioning autism (Aspergers Syndrome). In this interview, he explores his unique perspective on the intricate world of human interactions, where everyone he meets is essentially a troublesome buddha! In a fascinating discussion of the differences in social skills and awareness capabilities between neurotypical people and his own experience, he highlights how much his meditation practice has been of benefit - a practice that has become a source of tremendous growth and empowerment. First he’s come to face his “psychological material” on a deep level and learnt to accept himself just as he is. Secondly, he’s found difficult situations have got easier as a kind of side-effect of practice. Unlike many people who find cultivating present-moment body awareness and self-reflection helpful, this just doesn’t work for him. Instead, he’s found the deeply grooved sense of equanimity and calm that come from his practice has been of the most help when going into difficult situations. Now, as a meditation teacher, he finds deep nourishment from moments of direct, deep connection with his students - like (as the Zen saying goes) one arrow meeting another mid-flight.

Support the Show.

This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend

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Spencer Sherman’s journey started in the late 80s when he had a panic attack and ran into his burning office building to retrieve his client files, sparking a realisation that he had valued money higher than his own life. This inspired him to begin a journey into meditation which brought him face-to-face with his issues around money. In the years that followed, he learned how to befriend his pains and tightly held beliefs and to transform his understanding of identity and wealth. Now based in California, Spencer devotes much of his time to sharing his mindfulness-based approach to money through his Fearless Finance program. He is the author of “The Cure for Money Madness” and founder of a Abacus Wealth, a successful, values-driven financial consulting firm.

In this episode, Spencer begins by talking openly about his experiences of certain difficult people at work, his habitual way of recoil and avoiding them, and how he has come to understand how important it is to take the risk of stepping out of our comfortable, habitual response patterns in order to find freedom to say what needs to be said. With honesty and humour, he also discusses his long journey of coming to understand his own relationship with money, and laments how the discussion of this central topic is so taboo in our society and leads to so much suffering. He goes on to discuss his work with those facing the pain of bankruptcy or major financial loss, and how he’s found so many of those people are deeply identified with their financial situation, believing that “net worth = self worth”. In exploring these topics, we talk about how encountering difficult people and facing our finances equally bring us face-to-face with impermanence and the realisation that there’s nothing to hold onto, and hence towards freedom.

Support the Show.

This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend

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Born in Netherlands, Geshe Namdak completed his university studies in Hydrology and went on to work as an environmental researcher. He found Buddhism via a martial arts practice and a general leaning towards a spiritual perspective on life. On a work visit to Tibet, he encountered the Tibetan style of Buddhism and felt drawn in that direction. He decided to become a monk and commit to the 20-year programme of becoming a Geshe in the Nalanda tradition at the remote at Sera Jey monastery in India, and is now one of just a handful of Westerners to have completed the comprehensive Geshe curriculum. In 2019 he was asked to become the resident teacher at Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London, UK.

In this interview Geshe-la (as he is known) brings his deep wisdom and experience to the discussion of how to deal with difficult people and situations. He describes 4 steps that are critical if we’re to transform our impulsive actions into constructive ones: awareness, gaining distance, acceptance, and reflection. In order that we bring these steps to bear in real-life situations, he emphasises the need for cultivating a calm mind. The challenge, of course, is maintaining that clarity when our afflictions (anger, hate, etc) are triggered. The danger is that if we don’t, we may become “emotionally hijacked” - as he puts it - and lose control of our actions leading to potentially dire consequences. But, he repeatedly emphasised, having a clear, accepting mind is not about rolling over and being a doormat. We can still be very direct and assertive even when we’re coming from a place of awareness, calmness and reason.

He described a lovely analogy from his time in India: He observed that when a new dog came towards the pack of stray dogs that lived near his monastery, most often the dogs became fearful and started to bark and growl. On one occasion, a new dog approached but, instead of barking, remained calm and started playing. Initially the pack didn’t know what to do, but within a few minutes they were all playing together. The lesson is that if we can alter our attitude and approach to a difficult situation, the outcome can totally change.

Support the Show.

This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend

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Rehena was born in South Africa to a Buddhist family of Indian origin, who had been brought to South Africa during colonial times as indentured labour (her ancestors are originally from Bodh Gaya, the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment). She grew up in heart of the apartheid movement in a racially segregated area with many other families of Asian descent, and had an education in activism from an early age, with her parents being heavily involved in the anti-apartheid movement. After the apartheid was abolished she worked in various reconstruction and development roles, which ultimately brought her to the UK. Here she connected with the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village community, and more recently with the Tibetan and Insight Traditions. Her work as a management consultant together with her engaged Buddhist practice and racial activism creates an environment full of troublesome buddhas!

In this episode she discusses the difficult issue of creating and using labels and identity - when Buddhist practice asks us to let these go. She talks about how encounters with challenging people can become catalysts for examining the storylines we hold about ourselves and the situation in general. But she cautions that real transformation always comes with a level of discomfort - which we need to be ready to face. She emphasises that dealing with difficult people is not about retaliation (as in “an eye for an eye”) or passivity, but about realising the interdependent nature of universe and acting from that broad perspective.

Support the Show.

This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend

If you liked this podcast, consider:

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www.markwestmoquette.co.uk

The ah-un meditation comes from the Rinzai Zen tradition and is a powerful practice for waking up, centering our awareness and energising the hara (belly). It may feel a bit weird at first (and sound strange), but the proof is in the pudding...! Try it and see how you feel.

The more familiar you get with this practice, the less physical movements and sounds you'll need. These are helpful in the beginning to create this energising quality, but over time you might find you only need only one breath, and then no sounds, and then just you might be able to do it simply with your intention. You'll find you naturally start to live more of your life remaining centred in your hara.

This meditation was recorded to go along with Ep2-5 with Evan Williams. Evan has found it to be a great practice to do before a performance (or equivalently a talk, interview, etc.) to encourage a body-centred focus and a strong sense of grounding and power.

Support the Show.

This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend

If you liked this podcast, consider:

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www.markwestmoquette.co.uk