Welcome, dear reader, to another month of taking metta off the meditation cushion and out into everyday life.
Last month found me navigating workplace bullying with strong determination to stay on the bus rather than be thrown under it in “Metta Takes a Seat.” This month, the wheel of Dharma turned by paradoxically stalling some more.
For the last four months, I have been spinning my wheels working as live-in staff for a walking holiday company and feeling trapped in the most toxic working environment I have ever experienced.
Despite various plot twists and potholes, every sit urged me to keep facing forward and to continue blessing the relentless mess surrounding me, rather than walk away. After passing my probation period, with my replacement actually leaving before I could (really!) and with the grand-boss I was hoping would step in suddenly disappearing on bereavement leave, I was seriously questioning my sanity and meditation practice.
And then I remembered that the so-called “rainy season division” or probation period that bhikshus face before encountering the Buddha also lasts four months. In practical terms, it is a chance to test whether you are really ready to live without separation from your mat. While I don’t aspire to become a bhikshuni, the inner gear change required to reframe what I was experiencing as a rite of passage helped me to maintain my perspective while still stranded in what some consider the wettest village in England.
And then an unexpected outer gear change changed everything: the grand-boss, to whom I had entrusted all my evidence to before resorting to whistleblowing, rang me after a changeover shift. Rather than take a serious review of all the happenings of the last four months, they simply pulled the plug on the entire situation by pulling me out and placing on paid leave until further notice. At first, I thought I hadn’t heard right and, still worried about the knock-on effect of short-staffing on my vulnerable coworkers, I offered to return for that evening’s dinner service. Their answer? An emphatic no, until they returned from their bereavement leave.
I hung up, completely stunned that this rainy season was finally done, and promptly slept for six days straight in a sort of bardo state of no longer being in the game yet still lingering on the sidelines. A week later, the grand-boss and I met on a call that ended up lasting some three and half hours. I sat cross-legged looking out at the germinating wildflower meadow that I’d sown waiting for change, observing both the grand-boss’s grief over losing their mother, and observing my own grief at how all involved were clearly lying to them.
Facing a witch hunt at a meditation retreat center earlier this year in “Metta’s Mirror” taught me Mel Robbins’ excellent let them wisdom: be responsible for telling people the truth, not managing people’s reactions to it. Now it seemed I was also learning not to manage people’s reactions to un-truth either. While I could have argued many points I felt were being missed or misunderstood, I kept my peace. I told myself that I had stayed on the proverbial bus long enough to sow the seeds of truth, come what may. The three co-workers I was most worried about had all found constructive next steps of their own, and sleeping out my personal grief over all that had happened felt like enough.
My transfer was now finally possible—rather poetically to a former hydrotherapy-hotel-turned-convalescent-home during the world wars. I would be leaving the company’s smallest site to join its biggest. Rather than move straight away, however, I was gifted another week’s paid leave and surprised myself by wanting to linger a little longer in the village in which I’d felt so trapped.
And I’m so glad that I did. That week gave me a chance to visit with and thank all the local good eggs who had knowingly and unknowingly sustained me at the library, the café, the pool, and the book club. Some were still in their teens, others enjoying their eighties. Little by little, they each opened up about the bullying they had endured and how they had chosen to respond. Heartbreakingly, no one and nowhere seemed immune. I listened to their individual stories and sometimes dried their tears set in contexts including education, health, teaching, military, retail, catering, and entertainment.
The only common factor I could identify in the bullies was an absolute need for control, or rather seeking power externally through power over others. This, in turn, filled me with gratitude for my meditation practice for teaching me that my power always lies within.
The day I boarded the community bus to the new site felt like a royal send off, with new friends waving me off at various stops and my housemate and biggest sanity support surprising me at the train station for a farewell hug.
The subsequent train journey took only a couple of hours but may as well have been a year as each new station sped past, taking me further than I was able to go in the last four months. My thoughts turned back in time to my years volunteering on organic farms, remembering how hard it was to coax pigs into a new pen after removing electric fencing. Despite the wires being long gone, the instinctive fear of being zapped remained.
My first few days exploring my new surroundings and joining my new team were a blackbelt challenge in maintaining beginner’s mind. Every time my inner piglet anticipated a zap in the form of a manger yelling at me for no reason, or conversations changing whenever I entered a room, or second-guessing whether training instructions were genuine or more hazing, I silently let metta keep pulling the plug.
On the one hand, already knowing the format and basic routines of the overall business was helpful. On the other, experiencing how straightforward my initial onboarding could have been often filled me with deep sadness for what might have been (and for four months of my life I will never get back).
Was any of it necessary? Will anything change for the greater good? I honestly can’t tell at this stage. And so, dear reader, whatever former electric fences may still be holding your inner piglet back, let metta pull the plug in every sense.
Or, to metta-morphose Tom Petty’s song “Learning to Fly”’”:
Well, I started out down a dirty road
Started out all alone
And the sun went down as I crossed the hill
And the town lit up, the world got still
I’m learning to fly but I ain’t got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing
Well, some say life will beat you down
Break your heart, steal your crown
So I’ve started out for metta knows where
I guess I’ll know when I get there
See more
The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff (Wikipedia)
Nature’s Principles Are Taking Over (YouTube)
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Compassion Corner: Resources for Teaching Children Empathy for Insects and Other Crawly Creatures
Finding Sanctuary: A Sensitive Soul’s Journey with Buddhism, Mindfulness, and Service
Now or Never
Cultivating True Friendship in the Age of Social Dilemma
Making a Difference: Radical Happiness
