The Invited Philosopher
Pao
Menu
- Dinner: Miso soy glazed cod fish with basmati rice and zucchini
- Dessert: Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate
- Drinks: 19 Crimes 2019 Red Blend
The Philosophy
The book “The 4 Agreements” shares some ancient wisdom by the Toltecs, a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture from Mexico (ca. 900–1521 AD). Toltec knowledge is most accurately described as a way of life, distinguished by the ready accessibility of happiness and love. The first Agreement is said to be the most important: “Be impeccable with your word”. Words have great power and we should use them carefully. Impeccable comes from the Latin pecatus, which means “sin.” The im in impeccable means “without,” so impeccable means “without sin.”
The Summary
The Toltec believed that life is a dream and that we are always dreaming, even when awake. Using a modern-day analogy, the Toltec concept of a dream is similar to starring in our own movie, following a script we write ourselves. All those around us are starring in their own movie based on their realities and concepts of the world. The script is written with words, and thus: Be impeccable with your words. We should avoid using words to judge or bring shame to others. We share this world with others, we are social beings, and we affect our own world by the words we utter. Gossip is among the most poisonous of words.
Analysis
Be Impeccable with Your Word
The wisdom here is that any careless words or negative words may not only hurt others but also ourselves, as we may lose a friend or be treated less kindly. The worst outcome is that our word is a judgement on the character of another person, like a criticism, and that the person may absorb our criticism into their identity. In that way, the script or movie of our life becomes a drama soap opera or tragedy, when instead it could be an inspirational uplifting story. We discussed this in our dinner covering the topic of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness.
“The Four Agreements” book presents an example of a stressed-out mother who gets a headache while her little daughter is singing. She asks her to be quiet but the girl continues singing. Then the mother tells her to shut up and that she has an ugly voice. The girl never sings again and believes her voice is ugly. It is a sad example of how much harm we can cause with our words. As a mother, before I discovered spirituality, psychology and philosophy, I have often been careless with my words. I’ve been correcting it ever since.
One way to avoid the hurt that comes with careless words, is to only entertain thoughts in our mind that are always motivated by love and kindness, compassion and empathy for others. If we did that, would we still say a word that hurts someone, or influences someone in a negative way?
Yes, we still might. We never fully understand another person and thus we might need to connect with the other person at a deeper level and that is not always possible. We may get entangled in a conversation about a situation for which we have an opinion. We often assume that a person will be open to our well-meaning advice, but before we share an opinion, we should ask questions that reveal if the person is ready for what we have to say, and we should consider if we need to say it.
In Buddhism there is the concept of “skillful means” which addresses the difficulty of translating our wisdom and good intentions into beneficial results by tailoring a helpful message to the specific audience.
Be Impeccable with Your Thoughts
Pao and I agreed that it all starts with thoughts. Although the first agreement focuses on spoken words used during communication, there are also the words we tell ourselves, as thoughts. As Pao put it: Before the word there is the thought. And after the word there is action. We should start by being impeccable with our thoughts, when we do that, most likely, only impeccable words will follow.
Pao asked what we should do if we find ourselves considering a possible negative outcome of a situation, for example, if we consider that another person may harm us, and we obsess about it. At that point we are not being impeccable with our thoughts regarding that person. We may argue that we are doing it to protect ourselves. We do it out of fear. But there is a different approach. We should seek to be both fearless and impeccable with our thoughts. I told her that for me those thoughts are like getting stuck in a dark cave. I believe and I have read that they are not useful, except to strengthen our ego. We should instead focus on cultivating good instincts, and so if we experience a bad outcome we will know how to react, but there is no need to prepare for it.
I told her that every time I notice with surprise that I ended up in the cave, I refocus my attention to this question: What is the best outcome in this situation? What would I like to see happen? And I force myself to only consider the answers to those 2 questions. And then I meditate.
Why Self-Love is Important
It has been said many times that we cannot love another person if we do not love ourselves. If we are kind to ourselves, we will know how to be kind to others. That is very true. My example is a sad example of what happens when we are not good to ourselves: I never felt I was bad to myself, but I learned in my childhood to live with criticism and prove people wrong. The problem is that I became very self-critic because it motivates me to do better. And the bigger problem is that I assumed for a long time that this is how it works for everybody, they all need to be criticized to see the problem and then work out a solution. I’ve known that criticism is always bad since I read the Dale Carnegie book on how to make friends and have been more aware of avoiding criticizing others. I still have the same friends I had back then (when I was ignorant) but now I have dozens more!
During our dinner, it occurred to me for the first time that in the past I was not very loving with myself. The fact that criticism motivates me, means I had been splitting myself into applying one set of standards to myself and another, a kinder more careful approach, for other people. No wonder it was so hard! In recent years, without being aware of it and through my meditations I have started to be kinder to myself. It would be wonderful if that leads to my being impeccable with my word, always.
The human mind is like a fertile ground where seeds are continually being planted. The only problem is that too often it is fertile for the seeds of fear. Impeccability of the word can take away all fear and transform it into joy and love.
― Don Manuel Ruiz