PRIVATE TEACHING | EVENTS | TALKS | WRITING
There is a verse in the Dhammapada that encapsulates the entirety of the Buddha’s teaching. It’s verse 183, which says “To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one’s mind—this is the teaching of the Buddhas.” Thich Nhat Hanh, in his characteristic and deceptively simple way, did a very approachable translation of this verse from the Chinese version of the sutra in a book called The Art of Power. It reads:
The bad things, don’t do them.
The good things, try to do them.
Try to purify, subdue your own mind.
That is the teaching of all buddhas.
If my memory serves me well, my own teacher, Shugen Roshi, has rendered this same teaching as: “Refrain from harm, practice good, and master the mind.” It’s a wording that runs parallel to my lineage’s version of the Three Pure Precepts: “Refrain from harm, practice good, and actualize good for others.”
Lately I’ve been working with this teaching, and working, in turn, with someone very new to Buddhism, I was searching for a way to present this verse in a practical and relatable way.
I thought, What if, with all due humility and respect to the Buddha and buddhas, I change the order of these: “Refrain from harm, master the mind, practice good.” And what if I frame it simply with a word that approximates the spirit of the original teaching: “Stop, soothe, shift.”
The reason for my choosing these three particular verbs—other than the triple S mnemonic—was that the student I was working with was struggling with their relationship to a challenging relative. I wanted to offer them a tool that was both simple and actionable to use in what could be a highly volatile situation.
Stopping is the first step, I pointed out. When hurting, we often want to hurt. We want to lash out, protect, point out, condemn. But to refrain from harm means to be willing to give up our right to be right—or to be righteous. It means deciding we’d rather be free, and at peace. Therefore, at the brink of taking that action that will perpetuate the conflict, we stop and do nothing. Truly nothing. We pause, and exert all of our power—calling forth all of our aspiration—to not take the next familiar but hurtful action. Personally, I think this is the hardest step in the sequence. We’re hardwired to defend ourselves, to right a perceived wrong. I think of the Sallekha Sutta, in which the Buddha says to Cunda, Shariputra’s brother: “Others will be harmful; we shall not be harmful here.” We will not participate or collude in samsara, because that’ll get us nowhere.
Second is finding a way to subdue or master our mind at the moment when it feels most turbulent. It’s like inching our way to the eye of the storm, so as not to be swept up by the gale. Then we can soothe ourselves by turning inward rather than out for relief. In psychology, this is called “down-regulation,” the process of soothing the nervous system through simple activities like walking or breathing. “Subduing” or “cleansing” or purifying” the mind feel both daunting and a little abstract perhaps. How do you do that, particularly when you’re upset? Soothing ourselves is something we can do, and with a little practice, do well. All we need is the willingness to break the cycle of suffering. A therapist I know would instruct his patients to fix their gaze on a pleasant form or color when they were feeling emotionally dysregulated. It could be a spot on the carpet, the leaf of a potted plant, a rectangle of light on a wooden floor—anything to anchor their attention and allow their brain to shift out of the fight or flight response.
Then, once we’re calmer, we’re in a much better position to shift from a triggered or reactive state to an open, engaged, even curious one. We can ask ourselves, “How can I respond so that I benefit both you and me?” or “What will help, not just to make me feel better, but to make the situation better?” And if that’s not clear in the moment, we can at the very least keep the communication going—something that’s unlikely to happen if we respond with anger or judgment. Maybe we shift by asking a question about something that we know interests the other person. I once saw one of my aunts do this masterfully with her cantankerous husband. He’d been going on and on about a politician he found particularly offensive, and others at the table where we were seated were jumping on the bandwagon. At one point, the conversation had turned extremely heated, but with impeccable timing, my aunt leaned toward my uncle during a short lull in the conversation and said, “Honey, what’s the name of your third book? Rosalind assures me it’s The Pride of the Nation but I don’t think that’s right.” And off my uncle went on one of his favorite topics.
I think we can all agree that refraining from what’s harmful and practicing what’s helpful would benefit all of us. But how to do so is a question that can occupy many lifetimes—and in fact, it does. I offer this simple tool: stop, soothe, shift as a reminder that a life well lived is within our reach. A 2,600-year-old-path confirms this, as do the lives of millions of practititioners who’ve benefited from the dharma’s profound teachings. How fortunate we are to count ourselves among them.
Any form of labor involves giving and receiving, making and using, and this is no less true for those of us trading in the intangible. Many hours of careful work go into each piece of writing or teaching I offer. If you benefit from either, please consider supporting my work by sponsoring my newsletter or offering a different donation through my website. Please know that your one-time or recurring gifts, no matter how small, continue to sustain me as I devote time to this labor of love. Thank you, always, for your practice and generosity. Without you, I couldn’t do what I do.
More ways to connect: