Who Do We Appreciate? || By Beth Hinnen, Certified Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher
Certainly, I am dating myself. The title is the end of an innocent refrain — two, four, six, eight … who do we appreciate? — from high school years when cheerleaders stood on the field and led students in a chant to show appreciation for the cherished team out on the field. These days, it seems … quaint … outdated. However now, when cancel culture rules, it appears we have lost this simple ability to recognize another’s accomplishments, especially if they are not on “our team,” socially and politically. Indeed, it seems barely doable to share appreciation and positive regard for someone who is on our team.
As the world succumbs to canceling, it reminds me of when I tried online dating a while back. Highly reluctant due to all the catfishing and other scammy shenanigans associated with dating apps, I decided to approach it from a very Zen place — let’s see what happens — and emailed a small circle of friends and family asking how would they describe me to someone, what I should highlight about myself, and what might I want to be aware of that was not quite so attractive. Out of about 20 people, I received a reply from three. And, honestly, I was shocked. I thought people would email back funny stories that showed a quirky yet likable characteristic, describe me like they would a character in a TV show or movie that has both positive and negative traits, or just offer support for my courage in even going online to date!
As I looked at my empty email box, I thought, wow, am I really that bad? As it turns out, it took a conversation with a friend, who had not replied, for me to understand what was going on. The response was, and I paraphrase, a person is not supposed to ask for a good personal review. Yes, you can request a business or professional one, however, a personal one is self serving, ego-driven, and downright narcissistic.
My intention couldn’t have been more different. When I crafted the email, I truly wanted to know — the good, the bad and the ugly (now I am dating myself). After having been in Zen practice for ten years, and before that, in a writing group who regularly reviewed my work and felt no need to withhold honest critical analysis, I had subjected myself to a wide range of feedback not only in a professional capacity, but also in a personal one. In addition, it was a year or two into COVID and to be honest, I had lost the reliable, daily personal interaction from which I could ascertain for myself how I was in relationships. My question was in earnest.
And so my friend’s response took me by surprise, and after reflecting on it for a while, I wondered if that was a widely held position. Did it seem like I was looking for accolades, for gratuitous back-slapping and unwarranted adoration? What makes it challenging for us to seek honest reflection … and to give it? Where does the break down in communication lay?
There is something in Buddhism called mudita, appreciative joy. It is the welling up of appreciation in our own experience when we witness or are a recipient of someone else’s virtuous action. It is a place of receiving, even if we are not the ones acting skillfully or with ethical integrity. And yet, by choosing to feel appreciative joy, we benefit as if we acted that way ourselves. Mudita is in fact, a brahma vihara, a holy place, or divine abode. We want to live there … we want to find ourselves resting in such sublime states of mind. Even better, the brahma viharas are immeasurables, meaning, they are infinite … there is no end to our ability to access them … bring them to bear … or call on them … over and over and over again.
So … what makes us unwilling to feel such goodness within ourselves, and also to reflect the goodness we see in others? I give two reasons; one, we did not grow up in such an environment. The story of the Dalai Lama not understanding self-hate, or the inner critic so rampant in Western civilizations, is classic. He literally had to discuss it for ten minutes with his translator before he finally grasped the concept in horror. At another time, someone once said to him, “I do not feel worthwhile as a person. How can I work on this as a beginning meditation student?” He replied, “You should not be discouraged. Your feeling, ‘I am of no value’ is wrong. … Absolutely wrong. … You are deceiving yourself.” (This to me is one of the underlying ills of our time and won’t expound on it here as it would take a PhD thesis to thoroughly examine it.)
Second; to have such personal positive regard has been categorized in our society, as my friend suggested, as egotistical, self-centered, and yes, narcissistic. If we share a recent job promotion … a new relationship … a hoped for pregnancy, we do it now at the risk of being called out for denigrating others who do not have such good news. When we experience joy about a successful development in our own lives, we often downplay it, or brush it off as a fluke, dumb luck, or even a burden to endure. How did we get so joy-averse?
While I have several theories and again, beyond the scope of this blog (thankfully), for now I’ll say … it’s complicated. However, I suggest that mudita is an elegant solution. What we can do is start feeling the joy of another person’s joy, like we do at a sporting event when a team makes a good play, or someone makes an appreciative acceptance speech of an award. Such joy seems acceptable to share with celebrities, sport heroes, artists, and activists, so why not with a good friend, the neighbor down the hall, an office mate? How about a little positive regard when requested, and better yet, just from our own natural goodness arising?
The New York Times now has a weekly email called, “The Good List” which I subscribe to and just today I read about “the joy bar.” And no, it’s not a place you saunter up to and slap a credit card down and get a cup of joy (oh, if it could be that easy!). The author writes, “Your joy bar should be very low.” Indeed.
And for appreciative joy … no … bar … necessary.
About the Author: Beth Hinnen came to the spiritual path from the corporate world. After experiencing impermanence and greed, she left to study Yoga and has over 1,000 hours in Yoga teacher training, and ended up specializing in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, spiritual scripture that closely aligns with Buddhism. From there, she studied Zen Buddhism for over ten years, including in-person, month-long monastic retreats, until she earned certification, in January, 2023, as a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Currently, Beth is a co-leader of the IMCD Council, and on the Teachers Collective, as administrator. She hosts a Meetup group called Yoga Meets Buddhism, and for the past three years, has held an online Dharma Wednesdays class that discusses the Yoga Sutras while also bringing in Buddhist teachings, along with Sufi poets, Christianity, Judaism and other spiritual paths that reinforce the words of Sri Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga where Beth studied. “The truth is one, the paths are many.” More information about Beth is at www.samayaco.org.
