The Naked Monk

Archive for the ‘Mindful Reflection’ Category

My dad ran a fine Gloucester restaurant in the West of England and used to recite these words like a mantra. It contrasted with his considered opinion that many customers were philistines who didn’t appreciate good food and wine. Still, he acknowledged their custom nevertheless, knowing that his livelihood depended on them. That wasn’t the least bit unusual; it was the prevailing business attitude in those days before the term ‘customer service’ was invented.

Today, it’s a ubiquitous label used by corporation worldwide, ostensibly to establish in black and white that yes they really do care about their customers, but more often to deal with disgruntled ones. Getting through to someone with authority in the higher echelons of today’s corporations is about as easy as getting through to Barack Obama for a nice chat.

A case in point is Videotron, my cable internet supplier and, oh dear, a service industry. I called because I had been initially charged  $5 for 5 gigabytes of bandwidth, but then $7.95 per additional gigabyte. Why, I wanted to know, were there two rates?

“Because,” said the customer service representative, you went over what you were allowed.

“Allowed?” I echoed. “You make me sound like a naughty boy. Don’t you want me to consume your product?”

“Of course we do, sir.”

‘Sir,’ of course, is meant to denote respect, but you’d never know it from her tone of voice.

“Well,” I said, “It seems punitive to me. Why would you want to upset your customers?”

“We’re not trying to upset our customers,” she insisted.

“Well in this case you have. Don’t you find that unbearable?”

No answer.

“So why are there two rates?”

“I already told you sir, because you went over your limit. You’re not allowed to do that.”

“Allowed,” I mused. “There’s that word again.”

She ignored me.

“Please remind me, why am I not allowed?”

“Because you’ve purchased a 5 gigabyte package and have gone over the limit.”

“So I used more, and I have to pay for it.”

“Exactly,” she said, relieved that I’d finally seen the light.

“Fair enough,” I added.

“I’m glad you see my point, sir.”

“Good,” I added. “Now, why does the cost go up by 795%?”

“What?”

Well, $5 for 5 gigabytes is a dollar a gigabyte, correct?

She didn’t answer.

“And $7.95 a gigabyte is 7.95 times as much, right? That’s a 795% increase.”

She’s still silent.

“Look,” I said, “If I’m not allowed any more, why don’t you just turn off the tap?”

“What?” Now she’s annoyed.

“Why don’t you stop supplying me when I reach my limit. After all, I’m not allowed any more — right?”

“We don’t cut off our customers like that sir.”

“Ah,” I said. “Could it be that you want me to go over, so you can the gouge me?”

Silence.

“Is that it? Does Videotron engage in trickery?”

“Sir, why did you contact us?” Her voice suggests I’ll be nonplussed by her clever question.

“To get my money back,” I said. I’ll give you two dollars for two gigabytes. Seems fair to me.

“And what happens next month?”

“Next month?”

“Yes, sir. You’re going to go over the limi again next month. Then what?”

“I’m confused,” I said. “You know how much bandwidth I’ll use next month?”

“You went over your limit this month. You’ll go over again next month, and the month after. Then what will you do?”

“Good Lord,” I exclaimed. “You see into the future? How can you possibly know what I’m going to do in the next month?”

“How much bandwidth will you use then, sir?”

I’m now irritated. “I don’t know. If I did, it would be none of your business.”

“You see?” she says, “You don’t know. That why you need to purchase our Extreme high-speed package.”

“Don’t want it,” I said. “Are you going to refund that extortionate billing, or do I move to one of your competitors?”

“Our competitors bill their clients exactly as we do, sir.”

“So?”

“So that’s what we do. It’s perfectly reasonable.”

“Because they gouge their customers, it’s okay for you to do the same?”

“Yes.”

She missed that one. The poor girl wouldn’t know a logical inference if it hit her in the face. Perhaps that’s because she’s sacrificed her wits for her job, trying to follow bureaucratically-designed customer service conversations instead of her own sense of right and wrong. She sacrifices her integrity daily to keep her job. Sad.

“So will you upgrade to the extreme high-speed package?”

“No thanks. I don’t need it.”

“Yes you do sir.”

“Who on Earth are you,” I explode. “God?”

“So why are you calling us?”

“Actually, I’m not calling you. I emailed you and expected an email response.”

“We called you back, sir. That is Videotron’s policy. We wish to speak directly to customers in order to resolve their concerns. It’s in the customer’s best interests.”

“Not mine.”

“Why is that, sir?” Oh boy, she ready for me now. I bet she has company policy memorized word for word.”

“Because you didn’t leave me a call-back number.”

“It’s not our policy to do that, sir.”

“I suppose that wouldn’t be in my best interests?”

No answer.

“And you called, what, ten or twelve times, disturbing my wife and daughter with your incessant calls, leaving no message.”

“Sir, it’s not Videotron policy….”

“So what’s your answer? Do I get my refund, or find a new internet supplier?”

“You won’t get a penny more.”

“A penny more than what?”

“Than the $15.90 for the two gigabytes at $7.95.”

“You’re actually going to refund it?”

“I’ll give you a credit, sir. But you won’t get a penny more in credit.”

“Madam,” I explain, “You’re giving me exactly what I want.”

“That’s all!” she insists. “Not a penny more!”

I exclaim, “Oh dear!” Perhaps that will console her.

“Is there anything else I can help you with this evening?”

“No thanks.

“Thank you for contact Videotron Customer Support sir, and have a great day.”

“Really?”

I hang up thinking about the Buddha’s injunction to avoid wrong livelihoods. It couldn’t be simpler. Put your source of income before your own integrity and you’re on a slippery slope to discontent and stress. Sure you need money, but you need mental health too, something too often pushed far down the list of priorities. When you think that Xeroxed conversations like this are being taught to tens of thousands of people in customer service centres worldwide, you can only wonder what the world’s coming to. But then, people wonder that in one generation after another, don’t they?

What a strange lot we are, human beings.

Last weekend I was the fortunate recipient of some critical advice. I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t ask for it and I really had no idea how to fit it into my life, but it was delivered with the assurance that it came from the heart and would benefit me greatly. It was rather like receiving a Christmas sweater that the giver knows is ‘you,’ but which in fact you wouldn’t be caught dead in. According to the rules of etiquette, however, thanks are in order. Who among us isn’t placed from time to time in this awkward position?

To advise someone effectively, a true benefactor will neither assume that he or she fully knows the recipient’s needs, nor pretend to thoroughly understand his or her predicament — if indeed there is one. This wasn’t the case last week, and I was mystified by the intrusion. Upon enquiring why I’d need such advice, I was accused of being ‘confrontational.’

Am I an ungrateful wretch? Convention insists that one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but what of Trojan horses? Too often, they’re a convenient way to offload an intruder’s own unresolved issues in the guise of a free gift.

This particular benefactor isn’t a bad person; his helpful intentions, however, were certainly manipulative. In the reflective lifestyle, Step One of helping out is listening, and its helpmate, asking. Failing to listen means that one’s ‘help’ is little more than interference.

This failing is all too common; it affects not only individuals but also organizations. Look at the way the Catholic Church ‘saved’ heathens around the world, how the Canadian government ‘helped’ first nations peoples, and what the World Bank decides developing states ‘need.’ Today, at last, there is a greater tendency to listen before acting — but only because weaker peoples are finally finding their voice and demanding respect. Having more money or knowledge is no justification for making assumptions about others, let alone presuming to advise them, and yet it remains so common that few people think twice about it. In fact, donors who neither ask nor listen inevitably impinge upon the dignity of others.

As a teacher of mindful reflection, I’ve been asked how one reconciles kindness with discernment; after all, the truth isn’t always palatable. I can only talk from experience — I prefer to be kind, but I’ve learned that until I grasped self-respect, my attempts to respect others were a sham. Through learning to stand up for myself, I’ve discovered that there’s no helping anyone without first listening. This depends on scrutinizing one’s own intentions, which is where the great power of mindful reflection lies.

To understand (‘stand under’) someone’s situation means to put oneself in their shoes, to not simply jump in with one’s own opinions. The advice I received this last weekend came from someone who ‘knew better,’ who understood me so well that listening seemed to that person to be unnecessary. The result was not aid but alienation.

Like anyone I have my challenges, and if someone knows of useful shortcuts, I’m glad to take advantage — but to be useful it has to relate to my life as I experience it, not as they see it. Otherwise, how’s it going to work? Giving isn’t a one-way street; it’s a complex relationship in which two people interact for mutual gain. Generosity is one of the great human qualities, but simply handing out stuff is not generosity. The real thing requires mindful reflection.

I’m reading in depth about the ancient philosophers and discovering they had far more in common with the Buddha (and vice-versa) than either my old philosophy professors or my Tibetan teachers would care to admit. In fact, I’ve learned that Siddhattha, who later became the Buddha, was very possibly schooled in Taxila — an outpost of the Greek empire established by Alexander the Great — where he would certainly have encountered Greek thinking.

Among ancient philosophers, Philo of Alexandria is one of the most ignored –  possibly because he was a Jew. He lived from 20 BCE to 50 CE. Curiously, the first people to take notice of him were the early Christians — daring, iconoclastic Jews — who were actually a far cry from present-day church people. Anyway, no belief (or disbelief) needed: here is the human mind at its best.

“Every person – whether Greek or Barbarian – who is in training for wisdom, leading a blameless, irreproachable life, chooses neither to commit injustice nor return it unto others, but to avoid the company of busybodies, and hold in contempt the places where they spend their time – courts, councils, marketplaces, assemblies – in short, every kind of meeting or reunion of thoughtless people. As their goal is a life of peace and serenity, they contemplate nature and everything found within her: they attentively explore the earth, the sea, the air, the sky, and every nature found therein. In thought, they accompany the moon, the sun, and the rotations of the other stars, whether fixed or wandering. Their bodies remain on earth, but they give wings to their souls, so that, rising into the ether, they may observe the powers which dwell there, as is fitting for those who have truly become citizens of the world. Such people consider the whole world as their city, and its citizens are the companions of wisdom; they have received their civic rights from virtue, which has been entrusted with presiding over the universal commonwealth. Thus, filled with every excellence, they are accustomed no longer to take account of physical discomforts or exterior evils, and they train themselves to be indifferent to indifferent things; they are armed against both pleasures and desires, and, in short, they always strive to keep themselves above passions … they do not give in under the blows of fate, because they have calculated its attacks in advance (for foresight makes easier to bear even the most difficult of the things that happen against our will; since then the mind no longer supposes what happens to be strange and novel, but its perception of them is dulled, as if it had to do with old and worn-out things). It is obvious that people such as these, who find their joy in virtue, celebrate a festival their whole life long. To be sure, there is only a small number of such people; they are like embers of wisdom kept smouldering in our cities, so that virtue may not be altogether snuffed out and disappear from our race. But if only people everywhere felt the same way as this small number, and became as nature meant for them to be: blameless, irreproachable, and lovers of wisdom, rejoicing in the beautiful just because it is beautiful, and considering that there is no other good besides it … then our cities would be brimful of happiness. They would know nothing of the things that cause grief and fear, but would be so filled with the causes of joy and well-being that there would be no single moment in which they would not lead a life full of joyful laughter; indeed, the whole cycle of the year would be a festival for them.”

Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia or Philo the Jew, was an Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria. More information here.

Sorry to all my faithful readers for the long delay in new postings to this blog. I simply overestimated by time management skills. Shouldn’t be long ….

I like to wake up to a good strong shot of caffeine—usually a caffé latte made with pure Arabica. Once in a while I give into my English side too, and dunk a McVitie’s digestive biscuit or two. It’s a treat.

Which is what I gave myself this Sunday morning of Victoria Day weekend 2010—the spring holiday when, the threat of frost having finally receded, Canadians lay out their annual flowers and vegetable gardens. Sitting in the morning sun and listening to Caroline and Melanie chat about Melanie’s upcoming departure for China, I was purveying yesterday’s planting and had just dunked my second biscuit when a brilliant interjection came to mind. The biscuit was poised, I uttered the phrase, and the dunked side of the biscuit plopped into the brew. It splashed my tee shirt and, far more gravely, transformed the delicious treat into a gooey pollutant. My coffee was ruined; well, it wasn’t the same.

“What?” asked Caroline.

They hadn’t even heard my phrase!”

My mind promptly went back to Thursday night, and my even wiser words to a group of Mindful Reflection trainees. The topic had been Buddhist ethics—the eightfold path—and I’d spent a disproportionate on the topic of idle chatter. I disparaged the practice mercilessly and advised them sternly to hold their silence unless they had something consequential to say.

My witty statement this morning wasn’t even slightly consequential. The important thing is that coffee and biscuit conspired to remind me that I was blathering on about nothing, and that if I’d just kept my trap shut, attending mindfully to dunking and drinking, my morning collation would have been just perfect. It seems I still have plenty to learn about aligning myself with the way of the infinite universe.

The sage is devoted to non-action,
Moves without teaching,
Creates ten thousand things without instruction,
Lives but does not own,
Acts but does not presume,
Accomplishes without taking credit.

When no credit is taken,
Accomplishment endures.

[Tao Te Ching, 2; translated by Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo]