In this episode, Diane Musho Hamilton speaks with Vita Pires, Ph. D., the Prison Mindfulness Institute executive director, about exploring teacher-student relationships, the influence of Buddhist teachings on group dynamics, the intersection of meditation with conflict resolution, and the integration of integral theory with meditation and mindfulness practices.
Establishing a teacher-student relationship in a postmodern context.
Buddhist teachings and group dynamics.
Meditation, conflict resolution, and spiritual growth.
Integral theory, meditation, and mindfulness.
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Diane Musho Hamilton is an award-winning mediator and a teacher of Zen meditation. She received dharma transmission from Genpo Merzel Roshi in 2006. Diane served as the Director of Dispute Resolution for the Utah Judiciary from 1994 - 1999, mediating many matters, from simple neighborhood disputes to complex, multi-party negotiations. She was most recognized for her skills in facilitating difficult conversations about race, gender, and religion in Utah. She began working with Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute in 2004 and has held transformative containers for many people interested in their development for fifteen years. She is the author of three books: Everything Is Workable, The Zen of You & Me, and Compassionate Conversations. https://www.dianemushohamilton.com/
Podcast Transcript
Vita Pires 0:02
Welcome everyone. This is Vita Pires, and I'm here with Diane Musho Hamilton. Diane is an award-winning mediator and teacher of Zen meditation. She received Dharma transmission from Genpo Roshi in 2006. She served as a director of Dispute Resolution for the Utah judiciary from 1994 to 1999. Mediating many matters, from simple neighborhood disputes to complex multi-party negotiations. She was most recognized for her skills and for facilitating difficult conversations about race, gender, and religion in Utah. She began working with Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute in 2004 and has held transformative containers for many people interested in their development for 15 years. She is the author of three books: Everything is Workable, the Zen of You and Me, and Compassionate Conversations. Welcome, Diane.
Diane Hamilton 0:57
Thank you. A pleasure to be here.
Vita Pires 1:00
How do you establish a relationship with the teacher in a postmodern context that is resistant to hierarchies when teaching mindfulness or meditation practice?
Diane Hamilton 1:16
Well, let's begin by acknowledging that resistance to hierarchies is due to extensive experience with abuses of power. There's something healthy about challenging our natural inclination towards hierarchies because we've seen over time and in all kinds of contexts that people misuse them and get hurt. So, there's a genuine challenge to it. And there's a genuine question about how we can do this better.
So, your question is, how does one enter a teacher-student relationship? The first thing is that we have to get clear on our intentions. Why are we here? What is it I'm asking for from this person? What do I want guidance for? What do I want this guidance for? And is this a person who, when I observe them in the world, seems to have something to offer me that I don't have myself, because the way that we learn is we put ourselves in relationships, particularly in the domain of the interpersonal and working with spirituality and the awakened mind, you have to be in relationship to someone else who's realized that thing you want to realize, at some level.
So it's getting clear with your intention, paying attention to whether your wants are available, and trusting yourself with what you see. And then, I have an agreement with my students that when they're upset, or have a difference with me, or feel they've been treated unfairly, they're willing to raise that with me and communicate about it. I recommend you get a teacher willing to work with you that way. The old-school hierarchy is fine, but the relationships mattered, too.
Vita Pires 3:10
So, when you're in a group, do you explicitly state that to evoke people's intentions?
Diane Hamilton 3:21
Absolutely. And I also allow that they may not know their intention; they're just longing for something and trying things. They may be looking for friendship or community, and they're not looking so much for the student-teacher relationship. So, intentions are important. We can't know them entirely. Karma is unknowable. So is our unconscious mind in some ways, but we can guess at it, we can try, we can formulate it, we can allow that intention to, you know, we take vows in the traditions. So there's a way that it's like, what I'm looking for here? And do I feel like this is a place and this is the person and a group where I can ripen that aspiration? That's how I think about it.
Vita Pires 4:09
In our training, we teach the threefold logic of ground, path, and fruition. So, the ground would ask why before you even get to the method.
Diane Hamilton 4:22
So, it gets tricky when you want a teacher but also a lover, or you notice that you're engaging a teacher like they're your mother or that brother who hurt you and you've never forgiven. So, there is all that content that we must clarify and keep refining.
Vita Pires 4:44
So, what do you do in a group setting or a one-on-one teaching situation when you notice someone doing one of those things, like relating to you like your mother?
Diane Hamilton 4:56
Within the context of Buddha's practice, we realize our unconditioned mind, in which we encounter one another in a straightforward fashion, with no huge projections that get in the way—not relating to our wounding, not relating to our unclarified wants and needs. So, helping people see that dimension as what's most primary.
In the psychological domain, for me, it's simple. I have some training in psychology, but I'm not functioning as a psychologist. But to notice that in our relationship, we seem to be placing a lot of expectations on each other, or we can't get to a place of relaxation, or for whatever reason, there always seems to be a real one up one down dynamic. And is that really what we want? Could we just be curious about that? And then, sometimes, these things do dispel. And other times, it takes a long time because they're deep patterns.
Vita Pires 6:06
You mentioned unconditionality, meeting someone unconditionally, and it seems to me that a lot of mindfulness work involves understanding conditionality.
Diane Hamilton 6:17
There's that too.
Vita Pires 6:18
Being able to say, Hey, I'm being driven by my conditionality, my causes and conditions, and the teacher would be someone who could point that out to you a little bit, right?
Diane Hamilton 6:32
Precisely. And now we're into the tremendous koan of karma that we talked about and that I mentioned early on; it's unknowable, and yet, we know it. And also, there's a dimension of our experience beyond time. And if there's a timelessness, to me, there has to be a place where karma isn't always running me into the ground. So, we should not be bound by time.
Vita Pires 7:01
So Thich Nhat Hanh stated that the next Buddha is the Sangha. What does he mean?
Diane Hamilton 7:13
Well, if you have ever heard that old Sangha, Vita, my first husband, an art professor, said, I love teaching; it's the students I don't like. Have you ever heard that? Or, like I love humanity, it's the people I can't stand.
So, the Sangha is the community of practitioners. As we know, the three treasures are the Buddha, the awakened, and the model of awakening, whether it's a historical Buddha or your own Buddha mind. Then there's the truth of the Dharma, the teachings, and how sound and reliable they truly are. And it's our job to enter them and see and verify for ourselves.
And then, in terms of Dharma, a sangha, they're like each other. And we know that being in relationship to each other is often the most provocative of those three. There's a saying in the Zen school it must have come from Japan, but being together in Sangha is like river rocks being tumbled, and that we all become smooth because of our relationships with each other because we learn how to let go and how to receive, and how to ascribe goodwill and all that good stuff. But it takes time, and it can be irritating and hard to be with other people in such an intimate way. And yet, it's so liberating when we can learn how to let go and do that. It's so liberating and feels so good.
So what Thich Nhat Hanh points to is, in a certain way, just the evolution of human relationships. And let's say, from a psychological, emotional perspective, that we're learning communication skills; we understand the art of negotiation; we understand how trauma and being triggered is part of some relationships and how to start working with that like we're evolving. And so the enlightened mind is expressed through the Sangha in a way that maybe in the past, it hasn't been, you know, our roles were more traditionally coded, codified. And now it's like, we're learning how to be better with each other. So that's what is good about what he says.
I'm leery of it because it can also be interpreted as if there's no need for hierarchies in the organization. There's no need for a hierarchy with the teacher. And I don't think that it's exclusive in that way. I think there's a role for hierarchy as well.
Vita Pires 9:45
Of course, the Sangha is a group, and conflicts tend to arise in groups. And I know you're an expert on conflict resolution and mediation. So, meditation groups seem to be a subtler type of conflict. I teach in prison, so I have seen some fistfights arise in groups and also in the general public. Anyway, students have been asking me things like, because we're training meditation teachers, what do you do in this situation? What do you do?
Diane Hamilton 10:22
Yeah.
Vita Pires
There is no answer that I can give them.
Diane Hamilton 10:25
Absolutely.
Vita Pires 10:27
Do you have any tips for how people might view conflict itself as something more liberating?
Diane Hamilton 10:34
I can plug my first book, Everything's Workable, because that's what I'm talking about. It is how to start to see it as a creative process. Because where there's conflict, there's energy. The energy of conflict is the aggressive face, erotic energy is the passionate, loving, attractive space of duality. Conflict, however, is threatening duality, but because of that, it's filled with a lot of potential and energy. But most of us don't have the skills, and we either avoid, or we accommodate, or we fight, and we don't know how to fight better. And so we muddle along, and we do a lot of coping. So, learning certain skill sets related to your Sangha and conflict is important.
I think one of the ways that spiritual communities have not been as mature as they could be is when a scandal arises or some conflict between people comes up, there is an assumption we're all just going to look at one another with a kind of milky spiritual stare, and it's all going to be miraculously resolved.
So yes, conflict skills, multiple perspectives, how can your truth and my truth both have a place, being able to speak from my first person about my perceptions, take responsibility for my experience, be able to listen to you in a way that's genuine and I can relax my egoic defensiveness so that your perspective can have some element of truth with me, we start to exchange. And if there's any empirical evidence, if we want to ask a third friend how they see it, take a vote or look at some data. You know, we use all of our skills to inhabit the koan. Zen gives us a beautiful metaphor for conflict, which is a koan: how do you sit? How do you allow it to inform you? How do you feel? What do you think? And then, is there a way to let it let you be part of its resolution, instead of you resolving it, that you are it and have to be in it to resolve it? But that takes a lot of sitting on a cushion and being willing to experience one another. And we're not always up for that. And we have things to do.
Some things should be resolved quickly; the better you get at it, the quicker things resolve. By the way, they do. You make better, quicker choices. So it starts inefficient because no one has the skills, and then it gets more and more and more efficient.
Vita Pires 13:08
Is sitting practice essential?
Diane Hamilton 13:10
Yes, I believe so.
Vita Pires 13:12
People think they can read mindfulness books but are averse to sitting. What is the benefit of sitting?
Diane Hamilton 13:24
What is the benefit? The benefit of sitting is that one is invited to be intimate with oneself in a way that there's no exit. And I don't mean that in a punitive way. But I mean, we get to know who we are. Not only that, we learn to let go of whatever is causing us to feel distressed and separated. Through that process, we also discover a deeper level of reliability. And so there may be other ways to come to that. But sitting has always been my method. And I'm not very good at it, but when I get to the place, I know who I am. It's beneficial to let go, be with what is, and trust.
Vita Pires 14:28
So, practicing and studying the wisdom traditions and lineages you align with is important.
Diane Hamilton 14:40
Well, it depends on what level of depth you want, but there was a nice book that came out last year by Red Pine called 1000 Years of Zen. We read through it, and the major Mahayana sutras are included. The Diamond Sutra is there, Faith in Mind from the Chinese is there, and he's just put together the most essential writings over the last 1000 years. And I must say that reading the Diamond Sutra was just one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. This time, for whatever reason, I just opened a new space in myself and my life. If you want to go deep, definitely study.
Vita Pires 15:40
And what about your involvement with Integral? Why have the frameworks with Ken Wilber been important to you?
Diane Hamilton 15:50
I said I first studied the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, just like Fleet. And then, I moved to Zen, which I know he did as well. He also studied the Tibetan tradition more fundamentally. But suddenly, Ken came into my life, and I was introduced to him by my teacher. And it was such a powerful karmic fit. And he was kind of what I needed to resolve many questions; I was, in a way, what he needed to help people understand what he was trying to say. And it was just such a beautiful karmic fit for 15, 20 years. So the reason he was important to me is that he gave us some frameworks that can help us reason and find better ways of understanding.
And even though Zen emphasizes the nonconceptual mind, using the conceptual mind in a nondual way can also be powerful. So I want to stop there and see if that made sense to you, Vita; I don't know how to express it. His ideas were helpful to me. I can give examples.
Vita Pires 17:05
I've studied Integral for 20 years. It's been a mighty help for me working in different cultures, working with people with varying systems of value, seeing somebody's lens they're looking through, possibly in a systems lens or a group's lens. Seeing the different ways of seeing the lines of development states, all of them. It's just a mishmash up there of all the possible conditions that somebody might be in, and then somehow, it's a relief.
Diane Hamilton 17:07
It's liberating.
Diane Hamilton 17:10
And it's also very compassionate. I think one of the things that I've always felt about Ken's work, and Ken himself, is that he gets pegged as this mind, but when you penetrate more deeply into his work, it's tremendously compassionate. It's quite touching that he wants to include more truths. He wants to be able to understand how all perspectives have a place. Integral theory, integral consciousness, has a very expansive undercurrent.
Vita Pires 18:18
I'm going to ask you a question outside of the realm of what we emailed about because I interviewed Shinzen Young recently. He wanted to talk about AI and virtual reality. So I asked him about Vince Horn, who is developing a virtual meditation instructor. So I asked him about that and told him I was skeptical because of the embodiment issues and being present, among other things, and Shinzen made a case for it. He said you will have this 'person' available to them 24/7 who could give them wisdom teachings. And it will be without the ego that is sometimes found in teachers.
So, it could support people who are lost and living in a cell somewhere .
Diane Hamilton 19:59
Absolutely. Sure, it's a certain kind of company. Cassette tapes did that for me when I was in my 20s. I would listen to Ram Das, Jack Kornfield, or Joseph Goldstein on tape. When I was in my 20s, out in Utah, I was getting Dharma. They weren't eight tracks; they were cassette tapes back in the day, and I would just listen to them repeatedly. Then, I found my way into a live relationship and Dharma.
Vita Pires 20:36
I tested an AI bot, and it was giving me teachings. I would rather listen to Audio Dharma or Dharma Seed; if I want to hear somebody giving meditation instructions, that's clear, and it's a person.
Diane Hamilton 20:50
That might be the early form of the robot because my son and I were in the car the other day, and my son, people who know me know he has Down Syndrome. We were streaming some music, and an AI DJ came on, and he said, turn that guy off. He had no patience for the AI DJ.
Vita Pires 21:20
I am curious about the relationship between Buddhist teachings and the trendy topic of mindfulness. Do you ever teach mindfulness to the general public?
Diane Hamilton 21:33
I used to do that. Then, I decided I wasn't a good mindfulness teacher because I hadn't been trained. I've certainly studied mindfulness in my Tibetan Buddhist training. But whenever I am disoriented, stressed, alienated, or afraid, mindfulness is the most immediate and best medicine. I want to become aware of my environment, aware of my mood, and just more aware that I am well.
I remember sitting on a plane once and being anxious about my life situation. Then, like you would, I noticed my entire state shifting in a simple mindfulness meditation. So, my only message about mindfulness now is that it's good medicine, and everybody should take it.
Vita Pires 22:36
Do you have any final advice or tips to give to people who want to become mindfulness teachers or meditation teachers?
Diane Hamilton 22:48
The most important thing is just listening, paying attention, and feeding that curiosity. I don't know how long you've been practicing, but I've been practicing for over 40 years now. How long have you been practicing?
Vita Pires 23:06
About 50 years.
Diane Hamilton 23:08
And so practice will not get us out of being human. What it will do is teach us how to be human together in all kinds of situations. And so I feel like all I want to do is encourage anybody who's listening to take seriously the inclination to want to learn about mindfulness awareness, compassion, practice sitting, and Bodhisattva activity, how can this life contribute in a way, like we were saying about Ken's work that is opening supportive of others, that's just what it's about.
So thank you so much for your practice and the energy you've put into keeping it all going, the relationships, the questions in your mind, and the skills—you know, 50 years of practice. I want to recognize you. Thank you for that.
Vita Pires 24:07
And thank you, Diane. You've been helpful to me since I moved out of the Tibetan tradition and came and studied with you for a while. And that was an essential and clarifying time for me, and I appreciate you as a teacher.
Diane Hamilton 24:20
Awesome. Thank you. It's really good to see you. Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening.
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