Ven. Robina Courtin is a very busy person.  She is the Executive Director of Liberation Prison Project which provides teaching and personal support to people in prisons in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.  Ven. Robina also teaches hundreds of people every year all over the world in a plain-spoken and eminently intelligible way.  She teaches about how Buddhist practitioners understand the mind and human psychology and why that is important for our happiness and well-being. 

At a teaching she was conducting recently, Venerable Robina stated that in general we form impressions about others based not on who they are or even what they do so much as what we want.  If someone does what we want or gives us what we want, we tend to think well of them and like them; if they do not give to us or do what we want, we mistrust them and imagine bad things about them.  If they have nothing to do with giving us something we want, we tend to not think about them at all. 

These ways of thinking about others distort reality and will not produce effective interaction for us.  However, if we approach each other with equanimity, we are much more likely to form productive relationships.  Starting our relationships from a distorting place is a risky thing to do.  In the case of people who give us what we want, our rose-tinted glasses, while rendering the world a more pleasant place, generally mean that we attribute intelligences, skills and characteristics to this person that are not there.  Similarly, those who do not give us what we want will cop all of our negativity and will be seen to have all the traits we do not admire.  Western psychology has also discovered this insight; Freud observed this phenomenon and called it ‘Projection’ and ‘Transference’. 

There is a practical and easy way of exercising your equanimity; this will take 10 minutes of quiet time and your full attention, so to do it you need to prepare to not be interrupted or distracted for 10 minutes.  Read through the instructions and then go back and give this a try

1. Sitting in a chair, relax yourself – concentrate only on your breathing.  You might want to close your eyes and do a short meditation.  Or scan through your body from toes to head letting go of areas that feel tense; perhaps try tensing the muscles of that area quite tightly and then suddenly let it go – this works really well for shoulders
2. Once you feel relaxed and your mind has cleared somewhat, imagine 3 people sitting before you – one you like, one you dislike and one to whom you feel neutral; visualise them as concretely as you can
3. Notice how you feel in your body as you imagine each one and where you feel it (perhaps a tightness across your chest, or a funny sensation in your stomach)
4. Become aware of what you want from each person, and also become aware of what you are getting, and how those two things match up or not
5. Now consider that all 3 people want to be happy in themselves; each person is doing what they think they need to do to get that happiness
6. Now expand your heart to encompass each of these other people, not just the one that gives you what you are attached to, what you want.  Notice what it is like for you to extend love, to extend your heart to all three people.  Do you have resistance to doing this?  What form does this resistance take?

Love is the response that says ‘may you be happy’; compassion is the response that says ‘may you not suffer’; there is no need to be angry with others simply because they contravene you.  It is more effective when establishing powerful relationships to find out and facilitate others to get what they want rather than only struggling to get what you want, coming only from your point of view.

Ven. Robina says we should be rigorous and brave in understanding and taking responsibility for the way we operate; this is at the heart of her approach to life.  She promotes becoming aware of what it is we believe will make us happy, of what we want from others.  This is because these attachments will manifest themselves in how we form relationships with the people that we see as giving or withholding the things or outcomes that we want.

Ven Robina is an Integral Leader in her field and in the world in general.  Some people have criticised the Buddhist clergy for being withdrawn from society, concentrating on an individual spiritual path to the exclusion of the social systems in which the rest of us live.  Ven Robina cannot be criticised in this way.  She has consistently reached out to others in the world to teach and to support others.  Many others.  As well, she has the ability to think independently, not constrained by the conventional or usual.  She adds to this the capacity and awareness that through connection with others, both those she is supporting as well as those who are supporting her, she will be able to make a much bigger impact and the possibilities of positive outcomes are exponentially increased – this is Integral thinking!

1. Think of a person whom you have disliked in the past.  How did you come to this view; what did you get or not get from those interactions that you did not or did want?  What do you want to do differently to get clearer in your relationships and be more integral?
   
2. Do you believe all people have the right to do and be what makes them happy?  How do you support others to actualise their happiness?
   
3. Do you feel you have the right to do and be what makes you happy?  How do you get in your own way and how do you support yourself in this?
4. Think of a part of your life that is especially important to you.  Which relationships are working for you?  Which are not?  What in this learning can you apply to that situation?