Introduction
Mission statements are shifting aim from "guest expectations," to, "creating healthy relationships." How do we create healthy service relationships?
Many people remember a time when businesses treated customers like royalty. The slogan, "The customer is never wrong," first printed in French to advertise Hotels in 1908, seems to have risen to its climax in the 1950s, and since then has declined. The nostalgic often say, "The world is going in the wrong direction! The hired help these days refuse to make the customer first." It is true that service is changing, but the decline of flattery may indicate a move in the right direction.
The waning view is to elevate the customer to a higher status than the server. Why did this work so well for a hundred years? Most people, in their private thoughts, consider their needs and wants to be more real than the needs and wants of others. Customer elevation appeals to that self-important part inside all of us. We all want to feel special, members of an exclusive group, the exalted. It gives you a charge to be treated as special. One benefit of customer elevation is profit: it attracts customers who are willing to pay more for that uplifting sensation. Two problems arise from customer elevation. For one, the customer will begin to believe that he really is more important than others--a belief that will not serve him in the long run. Let's give him something better than that! The second problem is that the server must act inferior, and nobody deserves that.
The hundred-year trend of customer elevation is dwarfed by a larger trend--equality. Between 2,900 and 2,400 years ago, the Old Testament (Torah), the Ancient Greeks, and Confucius all wrote what is now known as the "Golden Rule," stated as varieties of: "Love others as yourself," and "Treat others how you want to be treated." Socrates was put to death for demonstrating selfless service 2,400 years ago. What got him arrested was advising everyone to choose wisely one's personal leader, to dethrone the loud voice within that only pursues pleasure and avoids pain (ego), and instead to elect one's quiet voice, or "essence" as one's personal leader. According to Socrates, the essence of a human is naturally patient, reverent, non-judging, an tolerant, the source of all the Virtues. 2,000 years ago the "guy in sandals" repeated the ancient decree, "Love others as yourself." He said whatever you do to others, you do to him (ponder that again after finishing this article). He furthered the golden rule to loving the unclean, the diseased, the sinners, and especially one's enemies-words he demonstrated through his life, death, and beyond. In 1787 the U.S. Constitution stated, "all men are created equal," with amendments to disregard race and gender following in 1870 and 1920. In 2008, a man of color and a woman run for President. Perhaps equality is finally sinking in!
How To Become Equal
Anything you exercise will get stronger!
How can we become equal with others, when our egos have been fed on, "My gain is more important than your loss?" Three antidotes for self-importance were designed more than a thousand years ago. In these exercises, equality is achieved through visualizing role reversal, imagining the details and intricacies of the Golden Rule. Each exercise unveils a different perspective of "self" and "other."
Be careful, these are powerful exercises. Each exercise is more potent than the previous. Start with a few minutes of Exercise One, and over a few months, gradually build up to Exercise Three.
Equalizing Exercises greatly improve quality of service especially for these professions:
· Childcare
· Conflict resolution
· Counseling/Coaching
· Customer Service
· Educators
· Food Servers
· Legal Assistance
· Mediation
· Medical professions
· Hair, Skin, and Nail Services
· Physical Therapies/Bodywork
· Senior Care
· Yoga and Pilates instructors
Exercise One: Equalizing Self and Other. Attributed to Shantideva, 7th Century.
Sitting quietly, contemplate how all people are equal, all wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. Meditate on these perspectives and add your own:
Imagine a world where each person considered others more important than oneself. Since others outnumber me, they would do far more for me than I could ever do for all of them. I would end up with far more gifts and wealth than I have now, as one person fighting for my needs against others fighting for theirs, who outnumber me.
Consider a metaphor: within one human body, the hand has separate cells than the leg, but if the leg is threatened, the hand immediately comes to the rescue with no thought for itself. Wouldn't it seem unnatural if the hand declared independence, claiming the right to defend itself or pursue happiness apart from the other parts?
Humans are not castles with impenetrable boundaries. Exchange is natural and normal. Cow manure fertilizes plants that you eat, --the carbon that was once part of the cow now are strong bones in you. We breathe in air that others breathe out. When we hug, heat is given and received. Lifting a child onto a step gives your potential energy to become potential energy for the child. Up escalators give you potential energy and down elevators take your potential energy away, but do you need it? Why guard the energy called money, when we do not guard our carbon, air, heat, and potential energy?
Remember the feeling of being intimately a part of nature or another person. Have you ever had a sense of oneness or wonder? While being "at one," we feel the importance of all needs and wants as if they were our own, and who knows, maybe this view is more accurate?
Equalizing Self And Other includes any mental exercise that ponders the many perspectives of our equality. This works well as a writing exercise, in fact, I have discovered a lot just by compiling these exercises for this article!
Exercise Two: Exchanging Self and Other. Attributed to Shantideva.
Exchanging is a three-part meditation: visualizing a person who you judge as having lower status than yourself, equal competitors, and higher status. In each case, you switch your perspective, imagining how it is to be the other person. From their eyes, you are now looking into your eyes, feeling a) how it feels to be judged by you, and b) how this person judges you.
Part one: Higher to Lower
Do you know anyone who is pathetic, mean, stupid, or worthless? Be honest. Get a person in mind that you look down upon. Imagine you two are actually sitting or standing face to face; see the person as clearly as you can. What are your expectations of this person? Now imagine being that person, now you are looking at you from their eyes. How do you feel? What do you want to say? What do you want to do? What do you expect? You may do some writing as this persona.
Part two: Competitive Equals
Imagine a competitor, a friend, sibling, or someone you see as equal status. Imagine yourself face to face, and see them as clearly as you can. Feel as clearly as you can, the emotions and judgments you have toward this person. Now switch. Take some time to feel what it is like to be in their shoes, in a competitive relationship with you.
Part three: Lower to Higher
Imagine someone that you envy or consider superior. Switch places with this person and imagine how it feels to be the envied one. Write how this feels and thoughts that arise while you inhabit this opposite perspective.
Alternative: Try journaling about a time someone pushed your buttons. Once on paper, try writing how it must seem from the other person's points of view, from the cellular point of view, from the dog's point of view--any perspective other than your normal one.
Exercise Three: Unconditional Giving and Taking, or Tong Len. Attributed to Atisha, 9th Century.
With each exhale, imagine sending from your heart everything of yours that you value, into the other person. With each inhale, you draw from them everything unwanted, and take it into your heart. That's the whole practice.
Sound challenging? Here is a gentle way to begin, which awakens the compassion that is your natural self. With your first ten breaths, visualize a frightened little animal. Of course you would give comfort while taking its fear. Next, visualize a little girl from a war-torn country, giving your secure home or food while taking her sadness. Pace yourself, increasing the challenge in gradual steps because this is a powerful exercise. Wait until another day and practice with loved ones. After you have practiced a few weeks or months, gradually exchange with the people that push your buttons.
Because breathing into the lungs fills and empties the lungs, which surround the heart, breathing allows you to more fully engage your heart in unconditionally giving and taking. Your heart becomes like a bellows that flows ever-increasing amounts of energy and emotion through.
You might wonder, what about equality? This exercise gives all the good to the other person and all the bad comes to me--that is not equal! Because we begin from a state of self-importance, now we must practice its equal opposite. Because self-importance has had such a head start, we can easily afford to meditate with others of greater importance for a few minutes a day.
Students in my Ethics and Reiki classes often tell me this axiom: "You can't heal others until you've healed yourself," or, "You can't love others until you learn to love yourself." According to my Reiki Teacher, Stephen Bruno, this axiom has been taught backwards. He said, "You learn to love yourself by serving others."
When you are ready to take on more, try visualizing your outgoing gifts as golden light. Try imagining that you inhale their problems as thick black liquid or smoke that leaves their body. Examples of what you may imagine giving include; your good health, optimism, wealth, happiness, possessions, relationships, luck, karma, and energy. Imaging taking their; pessimism, meanness, weakness, pain, sorrow, anger, disease, and bad luck.
Do expect that Tong Len will change you! Do not expect that it will change the other, though this can happen. A story is told in Tibet where long ago, a guru and student looked out of a window. Seeing a dog being beaten in the street by its master, the guru practiced Tong Len with the dog, and the student noticed bruises appear on the guru. Chogyam Trungpa suggests we practice Tong Len with the Earth itself, inhaling air pollution. He believed this would make a difference, the skies would actually clear up. The Dalai Lama describes in his book, Healing Anger, how he continues to practice Tong Len to cure his anger toward the Chinese Government, which ousted the religious culture in 1959. Can you imagine sending all your gifts and taking all the karma from the occupier of your homeland? He hopes that one day Tibet may be an autonomous democracy, and he just happens to gain more and more influence in this regard, the more he practices Tong Len.
Teachers say that when you are doing Tong Len correctly, there is a mild discomfort. Then you know the practice is hitting its mark, one's self-centeredness.
Further Study:
Lama Yeshe, a beautiful soul who passed in the 1980s, taught about these three exercises and his lectures have been transcribed on this web page: http://www.lamayeshe.com/otherteachers/ribur/hgb_3.shtml
Conclusion
Once you have practiced alone for a few weeks, months, or years, and know what to expect, it would be safe to attempt doing these exercises in real time with actual people. For example, as a massage therapist, I often imagine inhaling the pain and issues from the muscles that I am working on. While I am teaching or coaching, I imagine what it is like to be the student or client looking at their teacher or coach. When I am attending a class, I imagine what it would be like to be my teacher, dealing with me.
What if you had an irate customer complaining to you, would you be able to switch to their point of view, and see yourself from their perspective? Not only could this transform you, but feeling understood, the other person might suddenly warm up.
Sources:
"The Way of the Bodhisattva," by Shantideva. Regardless of what translation you have of the Bodhicaryavatara, Equalizing Self and Other appears in Chapter 8, verses 90-98. Exchanging Self and Other appears in Chapter 8, 141-154. If you are going to buy a copy, I recommend the 1997 translation by the Padmakara translation group (Shambhala Classics), which includes two very useful appendices written by modern Gurus that explain and expand on the practices, "Equalizing Self and Other," and "Exchanging Self and Other."
The practice, "Unconditional Giving and Taking," also called "Sending and Receiving," "Tong Len" or "Tonglen," is attributed to 9th Century Atisha, and arrives in English through at least two books, notably "Healing Anger--The Power of Patience From a Buddhist Perspective," which is a transcription of lectures given by the 14th (current) Dalai Lama in Arizona. The second source is "Training The Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness," by a brilliant teacher, the late Chogyam Trungpa (Shambhala).
The stories of Socrates are available freely if you search the Internet, the most popular being Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo.
