How To Handle Criticism

Isn't the medium the message?

When I was rigorously meditating and studying Buddhism, I learned to dissociate people’s anger and vitriol from the message they were conveying.

This is one reason that many Buddhist masters come across as “cruel” to Westerners [but not Easterners]. They’re not trying to coddle your ego.... They’re encouraging you to drop your need to be comforted, loved, and cradled....

Someone whom you may instinctively deride as a tw*t could be teaching you an important lesson. So long as you’re obsessed with the HOW over the WHAT of their communication, that lesson will go unlearned.

None of which justifies being a di*k, of course. But when people ARE di*ks, it’s great advice to fall back on.

~ by The Zero Boss

Comments

[Hugh Curran]

I've been around Buddhist teachers for forty years and the one piece of advice I can give is "trust your instinct". If the so-called "master" doesn't feel right to you and you consistently have that feeling you are probably right. There are too many frauds claiming to be "masters" or too many with a shallow understanding. At times the student is in need of being coddled. There is such a thing as "appropriate teaching" (ie Upaya)and what is appropriate one day may not be appropriate the next. Artificial teaching is the worst kind of teaching.

[Yogizilla]

As a novice martial artist, I believe in the Buddhist ways. There is a lesson to learn in everything, even what may seem negative. I believe that it is important to focus on the message, not the messenger, if you are to grow as a human person.

Tone and attitude still matters, though neither should mean you completely dismiss a lesson. I would say that the reason people will dump a lesson learned by way of blunt, rude, and aggressive ways is because the lesson may be biased. That is, those of us that let our emotions better us may tell others things not to pass along wisdom but, rather, to nurse ulterior motives. It happens.

Hugh is right when he says that the truth in Buddhism is to trust your instincts. One thing that the masters always teach you is how to "zero out" yourself. Some people call it "being one with everything" but, whatever you may call it, the truth is still the same: evolve to the point in which you become a sentient being and gather the essence of all that exists.

Positive reinforcement is still a very good technique but, on the flip side, people do need to get over themselves and look at the greater picture. There is no need for ego rubbing if one keeps their ego in check but, as Marshall indicates, there is no need to be a male genital either. It all depends on the message; sometimes, the emotion is part of the message while, other times, the emotion can warp the message. These truths are as much an issue for the communicator and the audience alike to consider...