I give you permission to feel what you feel.

It seems almost silly how simple it is, but it's easy to miss: goodwill starts by allowing the other person to be how they are.

This is not always easy.

Short version: Just practice for the 10 or 30 minutes to give people permission to feel how they feel. Giving them permission doesn't mean agreeing or disagreeing with them. It just says, "This is happening and it is what it is."

Why permission matters?

We are saying to each other, you can feel whatever you feel.  It's okay and normal. Strong or wounded, we accept you as you are. In particular, we don't need you to feel a certain way to fit in with society or with how we want you to be. 

The alternative is to not give others permission to feel what they feel. I sum it up like this... "We should never get angry at a person for having allergies." They didn't choose to have allergies. It just happened. That's how they were built or how they are right now. So, to be angry or not accepting is not helpful for anyone. A small jump: "We should never get angry at a person for  sneezing." Even if we don't like that they sneezed at the big reveal in the movie, they didn't choose to sneeze on purpose. So, it's helpful to regard feelings as like allergies or sneezes. It's just something that happens.

Why boundaries matter? feelings, not actions

In Buddhist Friendship, we give permission for feelings not actions.

Feelings can be simple and blameless. Even strong, negative feelings, like class-ism, racism, cruelty, and anger. There is something powerful about saying to someone having strong emotions, "I see you strong emotions and I understand those emotions." Those feelings are inside a person and, when they come to the Buddhist Friendship Project, they want to work on their feelings.

Actions, which include words and plans to do things in the outside world (anything including other people), that's a minefield. There are external consequences of actions and also unintended consequences. So, we aren't giving people permission for their actions. An earlier version of this mantra was, "I accept you as you are." But this isn't always true or helpful. If someone is attacking me with a knife, I'm not interested in accepting them as they are; I want them to stop! Similarly, actions can help or harm themselves and others. So, we need to look very carefully to see if actions have helpful or unhelpful consequences.

So, the boundary we have here is that we talk about our feelings. And, when views/opinions start creeping up, we do a simple thing, we go back to the raw feelings (happiness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, and sadness, see Ekman). Specifically, we must muster the energy to resist the urge to logically process the actions/story/scenario. Because disageeing is a trap and agreeing is also a trap.

So, what do we say?

Say: I give you permission to feel what you feel.

Or say: With goodwill,  I give you permission to feel what you feel.

It's easier with strangers

Saying these things is really hard with people our lives are entangled with. When our dirty dishes are in the sink for the 20th time and our partner yells at us, we usually cannot say I give you permission to feel what you feel. That's because they want us to do something else, like change our behavior or agree with them. Or maybe they are looking to pick a fight. We have a lot of entanglements. And entanglements make goodwill much harder.

But, if someone here says to us that they "had a big fight and they feel really sad, and it's so unfair," we are (luckily) a neutral third party. So, we can give that goodwill.

The other person can also receive this unorthodox Buddhist-y goodwill. Because as part of the culture we are creating here, it's not about agreement or disagreement. It is about Goodwill.

Don't try to fix, just give them permission to be

Part of giving permission is letting the other person feel what they feel and allowing their process of dealing with that happen on its own. We are very boring project because we only want to do one thing: goodwill. And because it's one thing, we can do it really, really well.

So, if you have a desire to give advice, just don't. If you really, really, really want to give advice, let a moderator know and the moderator will pass it along if they think it's helpful.

It's not that it isn't helpful to offer advice. It's that the core of this project is a belief that sometimes it's way way way more helpful to offer this space to allow others to give and receive goodwill.