In Buddhism, there is a middle path. Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, was born into a life of indulgence. Later in his life, he practiced extreme asceticism and deprivation. When he sat meditating under the Bodhi tree, he became enlightened, and he found a middle path.
Once, a patient recounted a story in which he had been slighted. He was upset and angry. When he looked up at me listening calmly, he became even more angry. He accused me of being cold and uncaring. I wasn’t uncaring at all, but I wasn’t getting pulled into his drama.
Another time, I called a patient who was angry and upset because one of his medications had not been refilled. My initial instinct was to return anger with anger, resentment with resentment, but as I heard him begin to escalate out of control, I felt it. I stopped myself and said to both of us, “Calm down. Take a deep breath. I’m trying to help you.”
To my amazement, it worked. We worked out a solution to his problem, and we ended the call with laughter and gratitude. We are all human, but sometimes we can become more skillful at it.
Balance
In both of these encounters, I was practicing balance, but instead of balancing asceticism and indulgence, I was balancing empathy and boundaries, making the heart not too soft, not too hard.
Not only was I practicing taking a middle path, but I was strengthening my resolve to follow Don Miguel Ruiz’s Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally. Just because my patient said I was uncaring didn’t mean I had to accept that label. And the patient wasn’t angry at me, he was frustrated about the process to renew his medication.
If I got pulled into the vortex with my patient, who would be there to pull us out?