Question: What do we do when people keep finding fault with us, disagreeing with us, being divisive and negative towards us despite our most positive and honest intentions?

As a martial arts instructor, my earliest experience with conflict was to combat an assault by assaulting the offender in return. “An Eye For An Eye” as the Old Testament put it.

As I developed I learned that a martial artist does not fight, a martial artist avoids fighting. But how?

“An Eye For An Eye” is a primitive level of dealing with aggression. The people of Israel were warriors, they had to be warriors because 3,000 years ago there were no borders, no governments, no law and order, if you wanted to protect the land where your animals grazed and where your women and children lived and played, you had to carry a big stick, and a sword, and a shield and wear a helmet and have lots of soldiers. That was the way the world governed itself in the early days of civilization (though not much has changed).

How we react to a situation is based on our perception. In shamanism, consciousness is divided into roughly 4 levels of perception. The native south americans associated the lowest level of perception with that of a serpent, the 2nd level as Jaguar, 3rd level as Hummingbird and the highest level of consciousness as Eagle.

I am paraphrasing regarding the 4 perceptive levels from shaman teacher Alberto Villoldo, and adding some of my own thoughts and insights to his ideas:

At serpent level, we live in a world of material senses… we see a loaf bread and identify it as a loaf of bread. It’s the “Eye For An Eye” level in my perception.

At Jaguar level, we begin to have more understanding and sensing of subtleties… like a Jaguar in the forest, we can jump from the ground to the limbs of trees and see things at different levels, but only materially… we see a loaf of bread and we identify it as “white bread”, “wheat bread” and the various differences bread may have. This is where we begin identifying with who’s side we choose to be on, “He’s Right, She’s Wrong”.

At Hummingbird level, we begin to carve out our stories in order to make sense of the things we see and perceive in life. Like a hummingbird that can migrate from the coldest climates of North America to the warmest climates of South America, we see the ranges of various regions of lands and we travel and make our histories in the world we live in. We create our myths about our family histories and the stories we define ourselves by in life.

We see a loaf of bread and understand the grains it was made with, the water that went into the dough, the bakery where it was baked and we can appreciate the differences in the various types of breads. This is where we begin judging situations to see the points of view of those in conflict, “Well this happened to me and I am taking offense,” while the other side may have a conflicting story, “No he’s wrong, this is really what happened and why I’m angry with him”. We begin identifying with stories and myths at Hummingbird level.

At Eagle level, we finally rise above creating stories and identifying with myths. Like an eagle which soars high above the landscape yet can see the mountain ranges, beyond the horizons yet is able to spot a field mouse under the brush in a tiny field, the eagle’s perception is very developed.

We rise above the stories that we have spent our lives identifying with and struggling to fit into, we understand the meanings of the myths we created as being stories to guide us rather than stories which victimize us… we are no longer Prometheus Bound, we are Prometheus Unbound. (By the way, Prometheus was the father of mankind, his great gift to humans was fire, he was born with foresight).

At Eagle level, we see a loaf of bread and see it as part of the earth, it came from the earth as grain and water and flows through us to give us life and then returns to the earth to be renewed once again as grain and water; we are therefore part of the bread and part of the earth, not the makers of or the owners of the bread, we live as bread, we are the bread and the earth.

At Eagle level we no longer identify with “An Eye For An Eye” we have been born into a new perception of life and humanity and no longer take sides when faced with conflict. We hear, “Turn the Other Cheek” and we understand that Jesus did not mean literally to let the offender strike you on both cheeks, but rather, turn the other cheek so that you can hear both sides of an argument without judging a situation, without choosing sides and without reacting.

We have risen above the arguments, the taking of sides over old stories and myths, debates and arguments over useless chatter and ideas, and we see the world as it is: We see the Mountains, we see the Rivers that flow from the Mountains, we see how there are millions of Rivers that all flow to the various Seas and we see how all the Seas are connected into one giant Ocean. The Ocean is divinity and life and we are all walking amidst the mountains, rivers and seas.

Now back to the Question: What do we do when people keep finding fault with us, disagreeing with us, being divisive and negative towards us despite our most positive and honest intentions?

In my teaching, I try to help participants develop their sensitivity to different attacks by developing their ability to respond naturally in a calm manner. As we practice drills that repeat the same movement over and over (drills are practiced either with a partner or solo, depending on the drill exercise being performed), we not only build muscle memory physically, but we develop sensitivity to how our body responds and reacts to an attack.

By physically learning to calmly block a strike and not panic or go into a fight-or-flight response to a sudden attack, we develop the ability to stay calm in the midst of anger, aggression and all the negativity we may be surrounded by in that particular situation.

This trains our nervous systems to function normally without releasing stress-causing hormones, and by training our nervous systems not to over-react in a situation, we are able to respond more clearly and assertively to a situation.

I have to admit, I learned much of what I teach today, through repeated failure and having to try over and over again to respond in a positive and non-reactive manner. When I was younger if I was insulted or felt I was treated unfairly, my anger would flare and take control of all my senses. I still occasionally flare up this way, but with more maturity I am always mindful of when this happens and try right away to correct myself.

We have to be patient with ourselves and remember that we are human and we make mistakes. As long as we are mindful of our intentions we can correct ourselves and lead ourselves back onto the correct course of action… again with mindfulness.

When someone finds fault with us, even though we feel we are not in the wrong or doing anything to provoke their negative reaction to us, a positive way to respond is not to have an initial reaction at all.

For instance, someone calls you “Stupid” for no apparent reason. Naturally you will be upset and your first reaction will be to argue or make a point back at the offender to defend yourself. Instead of responding this way, meet his offense with silence. Instead of focusing on the person calling you “Stupid”, focus on how your heart has started to beat faster and your breath has increased and all the many myriad thoughts that begin flowing through your head at that sudden moment.

If you focus on this for a moment and not react… yes the person offending you may feel justification that they have succeeded in their offense, but that does not affect you at all. They have not taken anything away from you, you are still who you were before they called you “Stupid”… but now your emotions are a-flutter with a search for how to react to their offense.

Don’t react. Let your heart race, let your breath rise, let your thoughts race in your head, but stand there in your center being mindful of all this activity inside of you and suddenly you will see that it all subsides after a few moments.

Martial arts is not fighting. Martial arts is “Not Fighting”… we may raise up our arms up to block a person’s attack, and we may have to strike them back in order to protect ourselves from being wounded, but we do not strike them with an intention to hurt them, but to protect ourselves and prevent them from hurting us.

In the real world, when someone disagrees with us for one reason or another, either at work or when we’re with friends, we may feel offended and want to react by offending them in return, but that is the primitive reaction, “An Eye For An Eye”. Better than indulging them in this you can rise above them like an Eagle and see the matter small as a field mouse… little and insignificant, and let the offense pass like water flowing from the mountain to the sea.

When you rise above little arguments, insults, debates and mindless chatter you will see more clearly how these things keep you at a lower level of perception, clinging to your story of who you are and what you identify yourself with.

When you rise above little arguments, you will no longer go through life constantly trying to defend your beliefs whenever you feel challenged or wronged.

You can help yourself reach for a higher level of perception where you no longer cling to any story about who you think you are or what you need to accomplish in your life.

Instead of being a fighter, constantly stuck on the battlefield, you can be a warrior in spirit — living with self-awareness, mindful of how your actions affect the world around you.