DEAR ZEN: How do I navigate family members' squabbles?

Life advice from a Zen perspective

This week's newsletter features my advice column, DEAR ZEN, in which I respond to reader questions and requests for advice. Complete this form to submit your own question! If I publish it, I will give you a free paid subscription, as much of each DEAR ZEN column is only available to paid subscribers.

Dear Zen,

My family will be celebrating a major event this fall. This will involve two members of my family to whom I am very close getting together. They don't get along.

This has led to a lot of pain and stress for me in the past because I end up "in the middle" and frequently placed in positions where I feel like I'm expected to "pick a side." I don't want to.

I realize that a lot of my stress comes from my desire for everyone to be happy, and that can't always be true. 

What are some skillful ways to navigate this?

— Want to Be Switzerland

Dear Want to Be Switzerland,

It sounds like you're on the right track focusing on your own response to this perennial family conflict. I know what it's like to get attached to people behaving a certain way, and am often having to remind myself that the only behavior I can control is my own.

As the old Chinese saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago; the second best time is right now. So, it's also great that you're thinking about this before you're in the thick of things, and that you seem to already be doing some sort of spiritual training. 

A lot of Buddhist (and Buddh-ish) advice overlooks the value of physical training, but I find that it's remarkably powerful in addressing those stubborn, ingrown habituated responses to conflict, and in particular, aggression. 

So in addition to doing zazen (seated meditation) every day, I train in Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship), Chado (Japanese tea ceremony), ceramics, and boxing. For me, each of these arts surfaces different conditioned responses to stress and conflict. And as I progress in them, what they demand of me also changes. 

Whereas, in the beginning, these arts elicited my fight/flight/freeze response and forced me to learn new technical skills, today I find I'm mostly being pushed to refine my character. I'm working on developing more persistence, commitment, and sincerity—all while staying relaxed. Training in all of these arts one or several days a week for the past six years has also given me a newly elongated sense of time and more patience.

Several times a year, I also put aside a few days or a week to fire our wood-fired ceramics kiln to 2400 degrees fahrenheit over two days; and to participate in sesshin, a week-long intensive Zen training with little sleep and lots of strictness and zazen. These are highly intense experiences that put my training to the test, as the stakes are higher.

I can't say with much specificity what it would take to remove yourself from your family member's arguments, but some sort of martial art may help you learn at a physical—almost animal—level, what it takes for you to not get drawn in by an opponent. The opponent, of course, may be your family members, but it may also be your own emotions and desires.