The discomfort associated with groundlessness, with the fundamental ambiguity of being human, comes from our attachment to wanting things to be a certain way. The Tibetan word for attachment is shenpa... Shenpa has a visceral quality associated with grasping or, conversely, pushing away. This is the feeling of I like, I want, I need and I don’t like, I don’t want, I don’t need, I want it to go away. I think of shenpa as being hooked. It’s that stuck feeling, that tightening or closing down or withdrawing we experience when we’re uncomfortable with what’s going on. Shenpa is also the urge to find relief from those feelings by clinging to something that gives us pleasure. Anything can trigger our clinging, our attachments: someone criticizes our work or looks at us the wrong way; the dog chews our favorite shoes; we spill on our best tie. One minute we’re feeling fine, then something happens, and suddenly we’re hooked into anger, jealousy, blame, recrimination, or self-doubt. This discomfort, this sense of being triggered because things are not “right,” because we want them to last longer or to go away, is the felt experience, the visceral experience of the fundamental ambiguity of being human. Pema Chödrön, Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change [Do you want to start living your life beautifully? Start reading this book on your kindle or app now... tinyurl/pmrydjv (Amazon UK) or tinyurl/nb6z835 (Amazon)] Pema Chödrön
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 17:33:35 +0000
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