I have been so impressed with Pema Chodron talks I looked her up on the web and there is heaps of good, wise and wonderful ways to handle the hard things in life, without creating more kama.
How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked By Pema Chödrön
Shenpa is the urge, the hook, that triggers our habitual
tendency to close down. We get hooked in that moment of tightening when we
reach for relief. To get unhooked we begin by recognizing that moment of unease
and learn to relax in that moment.
You're trying to make a point with a coworker or your
partner. At one moment her face is open and she's listening, and at the next,
her eyes cloud over or her jaw tenses. What is it that you're seeing?
Someone criticizes you. They criticize your work or your
appearance or your child. At moments like that, what is it you feel? It has a
familiar taste in your mouth, it has a familiar smell. Once you begin to notice
it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever.
The Tibetan word for this is shenpa. It is usually
translated "attachment," but a more descriptive translation might be
"hooked." When shenpa hooks us, we're likely to get stuck. We could
call shenpa "that sticky feeling." It's an everyday experience. Even
a spot on your new sweater can take you there. At the subtlest level, we feel a
tightening, a tensing, a sense of closing down. Then we feel a sense of
withdrawing, not wanting to be where we are. That's the hooked quality. That
tight feeling has the power to hook us into self-denigration, blame, anger,
jealousy and other emotions which lead to words and actions that end up
poisoning us.
Remember the fairy tale in which toads hop out of the
princess's mouth whenever she starts to say mean words? That's how being hooked can feel. Yet we don't
stop—we can't stop—because we're in the habit of associating whatever we're
doing with relief from our own discomfort. This is the shenpa syndrome. The
word "attachment" doesn't quite translate what's happening. It's a
quality of experience that's not easy to describe but which everyone knows
well. Shenpa is usually involuntary and
it gets right to the root of why we suffer.
Someone looks at us in a certain way, or we hear a certain
song, we smell a certain smell, we walk into a certain room and boom. The
feeling has nothing to do with the present, and nevertheless, there it is. When
we were practicing recognizing shenpa at Gampo Abbey, we discovered that some
of us could feel it even when a particular person simply sat down next to us at
the dining table.
Shenpa thrives on the underlying insecurity of living in a
world that is always changing. We experience this insecurity as a background of
slight unease or restlessness. We all want some kind of relief from that
unease, so we turn to what we enjoy—food, alcohol, drugs, sex, work or
shopping. In moderation what we enjoy might be very delightful. We can
appreciate its taste and its presence in our life. But when we empower it with
the idea that it will bring us comfort, that it will remove our unease, we get
hooked.
So we could also call shenpa "the urge"—the urge
to smoke that cigarette, to overeat, to have another drink, to indulge our
addiction whatever it is. Sometimes shenpa is so strong that we're willing to
die getting this short-term symptomatic relief. The momentum behind the urge is
so strong that we never pull out of the habitual pattern of turning to poison
for comfort. It doesn't necessarily have to involve a substance; it can be
saying mean things, or approaching everything with a critical mind. That's a
major hook. Something triggers an old pattern we'd rather not feel, and we
tighten up and hook into criticizing or complaining. It gives us a puffed-up
satisfaction and a feeling of control that provides short-term relief from uneasiness.
Those of us with strong addictions know that working with
habitual patterns begins with the willingness to fully acknowledge our urge,
and then the willingness not to act on it. This business of not acting out is
called refraining. Traditionally it's called renunciation. What we renounce or
refrain from isn't food, sex, work or relationships per se. We renounce and
refrain from the shenpa. When we talk about refraining from the shenpa, we're
not talking about trying to cast it out; we're talking about trying to see the
shenpa clearly and experiencing it. If we can see shenpa just as we're starting
to close down, when we feel the tightening, there's the possibility of catching
the urge to do the habitual thing, and not doing it.
Without meditation practice, this is almost impossible to
do. Generally speaking, we don't catch the tightening until we've indulged the
urge to scratch our itch in some habitual way. And unless we equate refraining
with loving-kindness and friendliness towards ourselves, refraining feels like
putting on a straitjacket. We struggle against it. The Tibetan word for
renunciation is shenlok, which means turning shenpa upside-down, shaking it up.
When we feel the tightening, somehow we have to know how to open up the space
without getting hooked into our habitual pattern.
In practicing with shenpa, first we try to recognize it. The
best place to do this is on the meditation cushion. Sitting practice teaches us
how to open and relax to whatever arises, without picking and choosing. It
teaches us to experience the uneasiness and the urge fully, and to interrupt
the momentum that usually follows. We do this by not following after the
thoughts and learning to come back to the present moment. We learn to stay with
the uneasiness, the tightening, the itch of shenpa. We train in sitting still
with our desire to scratch. This is how we learn to stop the chain reaction of
habitual patterns that otherwise will rule our lives. This is how we weaken the
patterns that keep us hooked into discomfort that we mistake as comfort. We
label the spinoff "thinking" and return to the present moment. Yet
even in meditation, we experience shenpa.
Let's say, for example, that in meditation you felt settled
and open. Thoughts came and went, but they didn't hook you. They were like
clouds in the sky that dissolved when you acknowledged them. You were able to
return to the moment without a sense of struggle. Afterwards, you're hooked on
that very pleasant experience: "I did it right, I got it right. That's how
it should always be, that's the model." Getting caught like that builds
arrogance, and conversely it builds poverty, because your next session is
nothing like that. In fact, your "bad" session is even worse now
because you're hooked on the "good" one. You sat there and you were
discursive: you were obsessing about something at home, at work. You worried
and you fretted; you got caught up in fear or anger. At the end of the session,
you feel discouraged—it was "bad," and there's only you to blame.
Is there something inherently wrong or right with either
meditation experience? Only the shenpa. The shenpa we feel toward
"good" meditation hooks us into how it's "supposed" to be,
and that sets us up for shenpa towards how it's not "supposed" to be.
Yet the meditation is just what it is. We get caught in our idea of it: that's
the shenpa. That stickiness is the root shenpa. We call it ego-clinging or
self-absorption. When we're hooked on the idea of good experience,
self-absorption gets stronger; when we're hooked on the idea of bad experience,
self-absorption gets stronger. This is why we, as practitioners, are taught not
to judge ourselves, not to get caught in good or bad.
What we really need to do is address things just as they
are. Learning to recognize shenpa teaches us the meaning of not being attached
to this world. Not being attached has nothing to do with this world. It has to
do with shenpa—being hooked by what we associate with comfort. All we're trying
to do is not to feel our uneasiness. But when we do this we never get to the
root of practice. The root is experiencing the itch as well as the urge to
scratch, and then not acting it out.
If we're willing to practice this way over time, prajna
begins to kick in. Prajna is clear seeing. It's our innate intelligence, our
wisdom. With prajna, we begin to see the whole chain reaction clearly. As we
practice, this wisdom becomes a stronger force than shenpa. That in itself has
the power to stop the chain reaction.
Prajna isn't ego-involved. It's wisdom found in basic
goodness, openness, equanimity—which cuts through self-absorption. With prajna
we can see what will open up space. Habituation, which is ego-based, is just
the opposite—a compulsion to fill up space in our own particular style. Some of
us close space by hammering our point through; others do it by trying to smooth
the waters.
We're taught that whatever arises is fresh, the essence of
realization. That's the basic view. But how do we see whatever arises as the
essence of realization when the fact of the matter is, we have work to do? The
key is to look into shenpa. The work we have to do is about coming to know that
we're tensing or hooked or "all worked up." That's the essence of
realization. The earlier we catch it, the easier shenpa is to work with, but
even catching it when we're already all worked up is good. Sometimes we have to
go through the whole cycle even though we see what we're doing. The urge is so
strong, the hook so sharp, the habitual pattern so sticky, that there are times
when we can't do anything about it.
There is something we can do after the fact, however. We can
go sit on the meditation cushion and re-run the story. Maybe we start with
remembering the all-worked-up feeling and get in touch with that. We look
clearly at the shenpa in retrospect; this is very helpful. It's also helpful to
see shenpa arising in little ways, where the hook is not so sharp.
Buddhists are talking about shenpa when they say,
"Don't get caught in the content: observe the underlying quality—the
clinging, the desire, the attachment." Sitting meditation teaches us how
to see that tangent before we go off on it. It basically comes down to the
instruction, "label it thinking." To train in this on the cushion,
where it's relatively easy and pleasant to do, is how we can prepare ourselves
to stay when we get all worked up.
Then we can train in seeing shenpa wherever we are. Say
something to another person and maybe you'll feel that tensing. Rather than get
caught in a story line about how right you are or how wrong you are, take it as
an opportunity to be present with the hooked quality. Use it as an opportunity
to stay with the tightness without acting upon it. Let that training be your
base.
You can also practice recognizing shenpa out in nature.
Practice sitting still and catching the moment when you close down. Or practice
in a crowd, watching one person at a time. When you're silent, what hooks you
is mental dialogue. You talk to yourself about badness or goodness: me-bad or
they-bad, this-right or that-wrong. Just to see this is a practice. You'll be
intrigued by how you'll involuntarily shut down and get hooked, one way or
another. Just keep labeling those thoughts and come back to the immediacy of
the feeling. That's how not to follow the chain reaction.
Once we're aware of shenpa, we begin to notice it in other
people. We see them shutting down. We see that they've been hooked and that
nothing is going to get through to them now. At that moment we have prajna.
That basic intelligence comes through when we're not caught up in escaping from
our own unease. With prajna we can see what's happening with others; we can see
when they've been hooked. Then we can give the situation some space. One way to
do that is by opening up the space on the spot, through meditation. Be quiet
and place your mind on your breath. Hold your mind in place with great openness
and curiosity toward the other person. Asking a question is another way of
creating space around that sticky feeling. So is postponing your discussion to
another time.
At the abbey, we're very fortunate that everybody is excited
about working with shenpa. So many words I've tried using become ammunition
that people use against themselves. But we feel some kind of gladness about
working with shenpa, perhaps because the word is unfamiliar. We can acknowledge
what's happening with clear seeing, without aiming it at ourselves. Since no
one particularly likes to have his shenpa pointed out, people at the Abbey make
deals like, "When you see me getting hooked, just pull your earlobe, and
if I see you getting hooked, I'll do the same. Or if you see it in yourself,
and I'm not picking up on it, at least give some little sign that maybe this
isn't the time to continue this discussion." This is how we help each
other cultivate prajna, clear seeing.
We could think of this whole process in terms of four R’s:
recognizing the shenpa, refraining from scratching, relaxing into the
underlying urge to scratch and then resolving to continue to interrupt our
habitual patterns like this for the rest of our lives. What do you do when you
don't do the habitual thing? You're left with your urge. That's how you become
more in touch with the craving and the wanting to move away. You learn to relax
with it. Then you resolve to keep practicing this way.
Working with shenpa softens us up. Once we see how we get
hooked and how we get swept along by the momentum, there's no way to be
arrogant. The trick is to keep seeing. Don't let the softening and humility
turn into self-denigration. That's just another hook. Because we've been
strengthening the whole habituated situation for a long, long time, we can't
expect to undo it overnight. It's not a one-shot deal. It takes loving-kindness
to recognize; it takes practice to refrain; it takes willingness to relax; it
takes determination to keep training this way. It helps to remember that we may
experience two billion kinds of itches and seven quadrillion types of
scratching, but there is really only one root shenpa—ego-clinging. We
experience it as tightening and self-absorption. It has degrees of intensity.
The branch shenpas are all our different styles of scratching that itch.
