06:49 AM
My wife Rose wanted me to do something yesterday - strim the grass and nettles at the base of the garden hedge. We have a very long garden, so it's a time-consuming job.
I didn't particularly want to do it, so I put it off for a while. I was happy doing what I was doing.
When she asked me for the second time, I felt a tightening inside. Irritation. The urge to say something snappy. I didn't, and I strimmed like a good boy should, but the situation and my reaction to it reminded me of something Pema Chodron writes about: Shenpa.
As usual with these Zen concepts, I didn't fully understand what she meant by it until sometime later - but I think I've got it now. Chodron writes:
If I were translating shenpa it would be very hard to find a word, but I'm going to give you a few. One word might be hooked. How we get hooked... shenpa is the itch and it's the urge to scratch. So, urge is another word. The urge to smoke that cigarette, the urge to overeat, the urge to have one more drink, or whatever it is where your addiction is.
She also gives an example of Shenpa in action:
Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens— that's the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming them, or anger at them, denigrating yourself. And maybe if you have strong addictions, you just go right for your addiction to cover over the bad feeling that arose when that person said that mean word to you. This is a mean word that gets you, hooks you. Another mean word may not affect you but we're talking about where it touches that sore place— that's a shenpa. Someone criticizes you—they criticize your work, they criticize your appearance, they criticize your child— and, shenpa: almost co-arising.
I often see this happening in other people, but it can be harder to see it in yourself. When you do see/feel it - when you get that tightening, that urge to strike back (and the strike can be something as simple as a sigh or a weary look in the eye) - you have a momentary chance to stand back from the Shenpa. A chance to stop the process before it starts rolling.
If it does start rolling, odds are you're in for an argument, or for several hours of simmering, unspoken, mutual resentment.
Personally, I'd rather strim the hedge.
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I have felt this one too many times. Today, I caught myself in a bad mood and had to stop and ask myself, "Why? Why are you in a bad mood? Any good reason?" I had none. So. Bad mood went away. I perhaps let the "Shenpa" overwhelm me at one point and thus, the bad mood. You're right - catching it before it turns into an angry monster is the best strategy.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I was talking about in another discussion. I agree with the idea of standing back and even detaching from the anger or annoyance or other emotional reactions, but where I disagree is with the idea of always stepping back. This is the moment I use to assess whether the person and the issue at hand matter enough to warrant a response -- not everything and not everyone does. Sometimes, however, there in an underlying issue that needs to be dealt with for the sake of the relationship or a matter of principle at stake.
ReplyDeleteIt won't be something that can be handled with some snappy remark. It will be something fundamental requiring a deep discussion, and it may draw forth deep emotions. That is not the sort of thing that should be ignored and swept under a rug.
There is a longish folk tale about a young woman who ends up at the house of the witch Baba Yaga where she learns a number of lessons from the tasks she is given.
One of her tasks is to separate tiny medicinal seeds from a pile of sand and dust and sort the seeds according to which ones heal, which ones give life, and which ones bring death. The point is that, in life, one needs to learn to distinguish the difference, and sometimes even the seeds that bring death, or an end, are necessary. Not that I have heard of the concept of Shenpa before, but, for example, it is necessary to bring an end to an unthinking response to Shenpa and replace the unthinking response with a mindful one.
And what if Rose started strimming the hedge and asked you to come and join her? It´d be done in half the time and shared work makes for shared fun.
ReplyDeleteDepends on what you mean by 'stepping back' E.
ReplyDeleteI think it's possible to 'step back' - but still address the problem. In the Pema Chodron article I linked to, I found this:
'What's very interesting is you begin to notice it really quickly in other people. You're having a conversation at work with somebody. Their face is sort of open and they're listening, and you say something—you're not quite sure what it is you just said, or maybe you know what it is you just said, it doesn't necessarily have to be mean, or anything— but you see their eyes cloud over. Or you see their jaw tense. Or you can feel them... you know, you touched something. You're seeing their shenpa, and they may not be aware of it at all. From your side, you can, at that point, just keep going and get into it with them, but with a kind of prajna, this clear seeing of what's really happening, not involved with your story line and trying to get ground under your feet. You see that happening to them.
There's some kind of basic intelligence that we all have. If you're really smart and you're not too caught in your shenpa, you somehow give the situation some space because you know that they've just been triggered, they've just been hooked. You can just see it in their eyes or their body language, maybe nothing even verbal yet. And you know that if you're trying to make a point about something that needs to happen in the office, or trying to make a point with one of your children or your partner, you know that nothing is going to get through at this point because they're shutting down. They're closing off because of shenpa: they've been hooked...'
In a case like that, you need to leave the necessary conversation for later. You 'step back' for now, but you don't sweep the whole thing under the relationship carpet. When the time is right you deal with it.
I agree with Chodron there, if the other person is hooked by their shempa, that person is not going to be capable of objective discussion at that point.
ReplyDeleteSome people will never be capable of objective discussion of certain issues. Sometimes it's a matter of ego-involvement, sometimes it's a matter of psychological defenses, sometimes it's a rigid belief system that the person parrots by rote. When dealing with someone like this, the most you can hope to do is plant a little seed that may take root and grow. If it does, it may eventually crack them open like tree roots cracking open the concrete of a sidewalk.
What I was talking about in my post, though, is a situation in which I sense my shempa trying to hook me. That's when I step back and, based on what you've just posted, that's when I step into a state of prajna, seeing what's happening with me and the other person. It's in that state that I make the decision regarding whether the issue, the person, and the situation is just not worth dealing with; whether it is something important enough to deal with; and whether, given the state of the other person, there is any chance of making progress if it is something that needs dealing with.