Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 6 of 6: Self-Compassion
November 13, 2009 by dr. lam · 5 Comments
When we don’t get angry at someone, what happens? We feel better. Maybe not right away, and maybe not after even a few initial encounters of doing so. However, over time as we relinquish any angry feelings, we start to understand the beauty of non-violence.
Some people say, “How do you not get angry at someone mistreating you? You have every right to be angry.” But what happens when you get angry at that person, you feel sick inside, right? As Chödrön says, if you have no compassion for the person who is angry at you, practice some compassion for yourself. Compassion so that you yourself do not “bite the hook” and get into the maelstrom of inner turmoil, negativity, hatred, and pettiness. So if you can’t have compassion for the other person, have it for yourself.
Beyond that, remember that at a very fundamental level compassion for yourself is the beginning of all compassion for others. Most spiritual warriors who go out into the world to help others always begin with themselves. I like to say when their cup is empty, they have no way of filling another’s cup. Filling your own cup is the start of being able to connect, interact, help, and share compassion with others. Begin with self-compassion today and resist the temptation to engage, escalate, and hurt back. It will ultimately destroy both of you. As they say, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Don’t dig your own grave.
Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 5 of 6: Water Logic
November 12, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
We are oftentimes very inflexible in our worldview, and we become increasingly entrenched in our beliefs. We view the world as black or white, this or that, which Chödrön refers to as “rock logic”. We are like rocks: immutable, inflexible, and intolerant. We do not see any way around something because we only see our way, which of course is the right way.
Like the Tao Te Ching’s exhortation to be like water, Chödrön refers to a gentler type of logic she calls “water logic”. If we hold this image in our mind, we can become less stern in our aspect and less believing in the absoluteness of who and what we are to allow for complexity of opinions, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and really people in our lives. We can be like water in how we see things. Another image that we have discussed from Dyer’s review of the Tao is that we can be like bending reeds that do not break with a gentle breeze or forceful gale.
A refinement to this concept is tolerance. A fundamentalist worldview can make us stand apart from everyone around us so that we become overly dogmatic and thereby create walls to others. I am not talking about religion or politics per se but any rigid framework that does not allow open dialogue but forces non-acceptance and raises barriers. When we are like water, we can accept friends without labels like “black”, “poor”, “uneducated”, “lazy”, “Muslim”, “Democrat”, or whatever word that does not fit into your narrow worldview. Again, be like water.
Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 4 of 6: Situational Happiness
November 11, 2009 by dr. lam · 13 Comments
Chödrön has been approached many times with deep questions of how to achieve happiness. Should I marry this person? Should I pursue this job opportunity? Why? Because she is a revered teacher. However, as a teacher she always explains that these questions stem from a nervous energy of tying one’s happiness upon external circumstances. We are forced to believe that if we have this job we will be happy. If we marry this person, all our woes will be subsumed.
I like the saying by Oscar Wilde, “There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.” Brilliant insight. In short, we want something so badly and remorse that we don’t have it. Once we get it, we are bored with it and want something else. When we tie our happiness upon defined events, circumstances, or people, we are not really seeing happiness but a transient shell that will flit away at a blink. Using the techniques discussed in this blog series, we can escape false happiness and enter true bliss.
Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 3 of 6: Cycling Down
November 10, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
In any situation that we encounter, we can choose to disengage or we can “bite the hook” and escalate it. Chödrön talks about the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird when the lawyer Atticus Finch portrayed by Gregory Peck gets spit on by someone who did not like his words. Instead of raising in a fit of anger, Peck turns with his children and says, “Come on children, let’s move along.” Did he have the right to engage with this man? Perhaps. But should he have? What would engaging have meant to his ongoing temperament and that of his children? It would have meant ongoing negativity.
Instead in that situation, he saw that this man’s anger was his own business. Finch was at a different place in his life that allowed him to control his response and move forward. He did not “cycle down”. He did not “bite the hook”. He stayed firm with his emotions and in control of himself. As Viktor Frankl talks about, when all freedoms are taken from you, you have one left, attitude and that can mean more than anything else in life.
Another example, Chödrön gives is when she was at a meditation retreat and an adobe brick fell and hit her head. Fortunately, the adobe was soft and did not cause harm. However, the woman next to her immediately responded that some children must have been wrecking havoc from above and unleashed an unsettling anger in her voice and demeanor. Chödrön interpreted this to be like Newton who gained enlightenment when the apple bonked his head. Instead of cycling down, she cycled up and disengaged from what would have seemingly been a negative experience. She was a product of years of self conditioning to free herself from what would otherwise appear as travails and tribulations.
Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 2 of 6: Bourgeois Suffering
November 6, 2009 by dr. lam · 3 Comments
I love this concept. Bourgeois suffering occurs when we get the middle seat on the airplane instead of or preferred aisle seat. Or, it arises when a fast-moving car darts in front of us causing a near accident and forcing us to slow down. In other words, it is not real suffering but minor events that we interpret to be insufferable. Now, why would we do that? Because we steadily condition ourselves to respond in such a manner.
However, we can escape this response by conditioning ourselves toward the reverse. When we get the middle aisle, we focus on patience of being there and rather enjoy our situation. When we are in a traffic jam, we test our patience. In fact, Chödrön talks about using traffic situations as a metaphor for life in that if we can steadily deal with seemingly hard situations that test our patience in the arena of driving, we can then become more patient in life.
You know the person in life who is always griping: negative about his job, his wife, the smell of your perfume, the taste of his food, the weather, basically everything. That attitude may not have come about over night. Instead, it came about slowly through years of self conditioning that led to one’s current temperament and outlook. Just as much as we condition ourselves toward a perhaps less than ideal attitude, we can free ourselves from this encumbered view slowly and stepwise. We can always begin with the small things, the bourgeois suffering, as Chödrön calls it.