Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

Pausing is very helpful in this process. It creates a momentary contrast between being completely self-absorbed and being awake and present. You just stop for a few seconds, breathe deeply, and move on. You don’t want to make it into a project. Chögyam Trungpa used to refer to this as the gap. You pause and allow there to be a gap in whatever you’r

It does seem that the same things keep coming back to trigger the same feelings in us until we’ve made friends with them. Our attitude can be that we keep getting another chance, rather than that we’re just getting another bad deal.

With the most advanced tonglen you breathe in with the wish that you could actually take on their distress so they could be free of it and you breathe out with the wish that you could give them all your comfort and ease. In other words you would literally be willing to stand in their shoes and have them stand in yours if it would help.

In The Art of Happiness, Howard Cutler asked the Dalai Lama

Whether we are at home or in a public spot or caught in a traffic jam or walking into a movie, we can stop and look at the other people there and realize that in pain and in joy they are just like me. Just like me they don’t want to feel physical pain or insecurity or rejection. Just like me they want to feel respected and physically comfortable.

We are never encouraged to experience the ebb and flow of our moods, of our health, of the weather, of outer events—pleasant and unpleasant—in their fullness. Instead we stay caught in a fearful, narrow holding pattern of avoiding any pain and continually seeking comfort. This is the universal dilemma.

The shenpa itself is not the problem. The ignorance that doesn’t acknowledge that you’re hooked, that just goes unconscious and allows you to act it out—that’s the problem.

Dzigar Kongtrül once pointed out that you may find a particular feeling intolerable, but instead of acting on that you could come to know intolerableness very, very well.

For example, if you are truly open and receptive to another person, it can be quite a revelation to realize that they aren’t exactly the same on Friday as they were on Monday, that each of us can be perceived freshly any day of the week.