Know your Shenpa

because you can get unhooked

Refrain from reaction. Let curiosity fill your imagination. This is a moment to get creative with yourself.  Notice that.

Refrain from reaction. Let curiosity fill your imagination. This is a moment to get creative with yourself. Notice that.

 

Shenpa is the Tibetan word at the root of aggression and desire. Its meaning points to the sticky experience at the center of all conflict, cruelty, oppression, and greed.

Translated directly into English Shenpa means attachment. Pema Chödrön, the American Tibetan Buddhist nun, translates shenpa more descriptively as hooked.

We all have Shenpa

We all get Hooked

Shenpa is that which triggers our habitual tendency to shut down. It is a moment of tightening when we do the same thing we always do which we hope will bring relief, but actually makes things more intolerable. The hook is visceral. It has the same familiar taste every time. What exactly is it? It’s hard to explain, but like deja vu we’ve been there before. It’s an everyday experience. A stain on your shirt can be shenpa. At the subtlest level, it’s a tightening. A not wanting to be where we are. Unaware of shenpa, we become reactive. We scratch the itch that spreads the venom; flip off that person in traffic; reach for another…doughnut, drink, or cigarette. This charged feeling is behind self-rejection, blame, anger, jealousy and all the emotions which lead to the cruel actions and words that poison us.

Chödrön says: to get unhooked, we begin by recognizing that moment of unease and learn to relax in that moment.