UNPACKING THE REACTION: Deconstructing Shenpa
I am writing this on boxing day. In some traditions, today is the day set aside to unpack the last of the holiday presents and remove the boxes, or perhaps repack the boxes and return the gifts. In any event, I thought it an appropriate time to discuss opening the present of our life by unpacking our reactions to the triggers in our life.
Much of our life experience is hidden from us by a process Buddhists refer to as clinging. This clinging, along with family members attachment and addiction, get us stuck in the flow of life. We tend to grab on to the things we like. We also like hating the things we don’t like and so cling to liking not liking. Buddhists say desire precedes attachment. But desire is not a problem when it ripens into appreciation, which has the largess of opening into the event. Desire becomes problematic when we shut down into an ownership, appropriation, or objectification of the object of desire – we are objectifying that to which we cling.
We cling to things that provoke us in ways that are positive, negative, or neutral. It’s easy to see how we might cling to the things that attract us, but we also cling to not wanting things we don’t like. And some of us drama junkies will cling to not wanting the experience of nothing happening. “Argh! This is too peaceful.” And we will pull some drama out of a hat instead of waiting for that shoe to drop. At least then we’re in control of our suffering.
Suffice to say, we will cling to anything – whatever is in reach – in order to maintain feeling in control. We will cling to pain because it’s familiar, and familiarity offers a sense of being in control. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Control rests on awareness. But the knee-jerk reaction of clinging is entirely blind. It feels like clinging happens to us. Pema Chodron popularized the term “shenpa”. Shenpa classically refers to clinging and attachment. Pema interprets shenpa experientially as “hooked” because that is the feeling associated with it. We have lost control and are pulled away.
Attachment is when our clinging has added emotional, environmental, or psychological ties. 12-step communities refer to “people places and things” as providing support for addiction. Attachment can be seen as the maturation of clinging, which was the ripening of our initial desire. I’ve identified a spectrum of attachment in my personal experience: perception > objectification > desire (toward or away from the object) > attachment > addiction.
The objectification stage is important as it is the activation of the dualistic barrier of our ego system. We stop seeing the wholeness of the other – and our dynamic relation to it – turning it instead into a solid thing.
Like many of us attached to people, places, or things, our attachment feels compulsory. We rarely notice our becoming attached. We don’t seem to be choosing anything at all. Instead, it feels like we are snagged into a series of events. We don’t see this process because we are fixated on the object of our desire. Therefore, Pema refers to attachment as being “hooked” because that how it feels and how it feels gives us a way in to unpacking the process. We become hooked when we are triggered. If we look at it this way, we can see the mechanics of the compulsion. When hooked by shenpa, we become glued to the object and blinded by desire. We cling with our eyes shut as though grasping at straws to save ourselves. This is the moment we turn away from ourselves and lash out to find safety. Sometimes it is one and done, but sometimes it becomes a trope we return to whenever we are threatened. And if we return to the event enough, our bodies will begin to need the feelings we evoke in association – we become addicted to the feelings associated with our shenpa.
At the base of this system lies a desperate sense of panic born of need. One remedy for these moments of gripping obscuration is to preemptively shore up the feelings of need that allow us to be vulnerable to the triggering. Each time we return to the breath in our meditation we are returning to ourselves. If we do so lovingly, without judgment, we are building a healthy relationship with ourselves that supports our emotional immune system. We need not feel embarrassed to employ self-love or feel as though it is “not Buddhist” to love ourselves. It is not Buddhist to remain ignorant of ourselves and cling to everything that shines in the water around us. It is not Buddhist to ignore how we cause ourselves and each other pain.
The method for unpacking shenpa is to build our connection to our basic goodness prophylactically on the cushion. But then, on the spot, recognizing as we become hooked during our day. Then with acceptance that we are human and addicted to the drama, we can unpack the event by coming back to what is actually happening in our body. Investigating when we are hooked and how it feels. Is my body changing, gripping, tightening? Is my posture changing, becoming defensive or avoidant? Is my mind racing away in an evasive maelstrom? But then to relax past the gripping affliction and open into nurturing ourselves with love and forgiveness.
Opening the present, is letting go of the cycle of shenpa wherever, whenever we can and unpacking the conflict and experiencing what is actually happening. In a treatise on romantic love Trungpa, Rinpoche explained that when a couple are fighting, reality is not the logic they are throwing back at each other. Reality is that they are not noticing the color of their eyes. So fixated on being right, they are not remembering they love each other.
It is my wish that we learn to unpack the aggression of our drama and remember to let go and open to love.
Here is a practical contemplation for the remedy:
Open the tense blockages in the body, by coming back to the breath ad releasing the places we are wounding ourselves with tension. Let go of the residual emotional feelings. We are not right. We are in defensive reactivity. Just let go and let be.
Stop the narrative, which is comprised of rational lies that support our blind reaction. Stop the fixation on the object, or event. Put down the hook, the drink, the rage, the avoidant reaction just for a moment. Just step back. You are frightened. Just stop the fantasy and feel into the gripping body beneath. Pema says we are “learning to stay.”
Drop down into our physical experience and feel our body’s actual reaction. This is happening in the present and coming into the present, we turn away from our reactions to the past. How am I feeling as I bite the hook? And even if you cannot stop, you will dampen the experience for yourself. And the work is to come back. You are frightened. Come back until you can stay with the feeling without the endotrophic medicating of our clinging. Again, Pema says, we are “learning to stay.”
Then return to the flow of our breathing, walking or working. Return to now and resume life already in progress. I like to think of this as coming back to the rhythm. Back to the flow, like a river rushing past the dam, or the Beatles resting on Ringo’s perfect timing or you returning to your basic goodness.