What we're working with in basic meditation practice—and more explicitly in tonglen practice—is the middle ground between acting out and repressing. We learn to see our thoughts of hatred, lust, poverty, loathing, whatever they might be. We learn to identify the thoughts as "thinking," let them go, and begin to contact the texture of energy that lies beneath them. We gradually begin to realize how profound it is just to let those thoughts go, not rejecting them, not repressing them. We discover how to hold our seat and feel completely what's underneath the story line of craving or aversion or jealousy or feeling wretched about ourselves, underneath all that hopelessness and despair. We can begin to feel the energy of our heart, our body, our neck, our head, our stomach—what's underneath the story lines. We find that there's something extremely soft, which is called bodhichitta. If we can relate directly with that, then all the rest is our wealth. Pema Chodron EXCERPTED FROM Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chödrön, page 89 |
