April 20 Tip: Contacting Pail

Buddhist Nun Ani Pema Chodron on "Contacting Pain"
(the April 20 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

Pema Chodron on "CONTACTING PAIN"

When you contact the all-worked-up feeling of shenpa [getting hooked on a negative emotion], the basic instruction is the same as in dealing with physical pain. Whether it’s a feeling of I like or I don’t like, or an emotional state like loneliness, depression, or anxiety, you open yourself fully to the sensation, free of interpretation. If you’ve tried this approach with physical pain, you know that the result can be quite miraculous. When you give your full attention to your knee or your back or your head—whatever hurts—and drop the good/bad, right/wrong story line and simply experience the pain directly for even a short time, then your ideas about the pain, and often the pain itself, will dissolve.

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