The best instruction I’ve ever heard on the spiritual path is to stay. Stay with that feeling of anxiety, of fear. Stay with the discomfort of embarrassment or humiliation. Stay with your anger, don’t hold onto it, but stay with it. Instead of running away as we always do, or reaching for something, anything, to ease our pain in that moment, stay. Stay nailed right to the spot.
Staying doesn’t mean getting consumed by it. It means immersing yourself in it with awareness. Perhaps you’ll find that your feeling starts to dissolve around your awareness, or perhaps not. The thing is, you’ll only find out by starting to stay.
Pema Chodron is the creator of this idea of staying, and she talks about it beautifully in her book, When Things Fall Apart.
Hey Ishita,
I guess I read your Facebook page that you maintain for Seth. Good rigorous work!
In biology there is a phrase called, “fight or flight tendency”. Bio-psychologists have been stressing that our reflex action to life’s most problem is either to fight or flight (escape). I guess its fairly true.
Then there is a term called “responsibility”. Broken apart it could be read as response + ability. We do have the ability to choose a response to life’s every circumstance. Well, in theory ( to most of us). The greats, in whatever field you look, have mastered this response-ability by staying put with situation a little longer than most people.
By the way I have subscribed to your blog.
hi hersh,
thanks for your thoughtful reply! looking forward to hearing more from you.
i like your term “response + ability” it is a name i used in another story i am writing about a sept 11th survivor.