Something to ponder

[cherydactyl]

This [practice] is not an improvement plan; it is not a situation in which you try to be better than you are now. If you have a bad temper and you feel that you harm yourself and others, you might think that sitting for a week or a month will make your bad temper go away--you will be that sweet person you always wanted to be. Never again will a harsh word leave your lily-white lips. The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself. The other problem is that our hang-ups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth. Our neurosis and wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom. Someone who is is very angry also has a lot of energy; that energy is what's so juicy about him or her. That's the reason people love that person. The idea isn't to get rid of your anger, but to make friends with it, to see it clearly with precision and honesty, and also with gentleness. That means not judging yourself as a bad person, but also not bolstering yourself up by saying, "It's good that I'm this way; it's right that I'm this way. Other people are terrible, and I'm right to be so angry all the time."

-Pema Chödrön, "Precision, Gentleness, and Letting Go" in The Wisdom of No Escape
(the emphasis is entirely mine)

Comments

[sorcycat.livejournal.com]

I can't argue it well, but I fundamentally disagree with the bolded statement. I think learning is a great example. If you have been accomplishing some task in one way for a long time and one day you learn a faster/simpler/cheaper/easier way you can change. Life is about trade-offs and balances, and always staying the same must be balanced with change, and learning and experience can shift the balance.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

I don't think it means that you are supposed to be static to love yourself. I think it means that wishing to change a fundamental reaction you have to things...whether it is to get angry at everything or retreat from strong emotions displayed by others or be so afraid you never leave your apartment, or whatever...cannot help but *disrespect* that reaction. The passage goes on to say that we need to make friends with our anger (or withdrawl or fear or...). Change happens whether we wish it to or not, but by saying "I am bad, and that badness has the quality of " you can't learn from it, figure out what that reaction has to say.

So, I guess what I take from this passage is that making friends with your anger (or whatever) so you can understand what it's related to and whether it has lessons you can apply is a more helpful and useful way to be than to wish you weren't that way.