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THE SHENPA SYNDROME
Arrogance, Shenpa and Mind Training
Question: The more I practice and the more I experience, at the same time I feel my heart and I feel the closedness of heart: it's like the rock. Then it opens and then it closes and I really see this arrogance. It becomes really painful. And I try to put the stick [for hitting oneself] aside. I didn't know that I had that much arrogance, and it terrifies me. Your talk is really encouraging, but yet I'm really scared.
Pema: I know what you're asking, I believe, because this is everybody's question. When we begin to do this, suppose we just conceive of this as opening. Well then you're going to see closing as you never saw it before. Right? It's like a set-up. If you want to see where you're closed, practice opening.
That's why I introduced the shenpa teaching, actually, because there's a little less tendency to get out the stick. So, what to do?
There's a very interesting teaching that I just heard this weekend from Dzigar Kongtrul. He said, When you begin to see what you do, think of that as like an injection.
You have to endure the short-term pain of seeing what you do in order to have the long term relief of the injection curing the illness. He said you're going to feel the pain of the shenpa bubble being burst. He said when the bubble of self-importance or self-absorption is burst, it hurts.
So you say to yourself, This pain that I'm feeling (this pain that you are feeling, even as you ask me the question you begin to feel it) is a short-term pain, this is like the pain of an injection that will cure the illness of shenpa. There's no way for me to skip over this. Then you remember shenpa teachings, and you say, So, let's try not to have shenpa about seeing the shenpa. That's the challenge.
I thought that was a wonderful teaching, that the pain that you feel is actually a lesser pain —although it hurts a lot. But if you could realize it's like the pain of an injection, that when the bubble of shenpa, or self-absorption or self-importance, is burst —which is basically what you're talking about because you saw your arrogance— it hurts so much.
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