I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Tuesday Book Club, I share an idea from a book.
There’s a very useful teaching, which I heard from Dzigar Kongtrül, that allows us to take a closer look at this knee-jerk pattern of moving away from being present. This is the teaching on shenpa. Generally the Tibetan word shenpa is translated “attachment,” but that has always seemed too abstract to me, as it doesn’t touch the magnitude of shenpa and the effect it has on us.
An alternate translation might be “hooked”—what it feels like to get hooked—what it feels like to be stuck. Everyone likes to hear teachings on getting unstuck because they address such a common source of pain. In terms of the poison-ivy metaphor—our fundamental itch and the habit of scratching—shenpa is the itch and it’s also the urge to scratch. The urge to smoke that cigarette, the urge to overeat, to have one more drink to say something cruel or to tell a lie.
Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, Pema Chödrön
I’m feeling shenpa right now due to a bad experience with an HVAC company who came to service my furnace. I was ready to replace the furnace — a small secondary unit that heats my basement — but the tech said with a couple (somewhat expensive) fixes, it would likely make it through the season.
I didn’t validate that it was working than he left. This was a company I’ve used before and I had some trust that because he said it was working that it truly was.
In fact, it wasn’t. He hadn’t fixed the furnace, but had just charged me $700 and moved on.
I had a second HVAC company come out and they found additional work that needed to be done: a new control board and gas valve. Their estimate was $1500+. Of course there’s no good reason to put $2300 into a 22-year-old furnace.
So I’m kicking myself: I should have questioned the first technician’s suggestion. I should have verified he left the furnace in working order. I shouldn’t have scheduled a Sunday appointment. I was surprised there was one showing on the website and it turned out to be a tech not from the company I thought I was dealing with, but one that was affiliated with them via a private equity backed home services aggregator.
I shouldn’t have used a PE-backed company! I tell myself that too. I actually did search to see if this company, that I have used before, was PE backed. Initial Google search and Google AI mode said no. But in fact, it is.
Anyway, I’m going to be getting quotes for a furnace replacement from a couple companies, not to include the one that failed to fix the furnace properly. But I am having a hard time letting go of both the money I already paid and the mistakes I made.
I’m feeling hooked! I’m feeling itchy! And I keep scratching the itch — going over what happened in my mind, sending emails to the first company demanding a refund, planning a credit card dispute.
the most basic shenpa
Chödrön continues:
The fundamental, most basic shenpa is to ego itself: attachment to our identity, the image of who we think we are. When we experience our identity as being threatened, our self-absorption gets very strong, and shenpa automatically arises. Then there is the spin-off—such as attachment to our possessions or to our views and opinions.
My ego is involved in this HVAC situation. I feel like I mismanaged things. I feel like I was taken advantage of. And I attach too much to the money. Seven hundred dollars is not a significant amount of money to me. I can let it go
managing shenpa
Chödrön writes:
If we catch it when it first arises, when it’s just a tightening, a slight pulling back, a feeling of beginning to get hot under the collar, it’s very workable. Then we have the possibility of becoming curious about this urge to do the habitual thing, this urge to strengthen a repetitive pattern. We can feel it physically and, interestingly enough, it’s never new. It always has a familiar taste. It has a familiar smell. When you begin to get in touch with shenpa, you feel like this has been happening forever. It allows you to feel the underlying insecurity that is inherent in a changing, shifting, impermanent world—an insecurity that is felt by everyone as long as we continue to scramble to get ground under our feet.
Hello, my old friend shenpa, I can say. The particular worry changes but the sense of struggling is the same.
I keep a list in my reminders app called Neverending List of Worries. When I’m hooked on something — like the failed furnace repair — I put it on the list, at the top. It always surprises me to come back to the list and see that things I was perseverating over eventually move out of my consciousness. But there is almost always something I am hooked on.
Today I will make a point of noticing the earliest arising of shenpa. Even just that can help loosen its grip.