[wordup] Looking into Laziness

[Adam Shand]

Not the normal fare, but I liked it so I share.

Adam.

Source: http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2286

Looking into Laziness
By Pema Chödrön

Rather than feeling discouraged by laziness, we could get to know  
laziness profoundly. This very moment of laziness becomes our personal  
teacher.

Traditionally, laziness is taught as one of the obstacles to  
awakening. There are different kinds of laziness. First, there’s the  
laziness of comfort orientation, we just try to stay comfortable and  
cozy. Then there’s the laziness of loss of heart, a kind of deep  
discouragement, a feeling of giving up on ourselves, of hopelessness.  
There’s also the laziness of couldn’t care less. That’s when we harden  
into resignation and bitterness and just close down.

Comfort Orientation

Comfort orientation comes in a variety of forms. Sogyal Rinpoche  
writes that in the East, for example, laziness often manifests as  
flopping down in the sun with one’s cronies, drinking tea, and letting  
the days pass by. In the West, he observes, laziness frequently  
manifests as speed. People rush from one thing to another, from the  
gym to the office to the bar to the mountains to the meditation class  
to the kitchen sink, the backyard, the club. We rush around seeking,  
seeking, seeking comfort and ease.

Whether we flop or rush, and wherever on the globe we happen to be,  
the comfort-orientation brand of laziness is characterized by a  
profound ignoring. We look for oblivion: a life that doesn’t hurt, a  
refuge from difficulty or self-doubt or edginess. We want a break from  
being ourselves, a break from the life that happens to be ours. So  
through laziness we look for spaciousness and relief; but finding what  
we seek is like drinking salt water, because our thirst for comfort  
and ease is never satisfied.

Loss of Heart

The laziness of loss of heart is characterized by vulnerability,  
woundedness, and not knowing what to do. We tried just being ourselves  
and we didn’t measure up. The way we are is not okay. We chased after  
pleasure and found no lasting happiness. We took time off, went on  
vacation, learned to meditate, studied spiritual teachings, or spent  
years dedicated to certain political or philosophical views. We helped  
the poor or saved the trees or drank or took drugs, and we found no  
satisfaction. We tried and we failed. We came to a painful, hopeless  
place. We don’t even want to move. We feel we could gladly sleep for a  
thousand years. Our life feels meaningless. Loss of heart is so  
painful that we become paralyzed.

Couldn’t Care Less

Couldn’t care less is harder, more icy, fatalistic. This particular  
flavor of laziness has an edge of cynicism and bitterness. We feel  
that we just don’t give a damn anymore. We feel lazy and mean at the  
same time. We feel mean toward this disappointing and lousy world, and  
toward this person and that person. Mostly we feel mean toward  
ourselves. We made a mistake. We’re not exactly sure what this mistake  
was, but we got it all wrong; and now, to hell with it! We try to  
forget in any way we can. We stop doing much. We feel as if we can’t  
do much anyway, and frankly, we don’t care.

So What To Do?

Built into the human predicament seems to be the assumption that we  
should eliminate our failings; as adequate and worthy people, we  
should be able simply to leap over our weaknesses. So perhaps the  
grown-up thing to do would be to blow up laziness with a bomb, or drop  
it into the Atlantic Ocean with a huge weight so it would never  
reappear, or send it off into space so that it would float out into  
infinity and we’d never have to relate to it again.

But if we ask ourselves, Where does joy come from? Where does  
inspiration come from?, we will find they do not come from getting rid  
of anything. They do not come from dividing ourselves in two and  
struggling against our own energy. They do not come from seeing  
laziness as an opponent, or something out there that we should leap  
over. They do not come from denigrating ourselves.

The path of awakening is a process. It’s a process of gradually  
learning to become intimate with our so-called obstacles. So rather  
than feeling discouraged by laziness, we could look into our laziness,  
become curious about laziness. We could get to know laziness profoundly.

We can unite with laziness, be our laziness, know its smell and taste,  
feel it fully in our bodies. The spiritual path is a process of  
relaxing into this very moment of being. We touch in with this moment  
of lethargy or loss of heart, this moment of pain, of avoidance, of  
couldn’t care less. We touch in and then we go forward. This is the  
training. Whether in formal meditation or throughout our days and  
nights, we can train in letting go of our commentary and contacting  
the felt quality of our experience. We can touch our experience  
without getting hooked by the story line. We can touch this very  
moment of being and then move on.

We are sitting in meditation or going about our usual routine, and it  
occurs to us to listen to what we’re saying. What we hear is, Oy vey,  
oy vey! Woe is me. I’m a failure. There’s no hope. We look at what we  
do to ourselves, what we say to ourselves, how we lose heart or try to  
distract ourselves. Then we let those words go and touch the heart of  
this moment. We touch the very center of this moment of being and then  
we let go. This is how we train. Again and again, this is our practice.

We join our loss of heart with honesty and kindness. Instead of  
pulling back from the pain of laziness, we move closer. We lean into  
the wave. We swim into the wave.

Somewhere in the process of staying with the moment, it might occur to  
us that there are a lot of unhappy brothers and sisters out there,  
suffering as we are suffering. In becoming intimate with our own pain,  
with our own laziness, we are touching in with all of them,  
understanding them, knowing our kinship with all of them.

We are sitting in front of the television eating chips, drinking beer,  
smoking cigarettes. Hour after hour after hour we sit there. Then for  
some reason, we see ourselves clearly. We have the choice to eat the  
tenth bag of chips and watch the sixteenth sitcom, or to relate with  
our depression and laziness in an honest and openhearted way. Instead  
of continuing to zone out and shut down and close off, we lean in and  
relax. This is how we practice.

So maybe we open the window or go out for a walk, or maybe we sit  
silently, but whatever we do, it occurs to us to stay with ourselves,  
to go behind the words, behind the ignoring, and to feel the quality  
of this moment of being, in our hearts, in our stomachs, for  
ourselves, and for all of the millions of others in the same boat. We  
start to train in openness and compassion toward this very moment.  
This very moment of laziness becomes our personal teacher. This  
precious moment becomes our profound and healing practice.

--
Pema Chödrön is the director of Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova  
Scotia, and author of The Wisdom of No Escape, Start Where You Are and  
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.