oprah talks to pema chödrön

There's an excellent interview ::here, including a link to an audio. I do like being able to hear Pema's voice!
An excerpt:

Oprah Talks to Pema Chödrön

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Listen in on Pema and Oprah's conversation.

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Pema: Yeah, I mean the problem is, I think for people is that we have so little tolerance for uncomfortable feelings. I'm not even talking about unpleasant outer circumstances but for that feeling in your stomach that—or heart—that I don't want this to be happening.

Oprah: Right.

Pema: And if somehow you could touch the rawness of the experience, touch the heart of the rawness of the experience—

Oprah: Meaning don't run from it. Don't run from it.

Pema: Don't run from it, yeah.

Oprah: What should you be saying to yourself, when you say touch the rawness and feel? Feel what? I'm already feeling, I'm sure people are thinking, I'm feeling pain, I'm feeling discomfort, I'm feeling I don't want to have to deal with this.

Pema: Well let me give you what I think is—for—seems to be for people the most accessible thing is that if you can—for instance, just go to your body at that point—

Oprah: Um hm.

Pema: ̬and connect with the sensation.

Oprah: And the sensation—

Pema: Of what it feels like, which is always—feels really bad, and it's usually in the throat or the heart or the solar plexus. And it feels like a tightening. If you can stay with that feeling and breathe very deeply in and very deeply out, and say to yourself, millions of people all over the world share this kind of fear, discomfort what—I don't even have to call it anything—they share this not wanting things to be this way. And it's my link with humanity. And why—and it gives birth to a chain reaction which causes people to strike out and hurt other people or self-destruct. In other words, not staying with the feeling cuts you off from your compassion for others, your empathy for others, and also from the largeness of your own heart and mind. So somehow it seems to me with the people that I've been working with, if they can connect with the idea that this moment in time is shared by—it's sort of a shared experience all over the world. And not staying with it gives birth to a lot of pain and a lot of destruction that we see in the world today. And so then what do you do? How do you stay with it? And I think the most straightforward way is to breathe in very deeply, try to connect with the feeling. And then just relax on the out breath. And breathe in very deeply and connect with the feeling, and breathe out on the out breath. And I call it compassionate abiding. Because it's staying with yourself when for your whole lifetime you've always run away at that point.
::more

Comments

[Lorianne]

By interesting coincidence, I just read this same interview (in the latest issue of Oprah's magazine) last night. Parts made me a bit uncomfortable--Oprah repeatedly remarked that "all" the Buddhists she knows are "calm," which only reinforces the myth that you have to "have it together" to be a good Buddhist (or the myth that if you aren't "calm," you must not be practicing "correctly"). Oprah's insistence that Buddhists are "calm" seemed to fly in the face of Pema's insistence that practice about embracing the present moment, whatever it looks like.

But I loved Pema's remark about one of her children asking how she reconciled her practice with her tendency to get uptight about things. It's not about making yourself calm; it's about being aware of whatever you're experiencing, even if that experience is "uptight."