Discomfort without Aversion: A Little Miracle, by Corrado Pensa

Suppose we overhear someone talking, and maybe they are saying two or three words about us, and maybe it is neither complimentary nor insulting; it is just a general comment about ‘me’. Well, we can proliferate for a long time about those few words which were rather irrelevant but were about me. The same two words about someone else—nothing! So the... See more

When we hear a phrase like ‘freedom from emotions’, we may have an ambivalent reaction to it. Evoking an image of no-emotions may bring about some fear that our lives will become flat. It is important to understand, however, that this not what results from the practice. On the one hand there is a decrease of emotions and the attachment to emotions,... See more

You might remember a famous illustration that the Buddha gives of what a healed mind is like. He said, ‘In what is seen, there is only what is seen. In what is heard, there is only what is heard.’ And he repeats it for all six senses, the mind being one of them. This means no more proliferation, no more fabrication, no more additions, mental concoc... See more

If we keep lumping these two together and think that aversion obviously is discomfort and discomfort obviously is aversion, then we never get a good understanding of this very basic issue. It is as though a part of us thought that the function of pleasant things is to generate attachment and the function of unpleasant things is to generate aversion... See more

We lump discomfort and aversion together. Are they the same thing? No! One thing is discomfort; the other is aversion. And we can be in discomfort without aversion. It’s a little miracle, but it’s possible.