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Three kinds of laziness
Jan. 24th, 2025 06:43 amOne nice thing about The Places that Scare You, for my purposes, is that a lot of the chapters are very short! Helpful for morning meditation and journaling when I have to leave home early for a doctor's appointment, for example.
One of the chapters I read about today covered the 3 types of laziness: comfort orientation, loss of heart and "couldn't care less." I recognize all of these in myself, quite a bit. Comfort orientation is just what it sounds like: having a persistent need to avoid even minor discomforts at all costs, which leads to aggression and outrage at any inconvenience, and the inability to tolerate change. Later in the chapter she mentions a monk in line for food who was anxious that the yogurt would run out before he got to the front of the line. I do know I spend quite a lot of life anxiously anticipating minor discomforts and trying to avoid them, especially when situations are out of my control (like flying).
Loss of heart is a sense of hopelessness, "poor me," which leads us to indulge in mindless pleasures to avoid engaging with the world. It's also connected to self-blame. "Even in we do manage to ccrank ourselfs up and open a window, we do so with a sense of shame. We make an outer gesture of breaking through laziness, but still hold that essence of hopelessness inside...We are still saying to ourselves 'I'm the worst. There's no hope for me. I'll never get it right.'"
"Couldn't care less" "is characterized by resentment. We are giving the world the finger. It's similar to loss of heart, but much harder. Loss of heart has some kind of softness and vulnerability. Couldn't care less is more aggressive and defiant." It leads to aggression and wallowing in "feeling undervalued and put down. We don't want to find any outlet We just want to sit around, feeling weighted down with gloom. We use laziness as our way of getting revenge. This kind of laziness can easily turn into incapacitating depression."
The chapter goes on to say we often deal with these 3 trends by attacking ourselves, ignoring things, or indulging ourselves. Instead she suggests "the strategy of fully experiencing whatever we've been resisting...not resisting the resistance, touching in with the fundamental tenderness and groundlessness of our being before it hardens." She also says "It's important to recognize that we don't usually want to investigate laziness or any other habit. We want to indulge or ignore or condemn. We want to continue with the three futiles strategies because we assocate them with relief." But if we get curious and investigate our own suffering we might be ready to embrace the meditation practice, "to stay with the tenderness and not harden."
One of the chapters I read about today covered the 3 types of laziness: comfort orientation, loss of heart and "couldn't care less." I recognize all of these in myself, quite a bit. Comfort orientation is just what it sounds like: having a persistent need to avoid even minor discomforts at all costs, which leads to aggression and outrage at any inconvenience, and the inability to tolerate change. Later in the chapter she mentions a monk in line for food who was anxious that the yogurt would run out before he got to the front of the line. I do know I spend quite a lot of life anxiously anticipating minor discomforts and trying to avoid them, especially when situations are out of my control (like flying).
Loss of heart is a sense of hopelessness, "poor me," which leads us to indulge in mindless pleasures to avoid engaging with the world. It's also connected to self-blame. "Even in we do manage to ccrank ourselfs up and open a window, we do so with a sense of shame. We make an outer gesture of breaking through laziness, but still hold that essence of hopelessness inside...We are still saying to ourselves 'I'm the worst. There's no hope for me. I'll never get it right.'"
"Couldn't care less" "is characterized by resentment. We are giving the world the finger. It's similar to loss of heart, but much harder. Loss of heart has some kind of softness and vulnerability. Couldn't care less is more aggressive and defiant." It leads to aggression and wallowing in "feeling undervalued and put down. We don't want to find any outlet We just want to sit around, feeling weighted down with gloom. We use laziness as our way of getting revenge. This kind of laziness can easily turn into incapacitating depression."
The chapter goes on to say we often deal with these 3 trends by attacking ourselves, ignoring things, or indulging ourselves. Instead she suggests "the strategy of fully experiencing whatever we've been resisting...not resisting the resistance, touching in with the fundamental tenderness and groundlessness of our being before it hardens." She also says "It's important to recognize that we don't usually want to investigate laziness or any other habit. We want to indulge or ignore or condemn. We want to continue with the three futiles strategies because we assocate them with relief." But if we get curious and investigate our own suffering we might be ready to embrace the meditation practice, "to stay with the tenderness and not harden."
