Klesha Addiction!

While my friend Rima and I were in Tulum, Mexico a few weeks ago teaching a Yoga retreat, we went to dine at a delicious restaurant called Posada Margherita.  As we were waiting to be seated, we started to browse through the lovely selection at their boutique.  It was unusually cold that night and we had not anticipated such weather when we packed for our trip.  So inevitably this warm cozy oversized sweatshirt caught Rima’s eye.  We asked about the price and soon after we were seated at our table.

Later back in our room Rima brought up the sweatshirt,  the temperature now having dropped even further. She said “What do you think? $140 is too much for the sweatshirt, right? It's ridiculous such prices in Mexico.”

I replied “Actually I loved it. You should get it. You KNOW it would probably be $300 in NYC!!”  We both laughed.

Soon after I realized how she and I even in jest,  almost welcomed what I call the consumption klesha.   A pattern of constantly grasping & consuming stuff, be it to put on us or inside us.  And how the mind creates the reasoning to invite a pattern that we find so irresistible, even if at times destructive.

Shantideva, in his sacred text the Way of The Bodhisattva, speaks of how we often welcome our mental afflictions (kleshas).  In her discussion of this ancient text*, the Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön elaborates on how we welcome our mental afflictions because they set off a chain reaction within us that is 'predictable', 'familiar', at times even comforting or empowering, however contaminated we may feel after.

Understanding the subtle ways in which we lay fertile ground for our mental afflictions helps us undercut their power over us, as we recognize the trap our mind sets up for us before stepping into it. 

4.29

I it is who welcome them within my heart,

Allowing them to harm me at their pleasure!

I who suffer all without resentment –

Thus my abject patience, all displaced!

Shantideva, Way of The Bodhisattva

* Pema Chödrön's No Time To Lose