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Life Worth Living is an initiative of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School.
What should we do when we fail?
Pema Chödrön on Confessing Evil Actions
Life Worth Living Team
"When there’s so much space, why do we keep putting on dark glasses, putting in earplugs, and covering ourselves with armor?"
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Truly joyful and fearless living embraces life’s pain and difficulties.
Quote + Question + Context
What should we do when we fail?
According to Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, truly joyful and fearless living embraces life’s pain and difficulties rather than viewing them as problems to be “fixed.” This text, from Chödrön’s Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, points to the act of confession as a critical piece in the process of fully experiencing the world and embracing life:
[.alt-blockquote]The second of the four practices is to confess evil actions, or lay down neurotic actions. In Buddhist monasteries, this is done ceremonially on days of the full and new moons. Confessing your neurotic actions has four parts to it: (1) regretting what you’ve done; (2) refraining from doing it again; (3) performing some kind of remedial activity…; and (4) expressing complete willingness to continue this fourfold process in the future and not to act out neurotically…[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote]What is meant by neurosis is that in limitless, timeless space—with which we could connect at any time—we continually have tunnel vision and lock ourselves into a room and put bolts on the door. When there’s so much space, why do we keep putting on dark glasses, putting in earplugs, and covering ourselves with armor?[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote]Confessing our neurotic action is a fourfold process by which we learn to see honestly what we do and develop a yearning to take off those dark glasses, take out those earplugs, take off that armor, and experience the world fully. [It’s] another method for letting go of holding back, another method for opening rather than closing down.[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]-Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, p. 72[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions to Consider:
- Pema Chödrön claims that our immoral and ‘neurotic’ actions and desires make us feel trapped and isolated, obscuring reality itself and our connection to it. Have you experienced loneliness or self-imposed seclusion as a result of actions you knew to be wrong or regretted?
- What might Step 3 of confession—the performance of a “remedial activity”—look like for you?
- Think of a time when you intentionally and successfully changed your behavior. What did it take?
- Think of a time when you failed to change your behavior. What inhibited your success?
- Who or what is responsible for failing to change behavior, according to Chödrön? How does this track with your own experience?
Context:
- Pema Chödrön's Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living
- Chapter 9: “When We (Inevitably) Botch It,” from Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most
Quote + Question + Context
What should we do when we fail?
According to Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, truly joyful and fearless living embraces life’s pain and difficulties rather than viewing them as problems to be “fixed.” This text, from Chödrön’s Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, points to the act of confession as a critical piece in the process of fully experiencing the world and embracing life:
[.alt-blockquote]The second of the four practices is to confess evil actions, or lay down neurotic actions. In Buddhist monasteries, this is done ceremonially on days of the full and new moons. Confessing your neurotic actions has four parts to it: (1) regretting what you’ve done; (2) refraining from doing it again; (3) performing some kind of remedial activity…; and (4) expressing complete willingness to continue this fourfold process in the future and not to act out neurotically…[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote]What is meant by neurosis is that in limitless, timeless space—with which we could connect at any time—we continually have tunnel vision and lock ourselves into a room and put bolts on the door. When there’s so much space, why do we keep putting on dark glasses, putting in earplugs, and covering ourselves with armor?[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote]Confessing our neurotic action is a fourfold process by which we learn to see honestly what we do and develop a yearning to take off those dark glasses, take out those earplugs, take off that armor, and experience the world fully. [It’s] another method for letting go of holding back, another method for opening rather than closing down.[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]-Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, p. 72[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions to Consider:
- Pema Chödrön claims that our immoral and ‘neurotic’ actions and desires make us feel trapped and isolated, obscuring reality itself and our connection to it. Have you experienced loneliness or self-imposed seclusion as a result of actions you knew to be wrong or regretted?
- What might Step 3 of confession—the performance of a “remedial activity”—look like for you?
- Think of a time when you intentionally and successfully changed your behavior. What did it take?
- Think of a time when you failed to change your behavior. What inhibited your success?
- Who or what is responsible for failing to change behavior, according to Chödrön? How does this track with your own experience?
Context:
- Pema Chödrön's Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living
- Chapter 9: “When We (Inevitably) Botch It,” from Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most
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