Read Online Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears by Pema Chödrön - Free Book Online

Klux Klan. Of course this was illegal at the time and not condoned in this town, but nevertheless it was happening. The police told them that it was probably the work of Larry Trapp. He was the Grand Dragon, the head of the Klan, in that town. Michael and Julie Weisser knew of Trapp’s reputation as a man filled with hatred. And they knew that he was in a wheelchair, having been disabled by a beating years ago.
    Each day, Larry’s voice on the phone would threaten to kill them, destroy their property, and harm their family and friends. Then one day Michael decided, just on the spot with the support of Julie, to try something. So in the next phone call, when Larry Trapp was ranting at them, he waited for an opportunity to speak. He knew that Trapp had a hard time getting around in his wheelchair, so when he could get a word in, he offered him a ride to the grocery store. Trapp didn’t speak for a while, and when he did, the anger had left his voice. He said, “Well, I’ve got that taken care of, but thanks for asking.”
    By then, the Weissers had more in mind than ending the harassment: they wanted to help free Larry Trapp from the torment of his prejudice and rage. They began calling him , and told him if he needed help, they would be there for him. Not long after that they went to his apartment, taking him a home-cooked dinner, and the three of them got to know one another better. And he did begin to ask them for help. One day when they arrived for a visit, Trapp took off the ring he wore and gave it to them. It was a Nazi ring. With that gesture he was breaking his association with the Ku Klux Klan, telling the Weissers, “I denounce everything they stand for. But it’s not the people in the organizations that I hate. . . . If I were to say I hate all Klansmen because they’re Klansmen . . . I would still be a racist.” Rather than replacing one prejudice with another, Larry Trapp chose to let go of closed-mindedness altogether.
    Like Larry Trapp, each of us has our own capacity for prejudice, and it’s very common to justify it when it comes up. Our fixed ideas about “them” arise quickly, and this has again and again caused great suffering. This is a very old habit, a crippling habit, a universal response to feeling threatened. We can look at this habit with compassion and openness but not continue to reinforce and strengthen it. Instead, we can acknowledge the powerful energy of our fear, of our rage—the energy of anything at all that we may feel—as the natural movement of life, and become intimate with it, abide with it, without repressing, without acting out, without letting it destroy us or anyone else. In this way, anything we experience becomes the perfect opportunity for touching our basic goodness, the perfect support for remaining open and receptive to the dynamic energy of life. As radical as this idea might seem, I know it to be true that there is nothing that can occur that has to set off the chain reaction of shenpa. Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.
    Sometimes in a really threatening situation there may not be a lot we can do or say to help anyone, but we can always train in staying present and not biting the hook. I received a letter from my friend Jarvis Masters, an inmate on death row, recently in which he told me that there are many times when the prison atmosphere is so violent that all he can do is not harm anybody and not get caught up in the seductive force of aggression. The stories don’t always have a happy ending.
    If you’re in a profession where you’re interacting with violent people, you know that it’s not so easy to avoid getting hooked. But we could ask: “How can I regard the ones I don’t agree with, with an open mind?” “How can I look deeper, listen deeper, than my fixed ideas?” or “How can I address the ones who are in a cycle of violence, the people who are hurting others, as living, feeling human