From Chapter 3 ("Not Biting the Hook") of Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chödrön:

In Tibetan there is a word that points to the root cause of aggression, the root cause also of craving. It points to a familiar experience that is at the root of all conflict, all cruelty oppression, and greed. This word is shenpa. The usual translation is "attachment," but this doesn't adequately express the full meaning. I think of shenpa as "getting hooked." ...

... I once saw a cartoon of three fish swimming around a hook. One fish is saying to the others, "The secret is nonattachment." That's a shenpa joke: the secret is don't bite that hook. If we can learn to relax in the place where the urge is strong, we will get a bigger perspective on what's happening. We might come to see that there are two billion kinds of itch and seven quadrillion types of scratching, but we just call the whole thing shenpa.

(cf. This Is Water (2009-05-21), Core Buddhism (2011-11-17), Big Ideas (2012-05-20), 01 (2013-11-05), ...) - ^z - 2014-06-14