When it comes to something you don’t like, our deeply ingrained tendency is to want to get rid of it. Spiritual practice, however, will continue to fall into the same trap by subtler means if it insists that “by doing X or by opening to Y or by practicing Z, I’ll be rid of X or Y or Z.”

For this reason, I propose a three-step model:

Step 1: Allow the deeply ingrained tendency to appear. For instance, someone who know says something. Immediately, you dislike it. Then you find yourself wishing that he’d not speak that way or wanting to complain about what he said. And so on. Really allow the “standard model” space. Really feel what it’s like to want to get rid of something in the tragically misguided hope of finding context-dependent, entirely contingent peace.

Step 2: Now that the standard approach (outlined in Step 1) has risen and set, you can do nothing: Just open to the experience (the reaction, the dislike, the samskara, etc.), allowing to appear exactly as it does and to unfold however it likes. Unhand yourself from all approaches, techniques, and practices because, at this point in your inquiry, you know that all presuppose “I am the doer.” Let all this go.

Step 3: Use a helpful superimposition. Imagine that there’s a goddess or a guru who is trying to convey a hidden message to you. The dukkha you experience is not to be gotten rid of. Rather, the question you’re now ready to ask is: “What is the goddess or the guru trying to tell me? What is the teaching that’s intended to be conveyed in this instance?” What’s privileged, in Step 3, is deep listening, patience, and inquisitiveness. Try to stay with this enigma until you come to experiential understanding. This may take some days or weeks.

You might feel that Step 3 is weird or cheesy, but it’s neither. What’s offered, here, is a reframing device, the point of which is to discover much-needed experiential understanding in a way that’s entirely divorced from the I-don’t-like-it-and-I-want-to-get-rid-of-it-forthwith paradigm.