Looking and Leaning into Frustration

    It's interesting how Buddhist discourse and literature often describes desire (tanha, or clinging) as the root of suffering, and yet we rarely hear the word 'frustration' in the Buddhist translations. Is frustration a relatively new word in the lexicon? The Latin term for frustration is "frustrare" or to disappoint, yet I consider frustration to be the converse of desire. It's the feeling that one has in reaction to desires deferred or pleasures that are interrupted. For example, when I am at work and interrupted from a task to attend a meeting, a sense of frustration arises in response to the withdrawn pleasure of performing the task. Perhaps the reason frustration (or an equivalent term) is not often expressed in Buddhist commentaries is that people might consider it a secondary emotion whose primary root is desire itself. If it were not for desire, there certainly wouldn't be frustration, so it stands to reason that Buddhism would not spend a lot of time hacking away at the branches when there is a root that needs to be dealt with.
   So why would frustration be interesting to tackle? I sometimes think that people are craving new things because they cannot tolerate moments of frustration. The frustration is a sign that things are not going smoothly, and so the temptation is to try to look for an object or a diversion to go against the desire. But what if one simply sits with frustration rather than running away from it? Now this is tricky, because the way our minds work might be something like: okay, I will test to see how well I tolerate frustration by coming near what I desire and see how well I can tolerate non-doing. The problem with this approach is it's just another devious way for one to indulge in desiring! What I am talking about is leaning into the sense of deficiency that arises when there isn't a pleasing distraction or sense of smooth running in the things around us. I recently learned an expression in Mandarin, mei banfa
   One analogy I am particularly fond of is the snow covered path. If I am in a field covered in snow and no path has yet been made, my tendency is to try to look for some tangible "something" that will make the path smoother for me to travel: another footprint, for example, or a stick, or even a clearing of grass that prevents me from having to trudge through the unknown height of snow. In lacking a defining human tool that will help me navigate the snow, I fear drowning in something that's limitless and overwhelming. Of course, we need our methods to help us through; even in meditative practice, such methods are required to get us through a single sitting. But there are moments when all the familiar comforts that help us make our steps are simply taken away from us, and we are left with a puddle of festering "what next?"--that kind of panic-and then all we can really do is enjoy the sense of discovery, to wonder what is this sensation I am having? Can I live with it? Can I learn something from discomfort? Can I make more space for discomforts in general?