Let's say you're Juan's boss. When something comes along that you find unpleasant and don't want to do, you pass it on to Juan. You pass the burden to someone else. It's like that Greek myth about Atlas. He was just walking along innocently and somebody said, "Oh, Atlas, would you mind for a moment just holding the earth?"

We do that. When we don't like it, it doesn't occur to us to actually work with that feeling and communicate with the person who is asking us to do this, to somehow open up the situation and work in an honest, fearless way with what's going on. Instead we just give our burden to somebody else and ask them to hold it. It's called passing the buck.

From START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Chdrn, 1994.
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.