Peace That Doesn't Require the Pain to Go Away
La paz que no requiere que el dolor desaparezca
A student describes an unexpected encounter with persistent pain during meditation, and the teacher explores how the mind uses fear to avoid feeling, and how genuine peace can coexist with discomfort.
Peace That Doesn't Require the Pain to Go Away
A student describes an unexpected encounter with persistent pain during meditation, and the teacher explores how the mind uses fear to avoid feeling, and how genuine peace can coexist with discomfort.
My experience changed today from what I normally have. I found myself trying to get to a certain place of peacefulness and openness, and the more I tried to get there, the more I felt this kind of pain. I couldn't understand what the pain wanted from me or what I needed to do, so I ended up just sitting with it. I still feel it, even now. The less I tried to get somewhere else, the easier it became to just be with it. It's like an aching in my chest that I'm trying to do whatever I can to avoid. You mentioned in a past conversation to notice whatever I could handle. It felt like I couldn't handle all this stuff, and I kept trying to be aware of other things, but I just couldn't avoid this aching, this pain. I felt like I owed it to myself to try and sit with it.
I can't intuit exactly what that pain is, but generally there is a pain that is simply the nature of life. We accumulate some pain as we struggle to feel, and it hangs around until we learn how to feel more fully and more regularly.
For me, when I first started to be able to feel pain, it would be very explosive. The gates would open, I would feel a lot, and then they would close again. It took time before that became more steady. That's one aspect: at the more human level, learning how to relate to what we feel and stay in touch with it.
The different kinds of pain
Then there is another pain that could be a deeper longing for something, a sense that something's not right, which is actually a calling to wake up. And there is also a pain that gets created by our misunderstanding of how this process works.
For example, I say many things, other teachers say many things, and there are many pointings out there. All of those words, all of my words included, are just words. Any words taken as absolute truth or as a rigid, always-true pointing will mislead. If I talk about peace, or somebody talks about peace, and then that becomes something you learn to look for or orient around, it can create pain. You shared at the beginning that you were in the meditation trying to get to a certain kind of peace, and then there was pain.
The direction of trying to get to something that is either remembered or imagined means it is something you are not experiencing now. When you are wanting peace, it is because you are not experiencing it, so you are either imagining what it should be or remembering some past experience.
This kind of pain wasn't attached to any specific memory. It was just a body pain that I didn't want there. I didn't want to feel it. But it was happening.
And you did describe ending up in the direction of just being with it. That is the direction. Any peace that is true and real will not require the pain to go away. It will be a kind of resting, a peace within the pain, in the intimacy with what is, in the non-resisting of what is.
I resonate with that. At first I felt, "I don't want this. I can't handle this. It's too much." My mind was trying to create all these reasons not to be with it. My stomach was rumbling and it was not comfortable. But at some point something shifted and I was able to be with it as well as be with a sense of peace to a certain extent. The pain didn't go away, and I still didn't want it to be there. But I could be with it, a little.
Preference versus resistance
There is a natural preference, like preferring coffee instead of tea, or chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. But that is different from "this needs to be different, or I'm not okay."
And notice the thoughts you were describing: "I can't handle this, it's too much." Those are the thoughts of fear.
It's discomfort. Almost like really intense discomfort. I guess there's fear with that.
Very naturally, when we are in pain and the pain is rising, fear will rise with it. As we learn this intimacy with pain, it deactivates the fear, because we start to recognize: it has come and gone, come and gone, come and gone, and I'm still okay. That actually opens the door to feeling more and still being okay, to the point where very little takes you out of being okay.
At what point is it okay to say to myself, "This is too much. I'm not going to look at this right now"?
That's fine. You have to explore the wisdom of when to move with something, when to address it, when to set it aside. There is no hard rule. But watch your mind, and watch your temptation to rationalize and believe something that is not true.
A thought came up in the midst of the meditation: "Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I want to hurt myself?" It wasn't deliberate. It was a passing thought. But the experience transformed into something that was just a presence with the pain. I feel that at this time in my life I'm able to bear a lot more than I previously could.
The mind as an instrument of avoidance
That thought is the perfect kind of thought that can be tricky. If you have spent your life avoiding a certain kind of pain, the minute you start facing it, your mind is going to say, "Why are you doing this really dumb thing? Why are you torturing yourself? Why are you suddenly a masochist?"
If you look carefully, it is us using the mind. There is a lot of talk about the mind taking over and using us, but it is actually us using the mind. We are basically saying, "What can you tell me that will convince me to listen to fear?" And the mind is very creative. It will say, "You're becoming a masochist. Why are you doing this?" And you will think, "That's a pretty good reason to avoid this. Thank you very much for the idea, mind. You got me out of this one again."
It is us using the infinite capacity of the mind to either listen to fear or not. But it is tricky, because the opposite can also be true. We do have tendencies to create pain unnecessarily, and we need to see that as well. This is a process of shadow work, of understanding the deeper aspects of the psyche, the mind, the body. As we drop identification, it becomes more intense. We go deeper into what has been lurking and hiding subconsciously.
Lately it has been so fulfilling, so worth it, whatever comes. I've been doing new, very scary things in my life, scary for me. And I just feel like it is worth it. It is worth whatever happens.
Living is worth it.
Well, for a long time I didn't think that.