Sitting with Pain You Don't Want
Sentarse con el dolor que no deseas
A student describes encountering unexpected pain during meditation while trying to reach a state of peacefulness, and the teacher explores the difference between avoiding pain and finding peace within it.
Sitting with Pain You Don't Want
A student describes encountering unexpected pain during meditation while trying to reach a state of peacefulness, and the teacher explores the difference between avoiding pain and finding peace within it.
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. There's an aching in my chest that I've been trying to avoid in every way I can. You mentioned in a prior conversation to notice whatever I could handle. It felt like I couldn't handle all of it, 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 speaking, there's a pain that's just the nature of life. We accumulate 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. Until that became more of a regular process, that was one aspect of learning, at the more human level, how to relate to what we feel and be in touch with it.
The different kinds of pain
Then there's another pain that can come up alongside the first. All of these pains can mix; they can arise together. There's a deeper longing for something, a sense that something's not right, which is actually a calling to wake up.
And then there is a pain that gets created by our misunderstanding of how this works, how the process of waking up works. I say a lot of things, other teachers say a lot of things, there are many pointings. All of those words, all of my words included, are just words. Any words taken as absolute truth or as a fixed, reliable pointing will mislead. For example, if I talk about peace and that becomes something you learn to look for, then the whole endeavor becomes oriented around reaching some idea of peace.
You shared that in the beginning of the meditation you were trying to get to a certain kind of peace, and then there was pain. The direction of trying to get to something is always reaching toward something either remembered or imagined. It's something you're not experiencing now. When you're wanting peace, it's because you're not experiencing it now, so you're either imagining what it should be or remembering some experience from the past.
This 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 the pain as well as be with a sense of peace to a certain extent. It wasn't taking the pain away, like you said, and I still didn't want it to be there. But I could be with it, a little.
Preference versus resistance
There's a natural preference, like preferring coffee instead of tea or chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. But that's different from "this needs to be different, or I'm not okay."
And that's where, for example, you were describing thoughts you were having: "I can't handle this, it's too much." If you notice, that's fear. Those are the thoughts of fear.
It's discomfort. Almost like feeling really intense discomfort. I guess there's fear with that.
Very naturally, when we're 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 the question of how much can I feel and still be okay, to the point where very little takes me 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 in that process: when to move with something, when to address it, when to say "not now, I'll do this later." There isn't any hard rule. But watch your mind, and watch your temptation to rationalize and believe something that isn't true.
I don't know if I actually did that. It was just a thought that came up in the middle of the meditation: "Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I want to hurt myself?" It wasn't me deliberately punishing myself. It was a passing thought. And then it 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's creative avoidance
That thought is the perfect kind of thought that is possibly tricky. If you've spent your life avoiding a certain kind of pain or a certain amount 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 masochistic?"
If you see clearly, it's us using the mind. There's a lot of talk about the mind taking over and using us, but it's actually us using the mind. It's basically saying, "What can you tell me that will convince me to listen to fear?" The mind is very creative. The mind is going to say, "You're becoming a masochist. Why are you doing this?" And you 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's us using the infinite capacity of the mind to either listen to fear or not. But it's tricky. The opposite could 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 and the body-mind and how they work. As we drop the identification, it becomes more intense. We go deeper into what has been lurking and hiding subconsciously.
It's just been feeling lately so fulfilling, so worth it. Whatever comes, I've been doing new things in my life that are very scary for me, and I feel like it is worth it. It's worth whatever happens.
Living is worth it.
Well, for a long time I didn't think that.