As the years go by Im clearer about what essentially I am working on with the physical pain practice. It boils down to aversion and reactivity. I experience something I dislike in the form of physical pain, so I react with aversion - sometimes grossly, sometimes more subtly. It is as simple and destructive as that, and my moment-by-moment practice consists of trying to re-train this negative attitude and instil a more positive response. This is what we are all up against in life. I happen to have back pain that makes what Im up against very obvious, but we all have aspects of our lives that we find unpleasant - from the sharp pain & bitter loss of the death of a loved one to the milder frustrations of being stuck in a traffic jam on a winters day in a car without a heater. And we all have the basic tendency to push away what we dislike and thereby increase the experience of tightness and restriction - pulling tighter the densely woven layers of unhappiness. I was very fortunate to glimpse a more creative perspective in hospital all those years ago. My daily task ever since has been to transform my moment-by-moment reactions so that I can gradually cultivate a positive mental state even when my body is giving me trouble. We all have situations every day in which we cant make the pain disappear, and we will have them as long as we live in this unstable world. But in this very instability we can always find freedom in our responses. We can change our experience of pain - be it mental, physical or emotional - from a thing we recoil from, into a dynamic & fluid experience of the rising and falling moments of sensations within a broad and gentle awareness. Change comes slowly, imperceptibly, like building a mountain out of grains of sand. It is not easy. Sometimes I am shocked at how insistent and seemingly intractable the knee-jerk reactions are, how loud the voice in the middle of the night that says, I dont want this. But one thing that gives me heart is the confidence and strength that arises when I am able to meet what is happening with honesty - even if it is difficult - neither cutting off from the experience nor indulging in it, just letting it be there as a momentary experience that has space around it and choice within it.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 22:40:03 +0000
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