Being here: A Buddhist approach to pain
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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 night that says ” I don’t 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 it. Just letting it be there as a momentary experience that has space around it and choice within it.
It is said that when Atisa, a great Indian Buddhist teacher, went to Tibet to teach the Dharma he took his tea boy along with him because he found him so irritating and difficult to get along with. Atisa was concerned that he might not have enough irritants in Tibet and he wanted to maintain an edge in his practice. He wanted to see when he reacted and to release the energy tied up in those reactions. I am heartened by his story; it shows me how working with pain keeps me honest because the taste of aversion is never far away, so the opportunity to transform it is always nearby as well.
Say I am sitting with a friend in the sun. Yes, there is physical discomfort, but there is also the pleasure of being with a friend, the sensation of the sun, the awareness of the environment, feelings of love. It is interesting to see this. I think we often become miserable because we have an unwillingness to engage wholeheartedly with life as it is happening now and experience its freedom and abundance no matter what our immediate circumstances. The possibility of there being a spacious, beautiful quality to life is present in all circumstances for anybody. I am sure of this.
Another way of “using” personal suffering is to see it as a moment of empathy with others who are suffering. For me, this is the most tender and fascinating aspect of living with pain, and it goes to the heart of our shared humanity. When I have been able to stay in touch with my own suffering in the moment with a light and kindly touch, I have felt that I sink through the particulars of my own condition into an empathy with that which is universal. I feel in touch with all beings that suffer and I care deeply about them. We no longer feel so separate.
First published in ‘Dharma Life’, Winter 2000
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