Coming To Rest

*Republished from my personal blog.

One of the challenges I routinely face is living with the effects of a painful medical condition. I should point out that my condition is not related to misfiring neurons causing a perception of pain with no external stimulus. There is a physical trigger and thus the pain itself is a physiological and completely normal response to what is going on internally. Pain is a biological necessity for our survival, either directing us away from an external source to prevent further harm or slowing us down in order to heal from infection or injury. It’s what I do with my mind in the midst of the symptoms, however, that leads to the greatest suffering.

There have been a few occasions where the pain has been severe enough to cause me to black out. Despite how that statement may seem, I actually have a very high pain threshold. I have broken five bones, dislocated my shoulder, and gotten cut clear down to the clavicle. Not only did I not pass out from those injuries, I also didn’t seek immediate medical attention because they didn’t hurt “too badly.” So when an internal malady hurts enough to put me into clinical shock it’s not something that I treat lightly. I expend a lot of effort to reduce the occurrence and severity of my symptoms with as little reliance on medication as possible. Still, it is very difficult at times to not get caught up in telling myself how much it hurts when my symptoms flare.

Most people I know have had at least one experience with severe, acute pain. While in the middle of it, it might seem like the worst thing they’ve ever felt and that it will never end. The thing with acute pain, though, is that it does eventually subside. The sensation of how awful it was fades with the dispersal of the symptoms and the person carries on. I have no doubt that this will sound familiar. Whether it was a toothache, sinus infection, or traumatic injury, most people can relate to that experience of hurting so much that they ceased to focus on anything other than the pain. My condition is a mix of acute and chronic responses. There is a short period of strong physiological reaction followed by longer periods of “background noise” pain levels and lesser spikes. The bare reality of my experience is that I am almost always in some degree of physical pain.

I have lived with this for over half my life. The mental constructs are powerful and can be anything from being convinced that the pain will kill me to feeling as though I have been singled out for punishment by some divine force. The most effective way I have found to work with my condition is to move into the pain rather than separate myself from it through these mental stories. I know that sounds counter-intuitive. I did mention before that moving away from pain is a normal biological mechanism. It’s hard-wired self-preservation and it takes a lot of time, energy, and discipline to change that instinctive reaction. Fortunately I have had direction in this process.

I have been practicing meditation in some form or another since the early nineties, but in 2007 I started practicing with a group that has access to various teachers. This same group also periodically hosts meditation-intensive retreats. They’re done with the understanding that you’re committing to the entire time period (true emergencies being the exception). They’re also conducted in silence except for when participants meet individually with the teacher to work with their practice. It was only a matter of time before I wound up with a flare while attending one of these events, and so it was that when it was my turn to meet with the teacher, the issue that arose was that of trying to meditate in spite of pain.

This particular teacher has the capacity to be very sharp, cutting straight to the heart of the matter and deconstructing a student’s ego in the process. I expected a terse retort and a stern pointing to the fundamentals. What I received instead was an almost overwhelming softness. I know that when I feel like I did that day it is apparent to keen observers. The teacher saw just how much I was suffering and skillfully pointed me towards what I was doing with my mind. Under their guidance I spent the next two days focusing on the point of origin when the pain intensified. I had been pointed towards being with pain just as it is instead of trying to work around my idea of that pain.

In the past if someone had told me that my condition could be used as a way to release me from suffering, I either would have cussed at them or laughed. Maybe even both. I had already been taught that when pain arises repeatedly in meditation that I should shift my attention from the breath to that pain, but it took me actually being in a flare and working with a teacher for that lesson to sink in. Prior to that day I had always treated “being with pain” as letting my thoughts about it come and go. The practice of just feeling what was going on was completely different. It changed how I experienced the sensation. That doesn’t mean I stopped hurting. It just means I stopped turning it into something bigger.

Getting caught in my stories is exhausting, but it is also how I have lived for much of my life. I still have many days where those tales win out and I’m engaging in being miserable. This whole thing is a process that, if I am fortunate, I will be able to continue to refine for many years to come. The biggest impact of that teaching is that I am able to settle in uncomfortable spaces. I can be honest about how I am feeling in a way that was inaccessible to me before. It’s nice to get a break from the narrative. It’s nice to come to rest in my own body without excluding any portion of what I feel. That is a rare and precious treasure.