Mindful awareness, that’s all it takes….to exist with
equanimity, to find our true self and our right journey…..that’s all…hmmmmmm…
Yet this seemingly small thing is a gigantic responsibility!
What does it really mean to be fully aware….take for instance a small
inconvenience I am experiencing at the moment, the pain of a frozen shoulder….you
might think that it would be easier to not engage with this pain, to try to
stamp it out of my consciousness as it were….yet I have never before been so
fully aware of my shoulder…I am mindful of its movement, its nuances and its
responses in a way I never have been able to up until now. As a consequence I am
more mindful of my body as a whole, its responses to various stimuli, its capabilities
and its restrictions. This small ‘suffering’ is allowing me to be more aware of
myself and my interactions with the external world! In this way I am more
compassionate to others with pain and I am more aware of when and where there
is no pain and how good this feels. To be fully aware or mindful is to be conscious
without judgment of all the gradations of humanity or individuality, to all the
aspects of being human. Whether our suffering is physical, mental, emotional or
circumstantial, to try to deny it, grapple with it or fight it, can be counterproductive…this
in a sense creates a new kind of suffering, sometimes bitterness, anger, even
hatred or despair develop as a result of this. Equanimity, happiness, do not
arise because everything is perfect…they arise because we of how we approach
our life as it is, how aware we are of our moments and how comfortably we deal
with them. That is not to say that we should then just expect suffering as the
norm, do nothing to alleviate the unnecessary suffering of ourselves or others
when this is possible or just plain give up and give in! It is to say that we
should be aware of something as it is and give it the space and pathway to
transform itself into something else as change will always be a constant….so we
should not fight pain or suffering, be angry with it, fall apart because of it,
rather we should understand it, find solutions to it and be ‘supple with it’. The
Dalai Lama says that having a supple mind allows us to be fully alive and
human. A supple mind can take in the big picture and all the little individual
elements of it at the same time. This puts reasonable perspective back into our
awareness. It allows non- judgement of a situation or an individual, puts compassion
and sensitivity into our responses and helps us find more equitable courses of
action.
Mindfulness practice is the refinement of an ability to pay deliberate
attention to our internal and external experiences from moment to moment in an
open, inquisitive way that leaves judgment aside. Relating compassionately to
life in this way and learning to direct (and re-direct) our attention towards
the present moment allows for greater access to our own powerful resources for
intuition, insight, creativity and healing. Within the practice of mindfulness, thoughts
and feelings are observed without over-identifying with them and certainly without
reacting to them in an unconscious, habitual pattern of reactivity. This
non-elaborative state of self-observation allows for a ‘space’ between one’s
perceptions and one’s responses. In this way, mindfulness practices help us to respond
thoughtfully to situations instead of reacting to them based on conditioned
habits or reflexes.
Being mindful or aware
is a day to day, moment by moment thing. Don’t get me wrong, meditation helps
and focuses our attention to mindfulness, but it’s the everyday moment by
moment attitude that makes mindfulness a living thing!
So back to my personal
physical experience with pain….how does being aware help?? To start with I am
notb looking at it as an enemy outside of myself or as something attacking myself…I
see it as part of me right now and seek to understand it! This relaxes me more
than the tense attitude we take up when we consider a fight with an opponent of
some sort! Relaxing my mind and heart relaxes my body and this physically eases
the pain…my shoulder releases and lets go! I am not blaming myself for the pain
or expecting that I can be something different right now…I don’t struggle with
myself…I recognise what I can and can’t do at this moment and make the most of
it! I can certainly meditate, write and enjoy relaxing in the sun…I am reading
more and walking more because this exercise is easy on me…I am noticing my
surroundings more as a bonus! I am not being annoyed or angry that I cannot
scrub the floor or shower, hang out the washing or lift heavy things, I am graciously
allowing others to do it for me at the moment and I am learning to literally share
the load…I needed this lesson!! I am
learning to be comfortable in my body!
Negative thoughts drive negative feelings, which can
sensitise our nervous system and increase our pain. Thinking very negatively
about pain, or what psychologists call ‘pain catastrophising’, is one of the
strongest predictors that short-term acute pain will become longer-term
persistent pain. Mindfulness can reduce these negative thoughts because it
changes our relationship to thinking itself. We start to see thoughts as just
‘mental events’ rather than facts and this lessens their impact. This is also important
in treating the upsetting emotional effects of pain and disability, such as
depression and anxiety.
When it comes to the suffering of others and how we react or
choose to respond to this, mindfulness of our own journey, our own suffering
and what this does to us as well as mindfulness of how others actions affect us
and our world, allows for us to cultivate
understanding and compassion, determine to come home to ourselves when
considering others; to recognize, accept, embrace and listen to our own
suffering knowing that we can only find the path leading to the transformation
of suffering when we understand the roots of suffering. Once we have understood
our own suffering, we are more able to understand the suffering of others. We
are committed to finding ways to help them transform their suffering into
compassion, peace and joy.
When we
fight with ourselves and our pain, when we struggle against our pain we
experience more pain….likewise when we fight with others because of their
actions or reactions, when we struggle against them, we cause more pain and
suffering. This space we give ourselves
to reflectively respond, lets us learn better ways to work for the well-being
of people, animals, plants and minerals and practice generosity by sharing our
time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. We will learn
when to ask for help and when to give it! We will see when our actions cause unnecessary
suffering and when we can choose to change those actions, we will want to give
every sentient being the same opportunity to smell the roses, sleep peacefully
and embrace their full potential as we give ourselves, because we know how it feels
to be in pain and we know that we can be mindful. We know we have choice!
To be free
of suffering, first we must learn to accept it, understand it and honour it for
what it brings us. (I recall the excruciating pain of giving birth quite well…and
I am grateful for the wonderful children that process has given me, I am also
grateful for the strength I have discovered within myself in that process of
birth and mothering! I would not forgo that pain; it was my true initiation into
the joy of life! )
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