Pain and Meditation Practice Juliet Soopikian, MS, MFT For most people, including me the word PAIN – evoked an internal reaction similar to a holding on to or a contraction, tensing of the muscles and thoughts, accompanied by aversive negative emotion s. I never understood how some, with great sincerity and strong belief, say the one way to deal with pain is to become friend with it!!! i.e., “your pain is your friend.” For me pain is a physical phenomenon which, if any relations, I will treat as a guest. It is more like a physical phenomenon to which I give personal meaning. I may personalize it - my pain. I may identify with it - I am in pain. I may catastrophise it… with this pain there is nothing to live for or be happy with. I may become the victim of it and make pain the villain… this pain is killing me. What triggered my evaluation of my relationship with my pain was finding myself at a hospital bed, not being able to feel anything… twinges of pain were or became symbols of great news that I was not paralyzed, sharp pain signaled that I was alive. I was amazed at my new reaction and wanted to know more. I wanted to find a way to have this attitude, this state of mind all the time, even when I was not confined with such challenges… and that is how my journey started Meditative practices teach us the process of changing these relationships which we have habitually developed with pain. It teaches us the connection and the nature of anicca – change – and the present experience at the sensational level and not the mental and emotional reactivity. It teaches us to experience pain as it is happening and not an ever changing, all over the place, but pulsating, vibrating, cold, warm … experiences with various frequencies and intensity. It teaches us how there is more intensity or pressure at the center of what we call pain area. It teaches us how this pain can be a solidified sensation in one small area. It teaches us to see how by holding on to it, by recalling meanings or past memories, or being averse to it that we would actually make it worst than it is. It teaches us that how by not being aware of my mental process and being caught in my habitual relation with it, and I would find myself caught at its clause. When we are caught in such a cycle it gives our pain an illusion of being permanent and all over, taken over our lives. We over identify with it or even taken on the identity of being a patient. Our lives become about being ill, hyper vigilant and constantly complaining. Our mind has taken over our life and in the process of helping ourselves with our pain; we have become the pain… Meditative practices teach us how to get out of this cycle… Does this mean that we will not feel pain… I wish that were the case… the medical science and every hospital would be staffed with as many meditation teachers as doctors… As our concentration and awareness grow so dose our ability to observe our body mind activities as they arouse. The next step for me was to develop equanimity with what was happening at the moment and not desire any changes in the form of attachments or aversions. Once I experienced the equanimity – this state of acceptance with detachment at the physical level - all my aches and pains, mental storms in the form of meaning and stories attached to these pains, started to come out … It was easy and not easy to sit with my pain – the ups and downs were real, the hurts and tears were real, the fears and ambiguities were real and the frustrations and anger were real. The process was long … yet I was determined and there the process of clarification started… I had to accept that my physical condition was a lifetime diagnosis, with its inherent limitation, ups and downs. I had to accept how my life had change and still needed to be modified…The most difficult part of process was to accept the concept of anicca – change as a nature of everything. I had a difficulty accepting or seeing my experience of what appeared to be constant pain with the concept that everything is in constant state of change and that indeed nothing is constant… It was through a determined and disciplined daily practice that I arrived at the concept of anicca at the physical level – i.e. my sensations around the pain. Once I was able to truly observe and experience the varying degrees of my physical sensations, I realized that if I do not hold on to a specific sensation and when I kept moving my attention to different sensations as they arise, and not getting stuck in one spot, that what I called pain started to ease and over time devolve to subtle vibrations or contractions. Just being present with the pain without a judgment or evaluation, personalization or condemnation, is not an easy tasks but attainable. It s not something we can make happen, rather it is the end result of along process that once we start and stick to, we can reach. So our pain – physical, emotional, or mental is ours to investigate. Others can sympathize at best, yet no one is able to know our pain as we do and therefore no one can help up better than we can. That is why those of us with sever pain may experience frustrated state of mind when someone says, “I know what you are going through” – even if the other has experienced the exact same situation, one cannot truly say that I know your pain. So, others may give us guidelines and teaching and yet, it is only me who can truly help me with my pain. It is only me who can train my mind to look at the negatives that I bring in to my experience that over exaggerated my pain. It is only me that can train my mind to be present with the body mind activity as it is happening at this moment. Amazingly once we are open to the closer examination and evaluation of our experience of what we call pain, we would discover the difference in quality and intensity. As our situations changes so does our experience of pain. The leg cramps that woke us up so abruptly in the middle of the night is experienced as a sharp and more annoying than the leg cramps we experience sitting behind the computer pre occupied with our work or while watching T.V. So it is not only the actual physical experience that may vary, but also the circumstance and the different meaning that we may give the same physical phenomena. This dose not means that the pain will disappears forever or that I will not feel pain again. Rather, after training our mind, we will see pain not as positive or negative but what is. We aren’t the victim of it, rather, when it is present, and debilitation, we are realistic. We take care of ourselves by taking the necessary steps and then live the rest of our lives. When we are realistic our mind dose not attaches or avert from the experience. We are neither too close to the experience of pain and managing the pain or wanting to run away from it and denying it and therefore causing more harm to ourselves. And when we are present at the moment and realistic about what is, we can live easier and healthier lives.