Pain

On this last retreat for the summer we explored pain meditation.

It wasn't a meditation that I would have chosen because I hate pain. I avoid it. I have never seen a purpose for it.  In that way I suppose I am normal. I'm also quite fortunate because I'm basically healthy and have never had to experience a lot of pain, or live with someone who is in pain.  And I live in a society that has an entire industry devoted to numbing, managing, getting rid of pain. So it would never occur to me, on my own, to find something positive in pain.

But as Mingyur Rinpoche points out, pain is energy and awareness. Pain brings us immediately into the present. Presence is effortless as long as we have pain, because the mind focusses easily on pain.

If we let it. But so much of our suffering is built on aversion to pain. So much of my suffering is built on aversion to pain. And that is a legacy that Ben is already learning.

On the way to the retreat I did a breathing meditation on the bus, just watching my breath and feeling it as awareness in itself.  And I had a moment where pure awareness was interrupting monkey mind. Minjur says that I'm on the cusp of higher awareness and what I should do when I feel that is to try to extend it. And also to notice the fear that takes me out of it.  Because in the same way that I avoid pain, I also avoid awakening, pure awareness and the loss of control.

Meditating on pain seems to me just the flip side of meditating in emptiness, bliss and timeless awareness. The better you get at one, the better you get at the other. Maybe I'm more able to face pain now that I'm finding it a little easier to feel a life free of suffering and pain.

Hatred is another kind of pain and at the end of this morning's meditation I felt that familiar self hatred, and remembered how much of my life has been spent steeped in hatred. If I am able to break down my resistance to feeling and letting go of pain, then I will be better prepared to feel and finally let go of all that hatred.

Non-meditation meditation

Having a month of intensive retreats as I get ready for summer.

Since the silent retreat I've been trying to meditate an hour before sleep and an hour on waking. When I get this intense I easily forget the most important teaching.  The one that brought me to Tergar in the first place. The importance of non-meditation.

The skill of simply resting in open awareness becomes the skill of simply resting in pure awareness. Being able to just be beyond concept, knowing that this pure awareness is capable of creating its own insight without my efforts. This is as Mingyur Rinpoche says "the best meditation."

That effortlessness is then something that I can bring in to everything that I do, running, cleaning, eating.  All the things that I want to be able to be present in.

All I need to do is become conscious when monkey mind is taking over. And then rest in monkey mind even. Because monkey mind is the best object of meditation.

Silent Retreat

This weekend I did my first silent retreat. With three other people, and the retreat director, I lived in silence for 20 hours, no eye contact, no words, beyond some talks by Mingyur Rinpoche. We went to sleep at 10 p.m. and woke to a 5 o'clock gong. Doing an hour and a half of meditation before breakfast.

The single most important insight I had this weekend was an instruction Rinpoche gave to us at the outset, pay attention to our motivation.  So many times I caught myself meditating because I wanted the cool experience, meditating because I wanted to see myself as an exceptional meditator. meditating because I wanted to be, or think of myself as enlightened.

But my motivation is to be happy and free and suffering, and to help Ben, my family and everyone that I can possibly help to have peace and joy as well.

I thought that as I go to deeper levels of meditation that I would be confronting my most painful memories or feelings. But I realized that the most "important" feelings in my life were really the trigger feelings: the irritation, the boredom, the dissatisfaction. The impatience.

The impatience to be enlightened, to be free.

That impatience is probably in many ways the biggest block.  It's why I don't want to face the dullness and pain that an hour every morning would bring. Because I would have to face that I'm not actually as far as I think I am.

And of course I would have to face that to really be liberated from dullness of mind and suffering, I'm going to have to do an hour of meditation every morning on rising.  Every day for the rest of my life.

Happiness and The Causes of Happiness

Last week I started working on compassion.  But I think this week I will focus on loving kindness. It's easier to be generous to yourself and to others when you're happy, than when you're feeling depleted and driven by suffering.

May I have happiness and the causes of happiness.

What are the causes of happiness?

One a firmly rooted aspiration to be happy.
A strong meditation practice.
The recognition of emptiness.

This week, I keep it simple.

Suffering and the Causes of Suffering

Yesterday I did a mini-retreat at Tergar.

We did more talking than meditating. But we flirted with the possibility of doing a silent retreat, a Friday overnight and all day Saturday until dinnertime.

In our last meditation session, we recited the compassion and loving kindness mantras:

May I be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. 

May I have happiness and the causes of happiness. 

I realized that while I was feeling the desire to be free of suffering, I was feeling a certain numbness when I thought of the causes of suffering. When I brought this up Minjur leapt on it. Breaking through to a clear understanding of the causes of suffering is a tipping point. Though she clearly stressed the mental causes, over the external causes.

Earlier in the day Johann gave us each a gift. A prayer Mala.

This week I will use it often, praying to be free of the causes of suffering. Praying to be conscious of them and free of them.