Pain is a great, maybe our greatest teacher. I know that joy is the reward and the goal of meditation. But the reward and the goal is only achievable to the degree that we are able and willing to experience the pulses of pain that our nervous system has been designed to send out to us a million different ways every day.
Suffering, if I remember my Shinzen Young equation correctly is pain multiplied by resistance. The path of reducing our resistance to suffering is our way to peace, and to natural joy. But paradoxically, we can't get there is we're not open to pain.
Life wants us to feel a lot of different kinds of pain because our brain is also designed to reward diversity and complexity. And most importantly, it rewards the discovery of the true and most immediate source of pain.
For instance when I'm running and I feel pain or exhaustion, I might tell myself that the source of this pain is the running, when really the source might be poor posture, poor fitness, bad alignment. If I persist and get to the source to correct it, my reward is the tremendous joy and freedom of having a fit oxygen absorbing body. As I know, the rewards of that level of fitness are massive. New brain cells, a stronger heart, a sense of power and vitality. Endorphins!
I have to know that pain has a cause, each variety of pain has a cause, and I have to know that it is discoverable. And that because it's discoverable, I can be happy and happier than I am now.
