Image Courtesy of Fred Seibert on Flickr
Let’s face it, no one likes pain...well some people do, but only in specific situations and for specific reasons. But can pain be something to learn from? As my kung fu instructor was fond of saying, “Pain is a wonderful teacher, but no one wants to go to his class.” Want to learn that something is hot? Burning your hand is a quick way to make sure you don’t do that again. I was actually playing rugby once and got kicked in the head on the bottom of a ruck. When I mentioned this to my coach, he laughed and said that was a not so subtle hint not to be there next time. So why am I talking about all this here and now?
Believe it or not, and if you’ve been sitting for any length of time, you believe it, zazen can be the source of more than a little pain and discomfort. If you really pay attention to your everyday activities, you’ll notice that you don’t sit still very long. Or at least not perfectly still very long. Even when you’re just lounging on the couch, you still move and adjust from time to time. Foot falling asleep. Move it. Hip a little sore. Adjust. In zazen, we are going against that natural tendency to adjust at the first sign of discomfort. But why? Why do we sit so perfectly still that our bodies begin to rebel? Why not scratch every itch and move at every ache? Doesn’t sitting only until your legs get sore make way more sense?
By remaining perfectly still, we allow the body to settle and since in Zen we don’t separate the mind from the body, the mind settles as well. It’s like the glitter in a glitter jar. Once you stop shaking the jar and set it down, the jar settles, the water settles, and the glitter settles. But this is only one of the myriad lessons that sitting perfectly still teaches us. Another is about the nature of pain and the nature of the mind.
Pain is the body’s way of telling you something is wrong. That’s its job. Hey you driving the bus. There’s something you should come take a look at. So far so good. But it doesn’t stop there. Our thinking mind notices the pain as well and starts adding its own commentary to the story. Suddenly, it’s no longer just an itch on your face, but something that will surely drive you mad. Is there a spider crawling on my neck? What if my foot falls so asleep that it has to be amputated? Is that even possible? On and on the mind goes with its stories, thoughts, and comments.
From my perspective, there are a few things going on here worth looking at. The first is the fact that your mind is just plain bored. Think about meditation really honestly and you’ll find that a certain level of boredom is always present and absolutely necessary. We spend so much time avoiding being bored that it can seem almost overwhelming when we just sit still and stair at a wall. So, deprived of other more interesting things, the mind latches onto the pain and uses it to occupy itself.
It’s also worth pointing out that the mind tends to rebel against sensations that it has labeled as bad. We suffer when we are in pain because it goes against what we feel we should be feeling. We don’t like being uncomfortable and so we fight against it. As I write this, I have a massive sinus headache. If I focus on how much I wish my head didn’t hurt, I suffer because my head does hurt and that runs against what I really want which is to not hurt. But, if I instead release my attachment to how I think I should be feeling, it doesn’t hurt so much. A headache might still be an uncomfortable sensation, but I’m not adding the suffering to it by wanting my current state to be something other than it is. As the coffee mugs say, “Pain is inevitable, Suffering is optional.”
Another interesting thing that pain does for us during meditation is bring us back to the present moment. Try ignoring an uncomfortable leg or a twinge in your back. You’ll find that no matter how hard you try to not pay attention, the nagging sensation demands attention and while you’re noticing it, you’re not off somewhere else fantasizing or planning or whatever else.
A quick note of caution. As I mentioned above, pain is the body’s way of telling you something is amiss. Sharp pain especially can be a sign of something major. And believe it or not, people have injured themselves by sitting through immense pain during meditation. This is rather atypical and generally only happens in extreme cases. One major cause of injury from sitting is trying to sit full or half lotus when your hips are too tight. The rotation necessary for these postures comes from the hips, not the knees. So if you feel any knee pain, you should adjust your posture. Also remember that there is a difference between discomfort and pain or as my old football coach used to say, there’s a difference between being hurt and being injured.
Once we begin to really examine the sensations in our body, both good and bad, we can start letting them be what they are going to be without adding any additional mental noise to them. We let go of our stories about how things ought to be or that this feeling is good and this one is bad. Everything is just a part of the tapestry of our lives. The good, the bad, and the ugly. All go together to make up the life we live. So resist scratching that itch or adjusting that leg and instead see your life as it is in that moment of discomfort.
Gassho,
Daishin
