Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Bad Back

I have been given the opportunity, alas, to observe pain in the most personal of ways: I'm suffering it. The lower back spasm that started a couple of days ago has developed into the worst episode of this kind I have experienced in quite a long time.

It is, to say the least, a distraction. I was a first-hand witness to the way in which the mind grabs hold of pain during my meditation this morning. I chose to lie prone, rather than to sit, with the intention of starting out with my usual practice of metta, wishing goodwill to myself, my family, my friends, the world at large... Easier, this morning, said than done. The mind had its wonderful new distraction to keep it busy whilst I tried to quiet it down. In the end, I let it have its way, and allowed it to settle on the area of the pain itself and the way in which it radiated out from its center in my lower back. I found--not for the first time--that becoming the observer of the pain allows me to dissociate from it: I find myself watching it, like a sympathetic third party, rather than suffering from it in the first person, as its victim.

This, it seems to me, is one of the great teachings of Buddhism--and not an easy one to put into practice: "This is not me, this is not mine, this is not who I am." If I'm able to break the attachment to my pain for even a few moments at a time during meditation and experience release, surely the recognition of the efficacy of this strategy will serve as a model, in the regular course of my life, for situations in which I stubbornly prolong pain by clinging to it.

The theory makes it look simple; it's the translation of theory into practice that's hard. I don't know about you, but I too often succumb to those old mental patterns that scream: I hurt. What is it that attaches me to something that I so heartily dislike? It has to be precisely that that need to be "me," to be that person who happens to be suffering, to allow the suffering--however short-lived--to define me for the course of its duration. So I try breathing, watching, dissociating: This is not me, this is not mine, this is not who I am.

2 comments:

hele said...

i had a similar experience this afternoon. walking through an autumn golden grass-field, i found myself agonizing over a test I just wrote and will probably fail. As the test was on climatology the beautiful fat clouds turned into nothing but a reminder of my inability to grasp this subject.

then i said to myself. so this is what it feels like to fail. and i allowed myself to truly feel the feeling. just sit in it. not a great feeling but not so bad either.

slowly i can therefore let go of the fear of failure that often holds me back from learning new things.

and as a reward a whole path of red reflected sun suddenly manifested on the dancing grasses.

They call him James Ure said...

You said:

. I found--not for the first time--that becoming the observer of the pain allows me to dissociate from it: I find myself watching it, like a sympathetic third party, rather than suffering from it in the first person, as its victim.This kind of meditation helps me deal with my depression, paranoia and especially anxiety that comes with my mental disorder.

You're right that it is an important aspect to Buddhism--If not the keystone. But then that would be favoring one thing over another. It's all essential but let third person observation is so helpful.