Enough!: A Buddhist Approach to Finding Release From Addictive Patterns by Chonyi Taylor

Author:Chonyi Taylor
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781559393447
Publisher: Snow Lion
Published: 2010-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

Meditation 8: I Am Not My Pain

When pain becomes overwhelming, we feel as if we are nothing but pain: it will always be there. If we reflect, then we find that this is not true. Sometimes it feels bad and at other times it is not so bad. If we have done the breathing and relaxing exercises from Chapter 2, then we have, for that time, distracted our mind from the pain and so felt some relief. Now we meditate specifically to dissociate ourselves from pain. This is an analytical meditation. We think about the logic, and then stay with the implications of what we have thought out.

If I am not my pain, then I can separate my pain from my emotions. I do not need to be irritable or depressed just because I am in pain.

Melbourne is constantly changing. I am constantly changing. Just as there is no one building that can be called “Melbourne,” there is no one part of “me” that can be called “me.” I can correctly label my body and mind as “me” and yet I cannot identify any one part as “me.” If no one part of me is “me,” then my pain is not “me.”

Motivation

Once again we think about our personal reason for doing the meditation. This time we also try to see how our own agenda can also benefit other people. We then put this into our own words and keep it firmly in our mind. Our motivation might be: “I do not like being in pain and I need some relief from this. Even a small moment of relief will give me some space to see my life in perspective and this will be helpful for myself and the people around me.”

Tuning in to pure compassionate wisdom

This is an important part of your meditation. It corresponds to the reliance on a Higher Power used in the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. As we rest in this pure compassionate wisdom, we allow ourselves to be guided by that energy,

The meditation

First think about various parts of your body. If your arm were cut off, would you still be you? What about your leg, or your ear? What if your heart were to be cut out? Then you would die. On the other hand, you can manage without a large part of your stomach.

Think: “My body is important to me. I could not exist without some of its essential elements. But is my body me?” Stay with this thought for a while.

Now contemplate your mind. If you lose your memory, are you still you? If you can no longer find your way home, are you still you? What about when you are asleep? Or knocked unconscious? Or drunk? What if you were afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease? Would you still be you?

Think: “My mind seems more essential to being ‘me’ than my body does. Still, I can do without some parts of my mind and still be ‘me.’ What is this ‘me’?” Pause to contemplate this idea.

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