Practice is about finding balance and trying to bring things together. Our tendency is to be pulled into places. Usually, we go to the afflicted places that are calling for help. They want our attention because they want to be cured. Whether they are physical, mental, emotional, or a life situation, the wise and difficult thing to do is not to go into it.
It’s not about denying the pain; it’s just that you lose sight of the wider picture if you go into it. Wholeness. You go into the fragment and get lost in it. The fragmented split feels like your whole world because it fills your attention. But it’s not wholeness. When you give more attention, it is recreated with power and energy.
Attention has a strengthening quality. Whatever you put your energy into is heightened and energised. You bring more power to it. When we become the pain, we also become all the energies that resist and fight it, struggle with it, and feel overwhelmed by it.
We don’t want to ignore the pain or deny it but objectify it. It’s a bit like going to the doctor. The doctor looks at your wound objectively to find the cause and give a prescription. The Doctor doesn’t go into the pain and become lost in it.
So, how do you work with pain?
Sometimes, the wisest thing to do is to say, “This is too much right now.” I need to rest, go for a walk, or do whatever skillfully takes my attention away from the pain rather than get overwhelmed or locked in a cycle of pain.
In our practice, we can learn how to use our attention skillfully by widening it to include both pain and non-pain. We are aware of the pain, but we don’t fix on it. Instead, we hold the entirety by being aware of the whole body, the space around us and the ground. By widening our awareness, we hold the wholeness rather than the fragmented part. That way, we can hear the voice of pain and allow it to speak while keeping awareness open and wide. It’s like we feel and don’t feel. We feel just enough to know what’s happening. We listen to the voices and let them speak but don’t attend to them.
We stand on the edge of pain without getting pulled into it.