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So, last week­end was our first Med­i­ta­tion Retreat. As you can see, above, we’re doing another the end of May. I’m heart­ened to note that half of the spots were taken in 2 days.

I want to tell you a bit about the work­shop just past.

The idea that Dar­bella and I had was to take all of the work we’ve been doing with injured work­ers and trans­late it into both a web­site and an ongo­ing pro­gram. The twist is that we think that this project is just per­fect for any­one who wants to deepen their per­spec­tive on life and self.

In other words, what we do is applic­a­ble to every­one who is want­ing to ded­i­cate a bit of energy into self-responsible exploration.

The week­end con­sisted of peri­ods of sit­ting med­i­ta­tion (Zazen — decid­edly from a Zen per­spec­tive,) Qi Gong and stretch­ing, a period of active med­i­ta­tion, which uses dance, and dia­logue. We had as a dia­logue frame­work look­ing at where we are with our lives and plot­ting strate­gies to move for­ward from there, but the con­ver­sa­tion shifted to com­mu­ni­ca­tion, how to relate, and how to truly lis­ten to oth­ers and self. And there were trails to walk dur­ing abun­dant free time, as well as our nor­mal, excel­lent food.

Once Dar and I real­ized that this for­mat was inter­est­ing to folk, we decided to do it again, and the only thing we’re chang­ing is the dis­cus­sion topic. The remain­ing struc­ture of stretch­ing and Qi Gong, and peri­ods of sit­ting med­i­ta­tion, remain the same. I sus­pect that as we carry on with these (assum­ing we’re in Canada — not nec­es­sar­ily a strong assump­tion any more…) this will form the core of these week­ends, and var­i­ous and sundry top­ics will emerge.

The May week­end is titled, “Suf­fer­ing, and the End of Suf­fer­ing — A Week­end Mind­ful­ness & Med­i­ta­tion Retreat.” I picked this topic as it’s near and dear to my heart, and part of what I’m endeav­our­ing to con­vey to the Injured Work­ers in our Mind­ful­ness group. The very first week, I said to them,

“Through­out the next weeks, I want you to under­stand one thing. Pain is a part of liv­ing. Suf­fer­ing is optional.”

I want to unpack this a bit, and offer you some experiments.

The insight that led to the Buddha’s awak­en­ing was the real­iza­tion of the trou­ble we cause our­selves by our uncon­scious liv­ing. This is demon­strated by how often we are run­ning on auto-pilot, unaware of what we are say­ing or doing. The say­ing and doing, actu­ally, are not really the issue. It’s the auto-pilot that causes us to piss our lives away, as if caught in a dream.

The First Step

Zazen, or sit­ting med­i­ta­tion, is not a means to an end. It is the begin­ning, the way, and the end. I say this to work past the par­tic­u­larly West­ern habit of demand­ing to know “What’s in it for me?” Many peo­ple want to know where med­i­ta­tion will lead, and then to find some short­cut to actu­ally sit­ting there. They end up with a great, the­o­ret­i­cal practice!

Med­i­ta­tion causes us to see, likely for the first time, the work­ings of our body and mind. As we “just sit there,” it becomes painfully appar­ent that our minds never shut up. Med­i­ta­tion is not about an empty mind — that is impos­si­ble — but rather helps us to learn to let go of our mind’s games.

Here’s how it works.

I have a dicey lower back. Knock wood, I haven’t thrown it out in a long time, but let me tell you, I’ve been flat on the floor, in spasms, unable to get up, more often than I can count.

I there­fore pay atten­tion to my lower back, lift things care­fully, brac­ing myself when I sneeze and cough, etc.

Dar and I have been doing Iyen­gar Yoga for 5–6 years now, and are mov­ing along in our abil­i­ties. I still notice that my lower back is tight and sore a lot, and my ham­strings are only now yield­ing and stretch­ing a bit.

Well, last night was yoga night, and our delight­ful yoga instruc­tor, Fay Gascho, ended the night with two rather inter­est­ing backbends.

I was in a bit of dis­com­fort while in the pos­tures, and then I came out.

Both times, I got 50% out, and my lower back grabbed, crack­led like fire­works, and twinged.

Here comes the point.

What I felt was a pain. A trig­ger­ing, warn­ing shot across the bow, so to speak. Because I spend time pay­ing atten­tion to myself, I noticed two things simul­ta­ne­ously, and then added in a third.

First, I noticed the “grab.” (Noticed the body sen­sa­tion of “pre-pain.”)

Sec­ond, almost imme­di­ately, my mind kicked in, thusly, “Holy crap! Your back just blew out! You’re going to be on the floor, you’ll never get up again! Get out of this pose, now!” The last thought was (or could have been) the killer.

From past expe­ri­ence, I “know” that if I had just crashed down to the floor, in all like­li­hood, my back would have been a mess.

So, in other words, every­thing my mind was telling me was “suf­fer­ing talk” designed to take me exactly where I did not want to go. My mind “just knew” that my back was toast, and was scream­ing at me to drop to the floor.

Here’s the third part, which I added on: I heard the inter­nal voice, smiled, and pushed back up into the pose. Why? Because my back wasn’t hurt­ing in the pose. It was hurt­ing as I came out! If I had rushed out of the pose, odds are I’d have com­pounded the problem.

I then, very slowly, (much slower than the first time) low­ered myself to the floor.

Result? I laid there, wig­gled my butt around, and low and behold, noth­ing. Today, more noth­ing. The mus­cles of my lower back feel sore — like they’ve been exer­cised. I did my morn­ing stretches and Qi Gong, and sat Zazen, with not much pain. And no suffering.

Now, get this: had I lis­tened to the bab­bling of my mind, I might just have ended up with a back issue. Had I over-reacted, I might have ended up where I did not want to be. My mind, true to itself, tried to get me to over-react and to repeat behav­iour that, in the past, had got­ten me into trouble.

If I had just done what my mind wanted, who knows how I’d be today.

If you think about all of the arti­cles I’ve writ­ten, you’ll get the essence of this. We keep doing dumb stuff because we take the bab­bling of our minds seri­ously. Clients con­di­tion them­selves to blame oth­ers for their pain, and end up mak­ing mat­ters worse. Their minds tell them to blame, and they blurt out words in keep­ing with blame. In the past, the sit­u­a­tion gets worse, so, like lem­mings, they run right off the same cliff again.

You have to fully grasp that the sto­ries our minds pop up for us are not true! They are not accu­rate! They are not even par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing. All they are is rep­e­ti­tious, and designed to cause suffering.

Now, you might won­der why our minds would want us to suf­fer. But this is not a help­ful ques­tion. Enough that this is what hap­pens. Our minds are not sat­is­fied with “what is” — they’d rather bitch, moan and com­plain that things should be dif­fer­ent. Except that they never pro­pose an alter­na­tive, and sim­ply encour­age us to do again what never has worked.

So, back to “half out of the yoga pose.”

At the point of the “grab and crunch,” a fork appeared in my road. I could lis­ten to the story my mind was shov­el­ing, force my back down, and prove my mind right. Or, I could pause, turn my atten­tion away from the chat­ter, and have a chat with my lower back.

In the choice to pause, and ask my body, I heard another, dis­tinct, wise voice (of my body? Hmm. maybe. Dis­tinct, though, and dif­fer­ent…) say­ing, “Stop right here. Hold. Now, go back up a bit into the pose, until the grab goes away. Good. NOW, come down, slowly, wig­gle and check.”

If you com­pare the two voices (tough, since I’m writ­ing…) the first, mind voice, was all scream-y and dra­matic, hard done by, and just aching to prove that I was going to be suf­fer­ing, and soon. The other voice was calm, rea­son­able, and invited me to exper­i­ment with myself in a calm and col­lected way, and then to judge actual results, with­out drama.

Exer­cise: Pay atten­tion to the work­ings of your mind. If you refuse to do this, you are doomed to be a suf­fer­ing, unhappy, non-present drama queen until you die. If you choose to shift (in addi­tion to sit­ting Zazen, 20 –25 min­utes a day…) do this:

Lis­ten in on your mind. For exam­ple, you may say aloud or to your­self, “What a lovely day.” Imme­di­ately after, say, “This is my mind, describ­ing how I per­ceive the day.” Or, short­hand, “Me, talk­ing to myself.”

In dia­log, you might notice your­self think­ing “How dare she talk like that! Tell her what a jerk she is!” Stop. Breathe. Say to your­self, “Me, hav­ing judge­men­tal thoughts.” Then, try ask­ing ques­tions instead of blaming.

In com­ing arti­cles, I’ll talk more about this process, but for now, remem­ber. The fre­netic, dra­matic voice your mind pro­duces is basi­cally full of crap. It prat­tles on, about how spe­cial you are, about how every­one should treat you as impor­tant, about how hard done by you are. It wants more of the good stuff, rejects the bad stuff, and clings to its sto­ries like a ter­rier on a bone. This voice is not you, is not accu­rate, and leads you, repeat­edly, into deep water.

In order to come to terms with this voice, and thus to put it in its place, you must learn
a) to hear it, and
b) to ignore it’s stupidities.

Then, with a breath and a bit of mind­ful­ness, another path will occur to you.

And this, the path less trav­eled by, makes all the dif­fer­ence. (with thanks to Robert Frost.)

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

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Related posts:

1. Self Respon­si­bil­ity as a Life Focus
2. The Dance of Mind and Body
3. 6 Ideas for Zen Mind
4. Mind Movies
5. Body, Mind, and Spirit in Balance

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Tagged with: alternative medicine • buddhist meditation • human behavior • Iyengar • meditation • meditation retreat • meditation retreats • Mind • mind-body interventions • mindfulness • mindfulness meditation • Pain • qi gong • self • spiritual practice • spirituality • suffering • zazen

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