When I first started to meditate, I remember being afraid of the pain that I knew would arise from sitting. I don't think I had a way to look at the pain that created space for it. Instead, I tended to use focused method (like chanting) to block out the pain. I suppose in retrospect that this is a kind of misunderstanding of what the practice method is supposed to do, but at that time it had helped arouse the energy to keep going--not to mention enthusiasm. But it also created a tension within me, as though the aim of the practice were to get rid of certain undesirable states. If I proved unable to do so, the sitting meditation would feel like 'failure' to me, because I connected 'inability to bear pain' with failure itself.
In the recent months, I have switched my course. Instead of 'fearing' the bodily pains of meditation, I sometimes 'look forward' to how I can incorporate them into my awareness practice. It is as though my practice had turned upon itself and is acknowledging the origin of pain as coming from mind. I think that recently, I am trying to welcome the opportunity to work with the energies of pain, or painful situations.
In spite of all this, I believe I still have a long way to go in the daily practice and application of this principle. I believe that my tendency is to shy away from people and avoid risky situations where I might either be vulnerable or somehow responsible for people around me in some way. In consulting with Buddhist texts, I have come to realize that there are three approaches that might work well for me to help me overcome some of these tendencies. The first approach would be to reverse my tendency to become shy and withdrawn, by deliberately choosing the other's perspective, as I imagine it in my mind. The second approach would be to abide in my own feelings as much as possible, even if the emotions I am having with others might seem painful to me or even irrational. The third approach would to simply honor the totality of the experience as arising from the same source, the true mind. I would like to briefly explain these three methods.
I think I had first encountered the "reversal" approach in my reading of Shantideva's Way of Bodhisattva, where he counsels monastics to reverse their self-position and exchange self with others. I recently found the same approach in the writings of Western Buddhists, Joan Halifax and Caroline Brazier. Halifax, writing from the perspective of hospice caregivers, suggests an open-minded approach to receiving others as unique individuals, as well as "a mind of not-knowing." (Halifax, 2008, p.20). This may seem difficult, because my encounters with others invariably contain transference from previous, often unrelated encounters. From this perspective, it is also not helpful to 'fight' the memories coming from previous experience. Rather, it is to just recognize that the current experience is unknown, even though previous memories 'feel' familiar. By acknowledging that I am reacting to a residual memory and not the present state, I create a space where something new might happen between myself and others. Halifax also recommends that caregivers imagine every being as their mothers, in keeping with the Tibetan method of doing so (p.21). Imaginative reframing like this can help me go beyond my individual way of reacting to the world, and might help me imagine what it feels like to be someone else.
Caroline Brazier (2003) suggests an exercise where her clients loosen powerful, aversive emotions they might feel toward particular people, by speculating on what kinds of challenges and problems the other person might face in their daily life (see p.109). Looking at another person in this way can de-escalate tense or heightened reactions that one might feel. I guess this kind of comes back to seeing a person as a form of appreciation, rather than as a self-referencing. I find this would be painfully hard to do if I am strongly attached to someone else, because in that case, my relation to them would be based on these self-centered desires. If I find it difficult to appreciate a person on her or his own terms, I suppose that would be a sign of my own habitual energies getting in the way of seeing the person as they are.
The second perspective would be to simply learn to acquaint oneself with uncomfortable emotional energies, rather than trying to avoid them or turn them into something artificially pleasant. In his book Mind Beyond Death, Dzogchen Ponlop refers to this process as "befriending intense emotions". I love what he has to say here, so I quote this in full:
If we do not become familiar with our emotions, then we will always fear them--even more so in the bardos after death. It is like the fear we have of a stranger. When we do not know somebody, we tend to maintain a certain distance from them. We might be willing to have a formal conversation with the stranger, but we do not want to get too deeply involved. We do the same thing with our emotions. We do not really 'talk' with them because we do not really know them, an we prefer to maintain that distance in some cases. (p.42)
I would perhaps add to this insightful parallel between 'unfamiliar' emotions and 'strangers', by suggesting that strangers often become projections of my unwanted emotions. And I think the most unwanted emotions are fear of the unknown and loss of control, which the stranger ends up embodying for me. Encountering a stranger is like encountering a world of very new possibilities, where I may need to suspend my previous views of self, adopt new roles, or discard comfortable ways of being. If I can learn to sit with uncomfortable feelings, perhaps I can also abide in unknown social situations. And perhaps the two are inseparable on that front.
The third method is simply to see all experience as coming from the same source of mind. This approach goes beyond trying to conceptualize how I 'need' to feel about my feelings, or react to others, by suggesting that all these feelings and reactions are simply the mind's phenomena. This might be thought of as pointing to the mind nature that is in all phenomena. Through this perspective, there is simply no need for fear of other beings, as the fear is coming from my own thoughts and judgments. Being angry or afraid would then be like the left hand being afraid of the right because they are doing different things. I don't need to add to the arising feeling or try to make it better, as it is already part of the true and perfect mind.
Of the three approaches, I believe the third one is most familiar to me and perhaps the most direct. All the other approaches take a person in the direction of seeing that the thoughts are the source of one's vexations, not an 'outside awareness' independent of that mind you are experiencing now. But I do think that in many cases, the first two approaches can be skillful ways to reverse destructive emotions or feelings of isolation.
Brazier, Caroline (2003), Buddhist Psychology: Liberate Your Mind, Embrace Life. London: Constable and Robinson
Halifax, Joan (2008), Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Face of Death. Boston: Shambhala
Ponlop, Dongchen (2006), Mind Beyond Death. Ithaca: Snow Lion
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