Full Acceptance

 During the meditation retreat today, I noticed how the anxiety I had toward pain in my body was far more excessive than the sensation itself. And I wonder, from where does this anxiety arise? I think this anxiety has a lot to do with wanting to control something that may not necessarily be controllable in that moment. It might even be what Ernest Becker has described as the anxiety around the 'facticity' of the body. It seems that embodiment is something that is so unpredictable at times. According to Becker, maturity comes from being able to master certain kinds of situations which can make us feel more as individuals who have some power over their bodies and destinies. To be 'thrown' into a situation where the body is doing what we don't like is often a place of deep-seated anxiety. It is the anxiety of having something forced upon you which you may not necessarily have anticipated or hoped for.
   From the perspective of practice, I do find it helpful to see the anxiety as something quite different from the sensation itself. The anxiety has an emotional feel to it, a quality of comparing the present situation to something that is more ideal or less confining.  I also notice that anxiety has a cultural flavor to it--a sense that it is abnormal to experience certain kinds of sensations, and a way of stigmatizing these as bad. But much of what we consider unpleasant or pleasant is culturally based and defined. Here I am reminded of a video which shows babies tasting different kinds of foods. The looks on their faces is incredible and priceless. For one thing, babies don't have the cultural associations attached with ''trying something new" or 'getting out of the comfort zone'. Without these labels, a baby is somehow left with her or his own devices. It can be frightening to look at from an adult's perspective of wanting to somehow 'know' what one is going to experience. But I suppose that there are other ways to frame the experience of pain, not just as a harrowing one but an exciting exploration.
     I don't give up on this particular subject, because I do believe that pain has a unique spiritual presence. There is always a soulful reason for pain coming into one's life, and to think of pain in this way often leads to a more nuanced understanding of what it can do for people, which is to allow them to explore what full acceptance is about. When encountering pain, is there nothing to be done, or something that truly can be done? Answering these questions requires a kind of thick exploration of the emotional judgments around pain.


Ling, Trevor (1976), The Buddha: Buddhist Civilization in India and Ceylon. London: Penguin Books.