Diving Deeply

 There is something really paradoxical about pain. It's a little bit like pushing a finger through a fabric or perhaps a tissue. In the beginning, there is a kind of resistance to the pain but then later, there is a breakthrough, and it's only when one goes deeply through that pain that something joyful will come out of it. However, the joy isn't separate from the experience of pain itself; rather, it's a kind of reciprocation or even a reiteration of the painful experience itself.
   An example is something like aloneness. Most of the time, people will try to alleviate the sense of aloneness by choosing company or trying to find stimulation of some kind. The paradox is that it's only when a person has fully experienced aloneness that a kind of reciprocation sets in. I am thinking of examples of times when I had a solitary walk, and felt that there was something a bit dreary about the atmosphere or the environment. Yet, because I stayed there long enough in that moment and didn't flee from it, later I realized that there was always a very 'human' presence to the whole scene, and that there was no need for me to fear depersonalization by inhabiting it for a while.
     Most people seem to associate mindfulness with this idea of trying to erase the personality, but I don't think that is necessarily entailed by mindfulness. Rather, being fully with one's environment shows that the environment itself is as alive, as sentient and as full of awareness as one's own body: awareness is not limited to the body. And then there is this aha moment when I realize that I can never be apart from awareness, so why fear being alone? The very question of how to avoid being alone comes from a living, sentient awareness that cannot ever be alienated from itself. That is why in those moments of total acceptance, there is not even a concept of being alone, because I am not identifying with an image or an idea of who I am. I am completely with whatever is happening for me in that moment.