Physical Pain And The No-self

[Nic]

Well, I write this in the hope of finding an answer to my own question, as much as I read & listen about it, it just doesn't want to enter my mind, I think that it is just this... it just can't be really understood, the blindspots of the mind.

Emotional pain and physical pain are 2 completely different things to me, at the end, I know they are not different. Emotional pain can be clearly seen as a construction of the mind by changing perspectives, changing the thinking process. Basically replacing a negative lie by a positive lie. This what I have training and more or less success with, depending on how mindful, tired, healthy I Am. For emotional pain, one can let go of thoughts and/or spin the thinking process. I can see my responsibility with these kind of pains. 

For physical pain it is a whole other story, you get direct lasting experience of the present moment that you wish would be some times in the future or in the past, everywhere but here & now. 

So I'm not my body, but the body experience pain, and I like the pain to go away. That is resistance. Pain and the " I " seems closely related. 

The pain just is, nothing else. The resistance of the " I " is what is causing the discomfort by associating the pain with a false sens of self that can't be in tune with what is. Only a person that has lost the self notion will experience pain as something not disturbing...

So my question, beside only being that of course would be the answer to any suffering, do you know tricks or speeches of masters to make me understand that notion better? 

Isn't pain and fear of pain the ultimate trickery of nature for the survival of experience? If you have anything interesting to say about that subject I'll love to read your ideas, it is very abstract in my mind, it just want to stay a nice abstract concept, "oh yeah, this is not my body, this is just a body", but when you have a serious medical condition or a knife between your ribs this is a whole other story.  If there is one moment you want to be enlightened, it is when you experience serious pain.

Thank you all for your insights!

Edited April 27, 2016 by Nic

[JevinR]

From Rich Dad, Poor Dad

 

[Mr Blak]

This is an interesting topic, and there are many ways to look at this, here are some insights that might be of value.

What is pain? I recently read a book called The Pain Chronicles, it is a good place to start. Thernstom writes, "Is pain a sensation, emotion or idea? If pain is a sensation, then why is it so upsetting?  If is an emotion, then why does it feel like it necessarily entails a physicality not entailed by any other unpleasant emotion? Pain is now understood to be neither sensation nor emotional alone, but rather an experience that draws upon both; the illusive intersection of three overlapping circles - cognition, sensation and emotion.  When any of these elements is missing, there is no pain.  There is no such thing as being in pain without knowing you are.  There is no such thing as being in pain without feeling the sensation of pain, And there is no such thing as pain that does not cause a salient emotional reaction." 

"Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever the person says it does", from Margo McCaffery. 

We can take a few insights from this statement, 'there is no such thing as being in pain without knowing you are.'  Who is the you that is in pain?  If you understood there was no you, how would you interpret the experience?   It is the meaning we associate to pain that gives it life.  As Leo mentioned, if your arm is in pain, it is the association, the attachment, or identification that is is your arm that creates an emotional response. 

Another key insight comes from Alan Watts on awareness, he asks, "Can you find, in addition to the experience, and experiencer?  To be aware is, is to be aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and all other forms of experience.  Never are you aware of anything that is not experience, not a thought or feeling, but instead an experiencer, a thinker, or feeler.  If this is so, what makes us think any such thing exists? There is simply experience." 

We can take from this, it that you are not separate from experience, you are your pain, fear, anxiety etc. ... and the separation is the resistance.  'I feel fine, means that a fine feeling is present.' To believe, or identify with a separate 'experiencer' experiencing the pain, is what causes suffering.  Fear is not something that is happening to you, the fear is you.  Essentially, you are your awareness, all of it, even the images and ideas that you have of your identity, your emotions, your concepts. your experiences.  The Self is realized when you release from all of the images, ideas, all notions of separation.

Krishnamurti, one of my favorite thinkers, has an extended dialogue on thought, and of the observer and the observed, which is quite insightful. He states,"Awareness (of all this), has revealed that there is a central image, put together by all other images, and this central image, the observer, is the censor, the experiencer, the evaluator, the judge who wants to conquer or subjugate all other images or destroy them altogether.  The other images are the result of  judgments, opinions and conclusions of the observer, and the observer is the result of all other images - therefore the observer is the observed." 

It is this central image, that we believe 'feels' pain, wants to run away from it, and declares 'I don't want this', which is resistance.  Krishnamurti also puts forth the idea that all pleasure or pain is given continuity by thought, if thought does't give continuity to feeling, feeling dies very quickly.   For example, we can experience the magnificence of nature, and when fully present or attentive, there is no thought.  It is only when we come out of presence and state 'I like this, and I want it again', we turn the experience into pleasure, something to be desired. When we meet an experience with and idea, or a memory, it creates conflict, this is why fear is created by thought.  

There are also some insights put forth but Daniel Kahneman on pain, the difference between the experiencing self, and the remembering self, I suggest watching his TEDx talk, it is quite good.  I think we are discussing the ideas of the 'remembering self', the evaluator, the censor, the thing that assesses, and assigns meaning and context.

Pain is experience, when we meet it with our full attention, our full being, i.e. total presence, without any ideas or symbols, it ceases to have meaning, it just is.  

I hope this gave you a few ideas!  

 

 

 

[Jonathan]

Here's some videos of one of the greats talking about dealing with extreme physical pain. This is a game changer. (I'll also include a video about anxiety and fear.)

 

 

[Azrael]

Yesterday night I had a really interesting meditation insight that maybe can help you with this issue. I was sitting and after some time I got bored, my back hurt a little bit and I got into that "I want to get away from this"-attitude. Also couldn't focus as well. So, I merged with this uncomfortableness and it just popped in my mind that no matter what I do in life this perspective of "there is something wrong and I need to do something about that" never goes away.

For example I moved to a new apartment a few months after living in a shared flat and I really didn't like that. So my mind began to spin all kind of ideas that I have to get out, and this is not what I want in life and it is so bad ... So I got out into a real nice apartment. Now, living here for a few months my mind is long after its peak of happiness because of the moving and starts to bug itself about other things again.

And I just noticed last night very intuitively that not only everything is really okay in 99% of all your situations and every bugging of yourself is highly over-exaggerated, but that it's not the actual circumstance that makes you bug yourself - but it's just a social conditioning, a pre-defined pattern that comes back every time applying itself on the new "ground".

What I then did is just that I connected to knowing - basically to the sense that you exist right in this very moment (for me I go with my attention in my belly and feel that I'm really here) - and I began to "put love to this negative pattern" and innerly smiled about it. I didn't start to get away from it, because that is just itself playing tricks to get even more fucked up, but I just included it into "me" and began to love it. (I admit I'm guilty of watching a lot Matt Khan stuff, and I tell you I'm a critical computer science major but this really works.)

So yeah, realize it's not the actual pain or emotional reaction that is the problem. The problem is that you react to that in the first place neurotically. If you get rid of this notion, suffering is really just pain and pain is really just a warm centralized sensation in your body that feels amazing if you feel it the first time w/o bad thoughts in the back of your mind. It's like you are the cathedral (your body) and great music, dramas and plays are playing in it.

And how do you get rid of this this negative notion of making up problems. A lot of strong determination sits (retrains the nervous system or at least feels like that) and Matt's love.

Hope that helps.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Arik

[Alter-Ego]

11 hours ago, Arik said:

Yesterday night I had a really interesting meditation insight that maybe can help you with this issue. I was sitting and after some time I got bored, my back hurt a little bit and I got into that "I want to get away from this"-attitude. Also couldn't focus as well. So, I merged with this uncomfortableness and it just popped in my mind that no matter what I do in life this perspective of "there is something wrong and I need to do something about that" never goes away.

For example I moved to a new apartment a few months after living in a shared flat and I really didn't like that. So my mind began to spin all kind of ideas that I have to get out, and this is not what I want in life and it is so bad ... So I got out into a real nice apartment. Now, living here for a few months my mind is long after its peak of happiness because of the moving and starts to bug itself about other things again.

And I just noticed last night very intuitively that not only everything is really okay in 99% of all your situations and every bugging of yourself is highly over-exaggerated, but that it's not the actual circumstance that makes you bug yourself - but it's just a social conditioning, a pre-defined pattern that comes back every time applying itself on the new "ground".

What I then did is just that I connected to knowing - basically to the sense that you exist right in this very moment (for me I go with my attention in my belly and feel that I'm really here) - and I began to "put love to this negative pattern" and innerly smiled about it. I didn't start to get away from it, because that is just itself playing tricks to get even more fucked up, but I just included it into "me" and began to love it. (I admit I'm guilty of watching a lot Matt Khan stuff, and I tell you I'm a critical computer science major but this really works.)

So yeah, realize it's not the actual pain or emotional reaction that is the problem. The problem is that you react to that in the first place neurotically. If you get rid of this notion, suffering is really just pain and pain is really just a warm centralized sensation in your body that feels amazing if you feel it the first time w/o bad thoughts in the back of your mind. It's like you are the cathedral (your body) and great music, dramas and plays are playing in it.

And how do you get rid of this this negative notion of making up problems. A lot of strong determination sits (retrains the nervous system or at least feels like that) and Matt's love.

Hope that helps.

I can hear you. Happend to me just yesterday. I got the new job i always dreamed of. Good money, less time to work. I was really frightend to mess this up. But i did it, yay!

Today the same pattern started. What happens if i mess up with my new job?! What will happen to me? It's insane, really. 

I am aware of the fear. Trying to just observe the fear. But often it just gets to me. I am glad, that i am aware of this pattern. Thank you for post

 

[Azrael]

1 hour ago, Alter-Ego said:

I am aware of the fear. Trying to just observe the fear. But often it just gets to me. I am glad, that i am aware of this pattern. Thank you for post

Cheers to you. Great that you got your dream job! The fear gets me a lot, that's why I wrote this post. My relationship with these kind of emotions is very cyclic, sometimes it feels like I know what they are and so I can keep it down, other times they overwhelm me.

What seems to develop over the time is a kind of smile - a kind of knowing that even when you are in deep fear and your mind is all fed up, you know it's just a game and even though you suffer you just go through it. The more you do that you kind of automatically let go of it and it becomes just a part of your experience like everything else.

And that's the drill here. Fear is my number one teacher. And the fastest one, also.