Welcome to Meditations with Hanya.
Today we will practice a meditation together around the struggle and pain that we experience in our lives.
So I invite you to find a comfortable seat.
Feel your spine alert.
Let your shoulders be relaxed.
You might take any subtle movements here to eliminate any distractions.
Tilting your head from side to side.
Maybe rolling out your wrists,
Linking your fingers.
And let your body start to settle.
Let your eyes close.
Bring your awareness inward.
And just start to bring awareness to what's here.
Pain can be a frequent visitor to our body,
To our minds.
Awareness is that first step to deepen your presence and ultimately give you a little bit of freedom.
So you might notice,
Are you resisting any pain in your body?
Are you pushing it away?
Are you craving for pleasant sensations?
Resisting turns unpleasant sensations into suffering.
And we know that pain is inevitable,
But suffering is optional.
There is a Buddhist teaching about the two arrows.
Each one of us gets hit by two arrows.
The first is something in your life that is unpleasant,
Difficult,
Maybe even unfortunate.
You might have lost your job,
Broken up with a long-time partner.
Maybe you or your loved one has gotten ill.
We can't always avoid that first arrow.
Life happens to us.
But there's a second arrow.
And that second arrow is really our response to the first arrow.
Are we reacting in a way that causes more suffering?
Are we continuing the pain of that first arrow?
The second arrow is optional.
With a wise response,
We can miss that second arrow altogether.
Here in your body,
Notice where there's struggle,
Where you feel pain.
And notice with curiosity and a little bit of kindness.
And as you notice,
And as you approach the pain and suffering with a softness,
You might also notice that you are directly transforming your experience.
Mindfulness.
This is the idea of bringing awareness to pain.
And considering your experience unpleasant,
You start to notice the rise and fall of those sensations.
Where you feel difficulty,
Something might feel like it's pulling or tightening,
Constricting.
You might feel a throbbing feeling in your body.
A vibrating.
Maybe there's heat.
Just notice the sensations as they come and go.
Now you might ask yourself,
How are you relating to that pain?
Are you being reactive?
Are you seizing up when you feel it?
Or is there kindness,
Softness,
A releasing?
Keep noticing the physical contracting,
Mental aversions,
Even the judging mind.
And take a moment to ask yourself,
How bad is the pain in my body at this moment?
Is it tolerable?
Move your awareness and your attention away from that strong sensation to a more pleasant or neutral area in your body.
Maybe the pain is not in your body but in your thoughts.
In that case,
Just bring awareness to a pleasant thought or a neutral thought in your mind.
Observe just a little bit of the intensity and then return your awareness to that neutral,
Pleasant area.
Take some time right here and right now to move your awareness back and forth as slowly as you need to go between the pain,
The struggle,
And the pleasant,
The easy.
Now you can experience and carry that experience in a safe way.
When we learn to carry both the pleasant and the unpleasant,
We begin to understand that we hold our suffering gently and that we can also carry moments of joy.
We carry both.
In this world where things are difficult,
There's also joy.
There's also pleasant areas in the body and mind that we can focus on.
Remember that your life is so precious and it's full of infinite possibility.
And when we hold ourselves gently with awareness that's kind,
Compassionate,
Then we can be with the difficult things.
We can share in the joys and we can move forward together.
Now start to bring awareness back to your body and the space that you're in and start to make small movements with your fingers and toes.
And when it feels right for you,
Flutter your eyes open and come back to the space.
Namaste.
