| Living With Guidance: Overcoming Inner Pain |
| Written by Talyaa Liera | |||
| Sunday, 18 July 2010 12:42 | |||
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Like you, I get caught up in familiar patterns and dynamics. Like you, I feel pain at times that feels unsurmountable. Like you, I resist the pain and wish it to go away. Like you, I sometimes become immersed in the frailties and illusions of being a human being on this Earth. The past few days have been difficult for me. I am hoping that yours have been better — because, truly, what I have felt these past few days is a disintegration of Self and that always makes me feel off balance and insecure — but I have to believe I'm not the only one. I know I'm not the only one with these feelings. That is not to say I wish discomfort and pain upon anyone or wish to belittle my experience by forcing a joining upon anyone else, but I know that my feelings are universal. We all feel. In the past few days, I've been exploring a number of concepts. Patterns lead to illness. Perhaps I could be the poster child for this concept, given my whole cancer experience and all, but I've been reading the book When the Body Says No by Gabor Maté, MD and experiencing lots of a-ha moments. The book is based on the premise that illness and disease is created in people who have trouble saying no. Certain patterns are evident with illnesses like cancer, MS, ALS, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ulcerative colitis, Alzheimer's Disease, and many more. When people repress their emotions (especially anger), energy is held within the body and eventually activates the potential for disease that we all hold within us. Truth be told, I knew this already, both from myself and certainly with the work I do for others. This information was nothing new to me, yet it brought a focus to this concept I previously hadn't applied to myself. I began to feel helpless. Hopeless. I have these patterns. I have cancer. End of story. I should just give up, right? That's where my mind went. Shaktipat. Knowing that I was feeling off-balance, and knowing, too, that the feeling would pass at some point (thank you, Vipassana meditation, for teaching me the important concept of annica that allows me to let go of attachment to things, especially to the feeling that unpleasant feelings will last forever and that I am helpless against them), I began opening myself to things that might help facilitate change in a positive and helpful way for me. The next thing. The next little piece of my ongoing spiritual path. It fell right in my lap on Facebook, actually, when someone friended me and then posted about giving Shaktipat. Hmm, I thought. I have heard of that somewhere.... Shaktipat is the act of conferring upon someone the spiritual energy of Kundalini. It is used a lot in Siddha Yoga. Suddenly a lot of things began to fall into place for me. I have a dear friend who has made huge transformations in part to Siddha Yoga. I've been curious about it but the closest offering is 2 hours from me, so I've let my Siddha Yoga exploration fall away. Until now. In looking at Shaktipat and feeling my explorations of Kundalini energies, not only am I feeling more empowered personally but I've also felt more hopeful toward change and my next steps. There is always something to learn.
I have a curiosity but also a sense of aversion toward mantras. I listened to this one anyway. In the YouTube page's comments (I love how wonderfully convoluted our connections to one another are; how beautiful the paths are toward hearing what it is we need most to hear in a given moment) was a comment mentioning the practice of tonglen. Since I had heard about a particular aspect of tonglen just the other day in an audio of a Pema Chodron workshop, I was curious. I Googled "tonglen" and found a piece written by Pema Chodron. Hmm. Tonglen is the practice of relieving your own suffering — or more specifically, your fear of that suffering — by making space for it in your own heart while at the same time connecting with that same feeling in everyone else. It awakens true compassion within you. The practice is simple. Pema describes it beautifully but I will paraphrase. Begin by taking on the suffering of someone who you wish to help (to be honest, I skipped this part and went straight to the next step, but I think there is worth in beginning as Pema describes). Breathe in the wish to take away all that person's fear and pain. This helps them have more space within which to open and relax. Then breathe out happiness, joy, or anything you feel might relieve their pain. The next step is to apply this to yourself. We all share similar feelings of pain, hopelessness, despair, loneliness, anger and misery. Breathe in for yourself and for all the people who are caught up in the feeling you are having. Then breathe out relief for yourself and for all of us. I did this and by the third breath I felt relaxed. I didn't feel the need to release anything; the need simply wasn't present. I felt connected to a state much larger than myself. Surrender. It was lovely. And the practice is so simple I don't know why I hadn't known about it before. It came so naturally, I suppose that I had known about it on some level. I am certainly grateful to know about it now. I can do tonglen for anyone now. We all see people in pain, multiple times a day. The snappish grocery store clerk having a bad day. The guy tapping his foot impatiently behind you in line while you struggle with your order at the barista. The person who cuts you off in traffic. Your partner, your child, your parent. The seeds of compassion are sown in the realization that we all share similar experiences. You are like me. 
Comments (2)
  written by Glenda, July 19, 2010
Thanks Karen. The practice is simple and effective. It is a lovely gift to give someone (and especially yourself). I've been looking a lot at the mindfullness meditation teachings. I have some of the work of Reggie A. Ray, who also has a lot of good material on his website. He and Pema were senior students of the same guru... so much of their material is similar. The more "Westernized" material on Buddhism/meditation seems to make it much more "user friendly" and accessible.
 written by Metatron Morningstar, July 21, 2010
So we have both had cancer experiences. Karen, I feel the disintegration too! It was difficult to express it to my friends even. I found that in an attempt to reach out, I was greeted with kindness as well as animosity. I'm here with a listening ear if you ever need to talk.
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I am like you.
Today, immersed again in the sense of old patterns and dynamics that at some times feel inescapable, another friend posted 
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