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TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON 9

of thoughts or images to arise in How about pain? Can we observe People with chronic pain have to
the mind) and other things not to how the mind tends to au- learn on the go. What is the mind’s
happen (such as certain thoughts tomatically label any intensely feeling toward the pain? What is the
we don’t want to arise). unpleasant sensation as “pain” and mind’s at titude toward the pain?
therefore as “bad”? What stance does it hold toward
We can observe these processes the pain? What do you already
clearly in relation to sounds we hear We generally judge pain as a understand about the pain?
during meditation. See how the mind negative experience. The word itself
im mediately labels such sounds as feeds that image into our mind, By inquiring about pain in this way,
“good” or “bad.” We enjoy “good” so when we have pain, the mind’s the mind learns how to understand
sounds that we hear, such as the automatic reaction, whether we are pain with right view, not personally
sounds of bells chim ing, birds singing, con scious of it or not, is to dislike it. as “my pain,” but just as nature.
or leaves rustling in the wind, and we When we come across dis comfort When it’s not understood as my
grasp at them in the mind. We like in the body or the mind, we need pain, it suddenly doesn’t hurt so
them and want to experience them to see this negative reaction clearly much, or even at all.
more. We don’t want them to stop. in the mind and to adjust it by
Likewise, we try to block out the “bad” bringing in right view. Without aversion, pain is just
sounds we hear, such as car traffic or another object to be known. It is
construction noise. We do this by reminding ourselves impersonal. It doesn’t matter that
that pain is not inher ently a the object happens to be pain. When
It doesn’t matter how well you are negative experience. Pain is nature. pain becomes just nature, then it is
concentrating. You could be in the It is neither good nor bad. no longer painful.
depths of concentration, but when
you hear a sound and you think it Only when we accept that pain is As you go about meditating the
shouldn’t be there, you lose concen- nature can we allow it and learn whole day, remember that whatever
tration instantly. You resent that the from it. Otherwise, we are so you observe, whether it’s in the
sound broke your con centration. busy resisting pain that we can’t body or the mind, whether it’s
understand anything about it. pleasant or unpleasant, it’s helpful
The moment we have wrong view, to hold the view that “this is just
we have wrong thought, which is a When there is pain, pain is just a nature, this is just a process.” This
thought of liking or disliking, or of physical experience, right? But the is the only difference between
evaluating an ex perience as good or feeling “painful” is in the mind. For someone who is meditating and
bad. Then, instead of continuing to the same physical experience, there someone who is not meditating.
see re ality clearly, we get entangled may be aversion in the mind toward
in desire and aversion. We start it, or the mind may be equanimous Courtesy Shambhala Publications
trying to manipulate nature instead toward it. So we need to work with
of seeing it clearly and working with the mind to understand more about From Relax
it skillfully. its involvement in the process. and Be Aware:
Mindfulness
In this way, our likes and dislikes How does the mind interpret pain? Meditations
thus cloud the clarity of the mind, How does the mind create pain for Clarity,
but this is actually an opportunity to for itself? How does it create the Confidence,
observe and learn in detail how the experience of “pain,” “painfulness,” and Wisdom by
unwholesome roots do their work. To and all the attendant pains for Sayadaw U
the degree we can understand them, itself? For a non-meditator, it’s all Tejaniya © 2019
to that same degree the mind is freed together, all rolled up in one. But for by Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Reprinted
from desire, aversion, and delusion. a meditator, it’s different; you take it in arrangement with Shambhala
apart to find out more about it. Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. EH