Copyright 2008 SOUL Research Institute
C
bliss
GOING BEYOND PAIN
Weekly Sunday Meditation Gathering
and Potluck, 02/28/10
Join us on Sunday, 10am onwards with your family and friends.
"Everything hurts."
Michelangelo
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
Anonymous
"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, or a day, but eventually it subsides. If I quit, however, it lasts forever."
Lance Armstrong
"Many of us spend our whole lives running away from pain with the mistaken belief that we can not bear pain. But we have already borne pain. What we have not done is feel that we are beyond the pain."
Saint Bartholomew
"The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure but to avoid pain."
Aristotle
"It is not the pain that is to be dreaded but the fear of it."
Epictetus
The body is subjected to physical pain due to aging, disease, environmental conditions, and so on. Every person in the world has experienced physical pain. There is no way to get rid of pain permanently no matter how medically advanced we become. The only way to deal with pain is to manage it and to make the body pain- transcendent (and not pain-free). A pain-transcendent body is an intelligent body.
Pick any physical activity or exercise and, as you perform it, begin to notice how your body is subjected to stretching, straining, and resistance from gravity, because of which unpleasant feelings of discomfort or exertion arise. Become mindful of unpleasant feelings in the body, as they always arise before the advent of pain. Note that unpleasant feelings become pain only when you develop an aversion to them, meaning, only when you react to their unpleasantness. So, in order to distinguish between unpleasant feelings and pain, remain aware of the degree of aversion—in other words, your mood during the practice.
Once you notice unpleasant feelings, observe them without reacting. Do not suppress or fight the unpleasantness. Simply observe it as it arises during a prolonged state of physical activity. Notice how unpleasantness eventually ceases due to mindfulness of unpleasantness and non-reaction to it. Also notice how it aggravates and eventually turns into physical pain if you react or try to resist it. In other words, try to realize that unpleasantness itself is not necessarily pain. It becomes pain only when you react, resist, or fight it. Also, realize that when you let go of unpleasantness it ceases to control the mind and does not result into pain.
Now, apply wise attention to your feelings of unpleasantness and try to understand experientially that the degree of unpleasantness and your reaction to it is directly proportional to your attachment to the body—to your attachment to the memory of past experiences of pleasant feelings in the body. In this way, first understand pain experientially as a reactive state of mind arising from the experiencing of unpleasant as well as pleasant feelings in the body. Then, start observing all pleasant bodily feelings without liking them and all unpleasant feelings without disliking them. In this way, start eradicating deep-rooted craving and aversion, and develop equanimity towards bodily feelings.
Also, learn how to increase your tolerance towards unpleasantness. Start any physical activity or an exercise of your choice. Slowly increase your physical efforts or the intensity of your workout only up to the limit where you can maintain equanimity towards unpleasantness. You want the unpleasantness just to begin being aggravated, but not to reach the level of physical pain. In this way, find out your current boundaries of the comfort zone or physical tolerance and expand or increase it intelligently without subjecting yourself to outright pain.
SOUL RESEARCH INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER, MARCH 04, 10
EVENTS AT S.R.I.
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INSPIRATIONS
In subsequent workouts, as stamina and strength increases along with equanimity, continue expanding your envelope of physical tolerance by adding the elements of vigor and resolution to your practice prior to beginning your workout. Also, while practicing, concentrate on transcending pain rather than controlling pain or attaining physical-mastery.
This process of slowly and skillfully
increasing your tolerance towards
unpleasantness, without inflicting
pain and without developing the
physical ego, is what I like to call
refinement. Due to refinement, a
day will come when you will not
experience physical pain. Although
you will still experience physical
unpleasantness from time to time,
because it is the body’s nature,
with ardent and consistent practice, you will attain a pain-transcendent body.
Weekly Soul Meditation Service
@
Colorado College, CO
In addition to our Weekly Sunday Gatherings at Flying Horse Location, we are now offering meditation practice for students and the likes.
Venue: The beautiful & historic Shove Chapel on Colorado College campus. Fridays, Starting Feb19, 10. Current time slot for soul meditation practice (6-7pm) followed by noble discussion (7-8pm). Call 719 488 0548
Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD.org) is now carrying
Sam Adettiwar's Groundbreaking Book
Available on amazon.com
Also at Poor Richard's, Colo Spr. and
Celebration Store, Colorado City
! Cost-free !
Residential Retreats
Thanks to the selfless generosity of Paul Fuess and Nya Gregor Fluron and the contribution of old students, S.R.I. is now able to offer cost-free meditation and yoga residential retreats in Larkspur, CO, a 15-20 minutes drive from CSprings and 30-45 minutes drive from Denver, CO. Limited seats available.
Book signing event
At the famous local book store in downtown Colorado Springs: Poor Richards' at 320 N. Tejon Street. March 05, 2010, 4-7pm. All profits generated from the sale of books are donated to Soul Research Institute for conducting research and facilitating cost-free retreats and services.
"Gentle Yoga for Senior Citizen"
From yoga teacher Mary Jo Cleaveland: Every Wednesday, 10.45am-Noon. Only one more students can be accomodated. Please contact Mary at 719 282 9343. Heartfelt offerings made to SRI are gladly accepted.
