An interesting article in Utne magazine about what mindfulness really<\/em> is caught my eye. The author, Thubten Chodron<\/a>, is an American-born Tibetan nun and an abbess at a Buddhist monastic community in Washington state.\u00a0Chodron highlights that there is a difference between practicing mindfulness<\/em> and the traditional Buddhist understanding of mindfulness as a component of the path to liberation<\/em>.<\/p>\n She writes that Buddha described four basic ways we misunderstand our experiences in this world, and that mindfulness is a remedy to our misunderstanding. Here’s what we misunderstand:<\/p>\n 1. We think things are permanent. 2. We look for happiness from things that can’t bring happiness to us.<\/strong> 3. We fight against nature and how things are. 4. We see ourselves as separate from others. Chodron believes that by being more aware\u00a0of our misunderstandings, we’re better able to let go of our habitual, self-centered ways, and become open to others and working for the benefit of all. We become open to genuine love and compassion.\u009d<\/p>\n So how does <\/em>mindfulness relate to pain?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Simple mindfulness exercises such as a focus on breathing<\/a>\u00a0or other relaxation exercises<\/a> can certainly decrease stress and pain.\u00a0But how about this deeper sense of mindfulness that Chodron writes about?\u00a0Naturally most of us\u00a0have these\u00a0misunderstandings as they apply to\u00a0our experience of pain, and we can use\u00a0mindfulness to help ourselves.<\/p>\n 1. We can let go of clinging to our desire for a healthy, un-painful body.<\/strong><\/p>\n Often with pain comes\u00a0clinging to the past – what our bodies and our lives used <\/em>to be like – which can cause sadness and depression. (At the other end, we may over-focus on the future,\u00a0which can bring anxiety – will I\u00a0feel better? – and fear that we won’t.) Focusing on the present<\/em> can lessen this sadness on one end and the fear on the other end.<\/p>\n 2. We don’t need to wait until we’re pain-free to live.<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course we’ll continue to work\u00a0to make ourselves more comfortable.\u00a0But we can also focus\u00a0on living our lives despite pain, and avoid an “I-won’t-be-happy-until-I’m-pain-free”\u00a0attitude. The goal is to be happy despite pain.<\/p>\n 3. We can accept, nurture and care for our bodies, even in pain.<\/strong><\/p>\n Do you practice loving kindness towards the areas of your body that are in pain? Rather than seeing those parts as the enemy, remember that they’re part of you, but that they’re in trouble and need your care.<\/p>\n 4. We can move from an inward focus to opening up to others.<\/strong><\/p>\n We can keep our lives meaningful despite pain\u00a0– keep our focus on family and\u00a0friends, and our life’s work –\u00a0even if that has to change, or how we do that has to change\u00a0because of pain. Again, the goal is living fully despite pain.<\/p>\n I do think that this is a process, a journey. Actually a journey for a lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An interesting article in Utne magazine about what mindfulness really is caught my eye. The author, Thubten Chodron, is an American-born Tibetan nun and an abbess at a Buddhist monastic community in Washington state.\u00a0Chodron highlights that there is a difference between practicing mindfulness and the traditional Buddhist understanding of mindfulness as a component of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7555,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/7555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>When things are good, we don’t want anything to change. However, we need to learn that people and things are impermanent. We do this by being open to our own aging, to death, and to losing people and things in our lives. Things com, things go, things change.<\/p>\n
\nWe need to let go of the hope that happiness is just around the corner. That a new job, better partner, or more financial success will make us happy. Otherwise, we stay in the cycle of striving for things to be different from what they are, and we experience disappointment\u00a0when what we’re hoping will bring us lasting happiness doesn’t do that.\u00a0We need to accept things as they are.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Chodron gives the example of our own bodies and how we fight to make them different than they are. We want to be thinner, less wrinkly, never go gray. We need to accept our changing selves. With acceptance comes being<\/em> with how things are, instead of distress over the difference between how we want things to be and how they actually are.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Identifying as an “I”\u00a0brings emotions such as craving, fear, hostility, anxiety, resentment, arrogance, and laziness, which all bring suffering. We fight to keep what is mine. We’re resentful that others have more –\u00a0more money, more beauty, more knowledge, etc.\u00a0We need to let go of evaluating and judging, and just accept things as they are.<\/p>\n