Pain and the Self (It's not my pain!)

[gaurdianaq]

I wanted to share an interesting experience I had today, and see if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I was sitting Zazen today with a migraine, not the worst migraine I'd ever had and it felt manageable without needing to take any pain medication. After Zazen I did something that severely aggravated the migraine, it quickly became one of the worst I'd experienced in a long time. And yet, I didn't feel much of an emotional response to it, it did not feel like "my pain", just simply pain that was there. I didn't find myself wishing the pain would go away... I still went and laid down to try and reduce it, and still took an advil... but it was an interesting experience to say the least.

Anyone experience something similar? Doesn't have to specifically be about migraines, just pain in general.


Evan,
Sat today!

[Meian]

Hi Evan,

I'm responding as a migraine person of over 30 years .... but, it just is? I think maybe i am so used to living with complicated migraines, I don't think much about them anymore. I have some mild ones, and I have moderate to severe ones that are connected to epilepsy (as I recently learned). But overall, it's become something i live with .... not something personal, I guess. I'm usually just hoping the residual damage is not so bad each time.

I'm glad Advil works for you [emoji4] May the lighter meds and rest always be successful treatments for you. [emoji120]

Gassho, meian st lh

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Naiko]

Hi Evan,
I haven’t had quite that experience, but I attempted to seek it when I was dealing with my own pain. I found myself focusing tightly on the pain which amplified it. Instead I tried to hold that ‘open, spacious awareness’ of Zazen and the pain was just present with everything else, a small part of the universe.
Gassho,
Krista
st/lah

[Tairin]

Hmmm. I get migraines every few months. I don’t think I’d even attempt sitting if I had one. I’ve certainly never felt like I was detached from them at all.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Ryumon]

I have a compressed nerve in my spine that can be very painful. About a dozen years ago, the pain was like a knife in my back. Drugs muted it a bit, but the only way I could calm it - in the sense that it was there but I wasn't allowing it to take over - was to think of it as not part of me, to allow it to be without my amplifying it. I have only had pain at that level a few times in recent years, but some drugs, a heating pad, and some serious attention to the pain, in a way of not attending it, is the only thing that makes it bearable.

I could never sit with that pain, though, because sitting would exacerbate it.

Gassho,

Kirk

sat

[Jundo]

I have had such times, not with a migraine (I am spared those), but with other physical pain ... such as after my big operation a couple of years ago, when I spent some days feeling like a horse had kicked me in the chest. Sometimes the pain was there, but just as another thing in the room, not being run from or pushed away.

That said, it was not like that at other times, so when moaning just moan, when curled up in a fetal position just be curled, when wishing the damn pain would stop as you squeeze the sheets just damn wish and squeeze. That is okay too as we are human, even the Buddha and Dogen sometimes experiences such times (the Buddha wrote about it and his need to go off into a deep trance to escape the pain in those days before advil, and the big blank at the end of the unfinished Shobogenzo is because Dogen was too sick to write), and that is just what is in the moment too.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLentAHand

(a little over three sentence, apologies)

[Tom A.]

...we are human...

“The Zen of Master Dogen is not the wish to become more than human, a special being, Buddha or God.
No more is it the hope to have a vision of emptiness, nor to perform miracles.
It is to return to the normal condition of the human mind.“

-From the notebook of Kodo Sawaki

I assume that just being curled up in the fetal position as just being curled etc... is to say that when things are so unavoidably painful that avoiding the second (or third, or fourth...) arrow of dukkha IS the practice in and of itself and one can be forgiven for not aiming for the whole, complete, peaceful equanimity of normal Shikantaza.

Gassho,

Tom

Sat/lah

[Jundo]

I assume that just being curled up in the fetal position as just being curled etc... is to say that when things are so unavoidably painful that avoiding the second (or third, or fourth...) arrow of dukkha IS the practice in and of itself and one can be forgiven for not aiming for the whole, complete, peaceful equanimity of normal Shikantaza.

In that moment, it was lovely crying, teeth gritting, fetal position, "I want this to stop" shikantaza ... fully embracing and flowing with crying, teeth gritting, fetal position, and "I want this to stop" while not flowing and embracing at all.

One of the wonderful wise-mysteries of Shikantaza is that sometimes we can embrace, be at peace and flow with even those moments when we cannot embrace, be at peace and flow at all.

The result I can only describe as embracing-non-embracing, peaceful no peaceful, flowing while blocked ... heaven and hell and in between just one.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

PS - Migraines were mentioned today on another thread ...

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?18034-Hearing-bells&p=267642&viewfull=1#post267642

[Tom A.]

In that moment, it was lovely crying, teeth gritting, fetal position, "I want this to stop" shikantaza ... fully embracing and flowing with crying, teeth gritting, fetal position, and "I want this to stop" while not flowing and embracing at all.

One of the wonderful wise-mysteries of Shikantaza is that sometimes we can embrace, be at peace and flow with even those moments when we cannot embrace, be at peace and flow at all.

The result I can only describe as embracing-non-embracing, peaceful no peaceful, flowing while blocked ... heaven and hell and in between just one.

Gassho, J

STLah

I see. The same trust in wholeness and completeness sat in Zazen embraces even our most painful experiences. That is comforting to know (or trust/have faith in).

Gassho,
Tom

Sat/Lah

[Jundo]

I see. The same trust in wholeness and completeness sat in Zazen embraces even our most painful experiences. That is comforting to know (or trust/have faith in).

Gassho,
Tom

Sat/Lah

I feel that it even embraces not trusting sometimes, and having doubt: Flowing and embracing even those times when we don't trust in flowing and embracing.

Shikantaza is a like the clouds that sometimes cover the sun and open blue sky, yet we trust that the sun and blue sky are still present though temporarily unseen. Well, Shikantaza is a trust that embraces even those days when we are convinced that the sun and blue sky are gone forever or never were.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Tomás ESP]

I wanted to share an interesting experience I had today, and see if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I was sitting Zazen today with a migraine, not the worst migraine I'd ever had and it felt manageable without needing to take any pain medication. After Zazen I did something that severely aggravated the migraine, it quickly became one of the worst I'd experienced in a long time. And yet, I didn't feel much of an emotional response to it, it did not feel like "my pain", just simply pain that was there. I didn't find myself wishing the pain would go away... I still went and laid down to try and reduce it, and still took an advil... but it was an interesting experience to say the least.

Anyone experience something similar? Doesn't have to specifically be about migraines, just pain in general.


Evan,
Sat today!

As someone who has been dealing with chronic pain since I was 16, this has only happened a few times in my life. The common elements in those few times was that I was totally open, curious and accepting of the pain. It was as if the second arrow, the arrow of suffering, had been released, even if for a few minutes. There were just the physical sensations as they were, without a personal label.

Gassho,
Sat

[Tom A.]

I deleted my long rambling question of my monkey mind. I request the “encouragement stick.”

Gassho,
Tom

Sat

[Risho]

I wanted to share an interesting experience I had today, and see if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I was sitting Zazen today with a migraine, not the worst migraine I'd ever had and it felt manageable without needing to take any pain medication. After Zazen I did something that severely aggravated the migraine, it quickly became one of the worst I'd experienced in a long time. And yet, I didn't feel much of an emotional response to it, it did not feel like "my pain", just simply pain that was there. I didn't find myself wishing the pain would go away... I still went and laid down to try and reduce it, and still took an advil... but it was an interesting experience to say the least.

Anyone experience something similar? Doesn't have to specifically be about migraines, just pain in general.


Evan,
Sat today!

Sidetopic - be careful with those NSAID's like Advil

Gassho

Rish
-stlah

[nknibbs]

There is a biological reason for pain to be sure— it’s a mechanism of survival. But, when we inevitably tack on an emotional response to that pain, it becomes augmented and monstrous where before it was “sensation.” We make catastrophe where there is none.

Gassho,
Nick