Acceptance and Discretionary Suffering

     The core of meditation practice IMHO is carefully investigating the difference between unavoidable vs discretionary suffering: investigating how we can minimize our tendency to unwittingly cause LOTS of unnecessary problems for ourself & those around us.
     A reasonable starting point is Reinhold Niebuhr's "serenity prayer":
          Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
          courage to change the things I can;
          and wisdom to know the difference. 

     Let's look at the rather large & often frustrating "things I cannot change" category. Many people suffering with chronic pain, as well as a variety of mental health issues including addictions, can potentially benefit greatly from the following teaching:

     “Accepting and releasing into just what is, is the homeopathy of Zen. Being willing to settle into just this experience – this is the teaching of saying yes to our life, not giving in to thoughts of another life. We learn that our resistance strengthens whatever we want to avoid.
     Trying on the attitude of yes is the not-knowing mind, whereas the conditioned mind creates conditions. This is too much (or not enough). No way am I going to stay in this situation. The not-knowing mind is willing to know and feel whatever is happening.
     Recently I was thinking about a difficult situation in my life, trying to find a way to make it acceptable. For days I would think about it, invite my mind to reimagine it in a less painful way. After weeks of trying, I realized, I’m helpless. I can’t solve this by myself: I just have to be it. That realization was an enormous relief. Like Ram Dass saying, I’m going to be on this train forever, I settled into my own circumstances: There isn’t anything I can do about this situation. There is no way to escape it. I must live with it and let it become digested and transformed internally on its own. Thinking I had to solve the problem became the problem.”
        Katherine Thanas. “The Truth of This Life. Zen Teachings on Loving the World as It Is.” Shambhala, 2018.

Trauma - a Fact of Life

     “Potentially traumatic situations are ones that induce states of high physiologic arousal but without the freedom for the affected person to express and get past these states: danger without the possibility of fight or flight and, afterward, without the opportunity to ‘shake it off,’ as a wild animal would following a frightful encounter with a predator. What ethologists call tonic immobility – the paralysis and physical/emotional shutdown that characterize the universal experience of helplessness in the face of mortal danger – comes to dominate the person’s life and functioning. We are ‘scared stiff.’ In human beings, unlike in animals, the state of temporary freezing becomes a long-term trait. The survivor … may remain ‘stuck in a kind of limbo, not fully reengaging in life.’ In circumstances where others sense no more than a mild threat or even a challenge to be faced, the traumatized person experiences threat, dread and mental/physical listlessness, a kind of paralysis of body and will. Shame, depression and self-loathing follow in the wake of such imposed helplessness. 
     Trauma is not a disease, but rather a human experience rooted in survival instincts. Inviting the full, if carefully graded, expression of our instinctive responses will allow the traumatic state to loosen its hold on the sufferer. Goodness, the restoration of vitality, follows. It springs from within. ‘Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.’ 
     In our suffering lies also our salvation. … the same psychophysiologic systems that govern the traumatic state also mediate core feelings of goodness and belonging.”

       Levine PA. "In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness." North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 2010. 

"Like water off a duck's back"?

 

Dukkha - AND YET - All Manner of Things Are Well ...

     Near the end of my professional career, I'd like to be taking it easier at work, sorting through my large collection of clinical cases and putting them into a suitable format to serve as teaching material, writing a few papers for publication - essentially summing up my career. Instead, I'm taking on more and more routine tasks. Part of the reason for this increased busyness is serious illness of some of my colleagues, forcing them to retire prematurely. So I'm "sharing the load".
     I feel fortunate being able to help, rather than having to retire early. Soon enough, I'll be the one who can no longer provide help. Then I hope to have enough humility & wisdom to accept help gracefully - something with which I, like most health-care professionals, have minimal experience or skill.
     This is a unique part of life, when one's fully aware of life's fragility, yet healthy enough - ever so briefly - to have agency. 

     "Once you feel in your bones and throughout your awareness the emptiness of your mind, you are at peace. Even when problems and difficulties arise, there's still the thread of peace woven in at the heart of them."      Norman Fisher 
       Shambhala Sun January 2013   http://www.shambhalasun.com/

Photo: RuthC   www.dpreview.com