Forget about this idea. It is not true and there is precious
little evidence that any saint, sage, messiah or yogi has ever achieved such a enduring
state.
If you are breathing, you are human. Part of being human is
experiencing pain, real physical, emotional and spiritual pain.
However where a good mindfulness practice can make a huge
difference, is in limiting the amount of optional suffering we needlessly add
to the mandatory pain of life.
It is the nature of the human mind to want to resist and
control change. Yet change is the one constant in life. Sometimes change brings
pain. A good mindfulness practice can provide
many opportunities and teachings to better accept and learn from the pain of
life.
Mindfulness practices also provide many powerful tools to
help you limit the amount of optional suffering the human mind will tend to add
to any of life’s painful moments. Simply, do not expect the mind to stop
resisting change. Do not expect the mind
to cease its compulsion to obsess over any perceived thread. That’s its thing.
That’s what it does. Your power is found, and peace is restored, by remembering
you can always choose what to put your attention on.
When the pain of life comes, and the mind responds by going
wild with excessive anticipation, planning, contingencies, judgements, resistance,
remorse, etc. – simply choose, over and over again, not to feed this suffering
with attention, identity or belief.
Put your attention on your: breath, body, prayer, asana,
nature, etc, really anything that is here, now. And should you find your
attention drifting back to the suffering, simply do not buy the inevitable
thought, “you can’t do this”, “this doesn’t work for me”, etc.
Rather, take your
attention off that thought too, again and again. It all gets easier with
practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment